Salary Story: I Approach Negotiating As A Game

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Age: 30
Location: New York City
Current industry and job title: Product manager, tech
Current salary: $360,000
Number of years employed since school or university: 10
Starting salary: $65,000
Biggest salary drop: n/a
Biggest salary jump: $154,000 to $272,000 in 2022.

Biggest negotiation regret: After my first job out of college, I received an offer at a company I interviewed for. When the recruiter asked for my compensation range, I stumbled and came up with a number. I wish I researched more on compensation and what the industry was offering for applicants like me. I’ve since learned to always come prepared with the numbers.

Best salary advice: Never share what your current salary is with a recruiter. Have them share the compensation ranges first. I know this may be daunting to hold off but be patient and they will eventually share a range! Having them share their cards first puts you at an advantage to negotiate for more.

Year: 2015
Salary: $65,000

My university has an annual career fair where recruiters from all industries came to recruit and interview students. The more popular and competitive roles out of university are what we called the ABCs: Accounting, Banking, and Consulting. I learned earlier that I didn't want to go into accounting or banking, so I interviewed for many consulting companies and the company I ended up accepting seemed most aligned to my values and the most welcoming. Of course, it was helpful that the partner at the firm was an alum at my university. From my initial job search for a full time offer to landing this offer took me about two and a half months. 

There was little to no negotiation with my offer as this was the “typical” pay for someone coming out of college going into consulting. I felt okay with this salary because I was able to have a job lined up right after I graduated to help me pay off my $20,000 school loans. I was grateful. 

Year: 2017
Salary: $73,000

This was a small raise and this job title was the typical route for a high performing consultant but I was aware that other companies were compensating higher. I knew I wasn’t interested in consulting long term, so I started my job hunt. 

I asked if there was any flexibility with increasing my raise because I was shocked with how low my raise was for my promotion. I knew it was below market value through friends and my own research. I knew I had to find a new role at a company that respected me and was invested in my growth. 

Year: 2018
Salary: $125,000

After some research, I knew I wanted to break into tech. This decision came easily since I was born and raised in San Francisco during the tech boom and it was known that tech salaries were, on average, higher than any other industry.

My experience was relatively transferrable from my consulting role because my consulting role specialized in calculating risk for clients. 
When the recruiter first asked my compensation needs and financial goals, I gave a number of $110,000 without any basis or research. He was more than happy with that number and so I already knew I could have asked for more. I was provided a base of $110,000 and some stocks that came out to a total compensation of $125,000 for the year.

Now that I am more experienced with negotiation, in hindsight, I wish I did not state the number first and had the recruiter share the compensation range for this role and take on the conversation from there. At the time, when I started, I did feel the salary and benefits with working in tech (i.e. meals, snacks, flexibility) was worth the workload and it was the start of my career in tech. 

Year: 2021
Salary: $154,000

I was very burnt out and unhappy at my previous company. I felt my voice wasn’t being heard and that the team I was part of were not receptive to my demands to take on the next level of work for overall career development. Additionally, with the pandemic, I was working 70+ hours a week and not getting recognized for the work I led, including helping lead an acquisition. I moved to New York City during this time so I wanted to look for a position that would allow me to work in New York City permanently.

I applied to companies that were smaller in size to my current company mainly because I wanted to be able to do everything and make a real impact on my team. I applied and interviewed for a few positions and eventually found this smaller tech company. I made sure to research compensation for this role across multiple companies.

I asked the recruiter first what the compensation range for this role and took the negotiation on from there. As part of the interview process, I had to put together a presentation together for the hiring manager and several other members of the team. I believe I did well because I negotiated for a senior title and got the pay associated with that title. I was very happy with my negotiation. Months of researching the art of negotiation paid off! 

Year: 2022
Salary: $272,000

There were mass layoffs that happened with the company I joined in 2021. I was not impacted but I saw the trend and knew that I had to find a more stable company to work at. During this time, the job market was doing well and it seemed like every major tech company was hiring. I used this (and my increased confidence from job hunting) to my advantage and applied to as many companies as possible. I was very clear to the recruiters about my financial goals. If the company could not offer my desired compensation, I respectfully declined to proceed. I knew I would not be happy in the long run if I worked at a company where I was not being paid above market value.

I started approaching this job hunt and negotiation as a game because there was a hiring boom. My goal was to receive as many high paying offers from top tech companies as possible and leverage it when negotiations happened. It was definitely a stressful time and I didn’t sleep much but I knew the stress would be short-lived. I eventually received five offers from different companies and used that to negotiate my current salary with the company I was most interested in joining. The five formal offers all came within two weeks. I was waiting for the offer from the last company I interviewed for and then started negotiating with that company with my offers. It took about two weeks to finish negotiating and sign the contract.

This job search time period was a lot shorter but more time consuming than my prior job hunts. I was so proud and grateful for where I got. 

Year: 2025
Salary: $360, 000

Going into product management was always in the back of my mind since I started my tech career. I connected with product managers within the same company I was at to understand the process of switching to that role. I did my product operations manager role well and dabbled in a product management capacity when my product manager partner got laid off and there was no PM scoped to that product area.

I reached out to the group PM who owns that scope and told her I want to go into that instead. She gave me a few exercises to evaluate whether I had what it took to be a PM before deciding to put me up for the official interview process whenever a role opened up on the team. From when I started being serious about going into this to going through the interview process took exactly one year. I am grateful for the person who decided to take a chance on me.