How to Negotiate for a Higher Salary in Job Offers
Foreign authors rarely seem to write about job offer negotiation in China, and since many international sites are painful to access, I’ve included a more detailed excerpt this time:
How much does a company spend filling a vacancy before they finally hire someone?
◦ Writing and posting the job description across all appropriate channels ($300)
◦ Reviewing around 100 or more resumes ($1,250)
◦ About 15% of those resumes require a phone screen, so roughly 15 phone screens ($2,250)
◦ About 75% of initial phone screens lead to technical screens, so roughly 11 technical screens ($9,000)
◦ About 30% of those advance to on-sites, so roughly 3 on-sites. Each on-site requires coordination among 6–7 employees ($10,800)
◦ Finally, they extend an offer. Recruiters (and sometimes senior executives) spend time persuading and negotiating with the candidate by phone ($900)
Some of these costs reflect time converted into labor (at an implied hourly rate). Now imagine you reject the offer. They’ve already spent over $24,000 extending it to you (not to mention opportunity costs), and they basically have to start over. That’s the situation a company faces when you turn them down.
Keep in mind that salary is only one part of the cost of hiring you. Employers also pay for benefits, equipment, workspace, utilities, various incidental expenses, and employment taxes on top of all that. In total, your actual salary is typically less than 50% of the full cost of employing you. This means they expect the value you generate—in terms of revenue—to be at least twice your salary. If they didn’t believe that, they wouldn’t hire you in the first place.
Negotiation is easier and more common than you think, and companies are fully willing to negotiate with you. If your intuition tells you otherwise, trust that your mindset is wrong.
Employment is simply a mutual exchange in the labor market. A job is a transaction—a deal between you and the company, trading your labor for money (or whatever else you value).
You need to understand the company’s goal. The company wants to hire people who can be effective employees and generate more value than they cost.
1. Get everything in writing:
Whatever the company mentions—headcount, compensation, time off, and so on—record it. This information forms the necessary foundation for negotiation.
2. Never commit early; stay open
Never give up your negotiating leverage before you’re fully ready to make an informed, thoughtful final decision. Your counterparty will often try to pressure you into deciding or pinning you to a nonbinding commitment. Stay politely vague and sidestep these moves until you’re truly ready to decide.
3. Information is power. Protect it to protect your leverage.
In many cases, the only reason you hold negotiating power is that the employer doesn’t actually know what you’re thinking. They may not know how good your other offers are, how much you earned in your last role, how you measure fair pay, or how rational you are as a decision-maker. Make sure they’re uncertain about what it will take to sign you.
Avoid telling the company what you’re currently doing. Instead, say something like:
“I’m currently in conversations with a few other companies, so I can’t discuss specific offer details yet. But I’m confident we’ll land on something we’re both happy with, because I’d really like to join the team.”
4. Stay engaged
Regardless of what comes up during negotiation, you want the company to feel two things: 1) you still like the company, and 2) you’re still excited about working there, even if the numbers, money, or timing aren’t quite right. Generally, the most convincing signal is restating your enthusiasm for the work, the team, or the problem they’re solving, and showing you genuinely want to see things through.
5. Don’t be the decision-maker
Even if you don’t particularly care what your friends, family, spouse, or mother think, mentioning them means the recruiter no longer has just you to win over. Their tactics to bully or pressure you won’t work on someone they perceive as “just a messenger” who isn’t the real decision-maker. This is a classic technique in complex B2B sales.
Reference response:
“I’ll review these details and discuss them with my [family/friend/partner]. If I have any questions, I’ll reach out. Thank you so much for sharing this great news—I’ll be in touch!”
6. Bargain, and have alternatives ready
Be proactive and let them know you’ve just received another offer. Try to create a sense of urgency. Should you name the company that made the offer? It depends—if it’s a well-known firm or a direct competitor, definitely mention it. If it’s an unknown company, just say you’ve received an offer. And if it’s expiring soon, mention that too. Send a message like this to every company you’re talking to, signaling to anyone else considering you in the market.
Telling other companies you have an offer gives them more reason to see you as a valuable, credible candidate.
As a general rule, try to start interviewing at large companies early. Their processes are slower, and their offer windows are wider (meaning they give you more time to decide). Startups tend to work the opposite way.
Your alternatives are what make negotiation matter. By signaling your alternatives, you help your counterpart build a mental model of when and why you might walk away.
Your best alternatives might be “I have more interviews lined up,” “I’m considering grad school,” “I’m staying in my current role,” or “I’m taking a few months off.”
Reference responses:
“I received another offer from [other company] that’s very compelling on salary, but I really love the mission at [your company] and feel it’s the better fit overall.”
“I’m also considering returning to grad school for a master’s in [field]. But I’m excited about [your company] and would love to join the team—if I were to turn down grad school, the compensation would need to make sense.”
One of the biggest mistakes people make is if they’re currently employed. If you already have a job, staying put is usually your baseline alternative—and that often means telling your counterparty that you hate your current job will backfire. They’ll assume your alternative is weak and have less incentive to negotiate. Always emphasize the positives of your current company—tenure, impact, perks, anything you genuinely like. Make your decision look genuinely close, so your status quo remains a strong fallback.
7. Phone vs. email
Whether you negotiate by phone or by email (or text), keep in mind that even the best deals between close friends are hard to close over email.
If you’re unsure about your negotiation skills, try to steer the process toward email.
If you want to stick with email, you need to address that head-on. There’s no trick here—just ask honestly for what you need.
