Why, as employee, you're probably getting played and that you should ask for more money.
Why, as employer, it's advantageous to be magnanimous and not lowball the employee.
And it illustrates the power imbalance.
As a side note, I originally wanted to offer the candidate 96K because I knew he was worth it (more, actually.) But, the CEO decided to press on an engineer who wasn't all that driven by money. A phenomenally poor decision.
I resigned from my position at a later date, and our hiring practices were not without consideration.
It was salary negotiation that made him take the second job (or so you think), but what do you think how would that person respond when you (or his peers) disagreed with his approach to development, architecture or other difficult people on the team (assuming that there are some). How did he react in other situations?
Don't get me wrong. I think that paying people what they are worth is very important. I recall a conversation with a manager from whom I inherited my team about a potential raise for one of the team members.
Me: Claire didn't get a raise in a year a half. Can you tell me why?
Former manager: She didn't ask for one. Why would we throw money at people.
Me: Because I value her work and given inflation and cost of living, she is technically making less now than she was when we hired her.
Former manager: I don't work that way. I don't give raises unless people ask for them.
She was let go and I inherited her new team as well.
In a nutshell, neotiating initial salary can teach you a lot about the candidate and the way they deal with difficult situations. If we, as managers, don't walk away from the table and hire the person, it is our job to be proactive and pay them what they are worth and what market will bear.
And that is what makes loyal employees.
> It was salary negotiation that made him take the second job (or so you think), but what do you think how would that person respond when you (or his peers) disagreed with his approach to development, architecture or other difficult people on the team (assuming that there are some). How did he react in other situations?
Very good question. We certainly conducted code reviews and we had some strong discussions about approaches to problem-solving, in which he was no shrinking violet.
For this given individual, he was confident in that type of negotiation (defending development code design.) I believe he wasn't interested in negotiation around compensation because he really was interested in the problem set and opportunity we presented, and was simply trying to keep his cost-of-living steady.
People like that are bullies. He was bluffing. He would have folded like a cheap camp chair. Point proven by the fact that you ended up at 90K, but not before the candidate got the bad taste of the CEO antics.
As a middle manager, I learned that sometimes it is absolutely necessary to beat my superiors for the sake of my subordinates. It's harder, but if you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything.
Maybe it will cost me my job some day, but I highly doubt it will be a job I would want to keep for the long run.
You took the high road. I choose to fight fire with fire. :-) In the end, neither of us would probably be in that position for much longer, either way.
Your take is right -- the CEO was merely trying to exert some level of influence, for reasons I fail to understand to this day.
I'm now in an engineering-centric organization, and comp negotiations are the least of my concerns. Finding the best people continues to be the hardest to do.
I'd recruited an engineer to join my team, and he tells me his comp requirements (90K salary). For the position, we budgeted 96k. A stellar engineer and ideal team fit, I thought he was underpaid at that, but that's what he asked for so I prepared an offer.
In preparation, the CEO (who signed off on such things) sets our initial offer to 85K. I was surprised -- why would we not offer the candidate 90k salary? The conversation went something like this:
I make the offer, and the candidate responds "I don't want to take a pay cut, and can't accept your offer." The back-and-forth begins, and we finally come to agreement -- at 90K.And while the engineer accepted and joined our team, I could tell that the offer negotiation made him uncomfortable and left a bad taste in his mouth. He did a great job for well over a year, until he left for a new position. He explained to me that he received a better offer, and that the other company was "more inviting".
After his departure, the CEO lamented how engineers seem to have no loyalty.
Indeed.