One of my friends, who is a CTO, said his negotiating strategy is to make an un-reasonable number of reasonable requests. In other words you can ask about and try to negotiate a lot of different attributes of a job.
I keep this in mind when I’m talking or negotiating with joining a company. Typically I’ll ask about and consider negotiating on:
- Salary
- Starting Date
- Bonus
- Sign on Bonus (cash on start)
- Sick Days
- Vacation Days
- Equity % or shares
- Health Insurance matching
- Retirement Matching
There’s actually a ton of stuff that could be negotiated.
I remember joining my first company out of university and tried negotiating my salary. The HR lady laughed and suggested I just take an offer since it was my first job.
A lot of negotiating job offers depends on how willing I am to walk away and/or lose the job offer. Getting competing offers can help but it’s a lot of work and rather stressful. I got the biggest counter offer of my life by having a competing offer, although I ended up turning it down because the company’s culture didn’t seem good.
I wrote a bit about my career story recently and I shared my salary history: My Career Story (note: you’ll have to sign up as a member to read it).
Sharing salary histories with close friends can also be a good way to understand if you AREN’T asking for enough money.