Tell them:
“Hi, recruiter—I hope you’re having a good day! Regarding your last email, I’d prefer to discuss compensation details over email. I sometimes get nervous on important calls, and emailing helps me stay clear-headed and communicate more precisely. I hope that’s okay with you.”
8. How to name a number first
If you’re forced to give a number, ground it in an objective benchmark like the industry average (or your current salary). And make it clear you’re starting the conversation, not ending it.
Reference response:
“I don’t have a specific number in mind. I’m more interested in understanding whether this feels like a strong mutual fit. If so, I’m open to exploring any offer, as long as it’s competitive.”
“If you really want a concrete figure, well—I know the average software engineer in Silicon Valley makes around $120,000 a year. So I’d say that’s a solid starting point.”
9. How to ask for more
If you’re unhappy with the compensation, you might say:
“I appreciate the work you’ve put into putting this offer together. But there are a few things I’m not happy with.”
If you want to be more conservative, you could say:
“The offer you’ve put together is strong. My decision now basically comes down to you versus [other option]. It’s a tough call for me, but there are a few areas where the offer would feel much more compelling with some improvement.”
The reason you want money is so you can spend it on things. They want to know what you plan to use it for. It may sound naive, but it works.
If you walk them through your reasoning, you’ll find recruiters are more willing to advocate on your behalf.
Other things you can ask for: reimbursement for commuting costs, dedicated volunteer or learning time, conference sponsorship, or even charitable donation matching.
10. Assert your value, then make the final call
In negotiation—and especially after making a request—one effective move is to highlight the unique value you’ll bring to the company. For example:
“Blah blah blah—I want X, Y, and Z.”
“I know you’re looking for someone to build out your Android team. I believe I bring extensive experience leading Android teams, and I’m confident I can help your mobile product compete with—or beat—your rivals.”
Be confident, but don’t brag or try to push a rigid number (unless you’re very confident). Whatever you assert should tie back to something you mentioned earlier in the conversation—a gentle reminder that reinforces the upside and signals you’re still excited about increasing the offer.
Be clear about your deadline.
Keep returning to your deadline.
Use your final decision as your trump card.
Let every company still in the running know what it will take to sign you (unless they genuinely have no room to move). When you deliver your final ask, don’t forget to give a reason—even if it’s the same reason as before.
Reference response:
“Hi Joel, I’ve been thinking about this, and it’s genuinely been a very tough decision for me. I love everyone at [company], but one thing that makes it hard for me is the salary. As you know, I’m working hard to pay off my student loans, so compensation is really important to me right now. If you could increase the salary by $10k per year, I’d be fully ready to sign.”
Additional notes
If you’re met with a sudden deadline:
You can reference something like this:
“I have a real concern. You mentioned this offer needs a response within 48 hours, which feels too sudden. I can’t make a decision on this offer in 48 hours. I’m currently wrapping up interview processes at a few other companies, which may take me another week or so. So I need a bit more time to make an informed decision.”
“I like [your company] and am genuinely excited about the team, but as I said, I can’t seriously consider this offer on a 48-hour window. Joining my next company is a major life decision for me, and I take my commitments very seriously. I also need to consult my [family, etc.]. I can’t make a decision this quickly.”
Mindset for the job search:
Don’t fall into the trap of evaluating a company on a single dimension. That means looking beyond salary, equity, and prestige. Those are important, but so is cultural fit, the challenge of the work, learning potential, future career options, quality of life, growth trajectory, and overall happiness. All of those naturally outweigh any single factor.
Also keep in mind that companies don’t value you along the same dimensions. Different companies are genuinely looking for different skills, and in some organizations you’ll become less valuable over time.
Stay open-minded, and remember that job searching is a two-way process.
One of the most valuable things you can do for yourself in this process is to genuinely try to understand the employer’s thinking and what motivates them. Try to understand why they think the way they do. Feel for them. Care about what they want, and help them try to get it. This mindset will make you a stronger negotiator—and therefore a better employee and teammate.
A good negotiator is empathetic and collaborative. They won’t try to control you or issue ultimatums. Instead, they think creatively about how to meet both your needs and theirs. When you consider negotiating a job offer, don’t picture haggling over a used car. Picture planning dinner with a group of friends—you’ll do much better.
What do I actually value? Why do I value it? What does the company value? Why do they value it?
Different parties in a negotiation almost always have different value functions. We may value the same things—in fact, we all care about the cake—but we don’t value them in exactly the same way, so there’s often a way to give each of us more of what we want.
When you’re thinking about how to bargain, consider how you might give yourselves more than half the cake—where one plus one equals more than two.
As a补充: when evaluating stock, too many people get misled.
First, understand there are two fundamentally different kinds of companies: public and private. If the company is public (i.e., it has gone IPO and trades on a stock exchange), its stock is as good as cash. You’ll typically be granted RSUs (restricted stock units)—shares you can sell on the open market once they vest (i.e., are released to you). That’s how they turn into money.
If the company is private, things get much more complicated. In private companies, they rarely hand you actual stock. Instead, they usually issue stock options—an agreed-upon right to buy shares at a frozen price.
Importantly, when you want to leave a company, you may need to pay a significant amount of money to actually exercise your options (i.e., buy your pre-agreed shares at the old frozen price, or risk losing them)—and there’s often no way to sell them. The only real way to liquidate options is when the company goes public or gets acquired. Many companies never do either and go out of business.
Additionally, a company’s valuation is set by investors. These investors look at the company’s financials and growth rate, then invest at a price that reflects its current growth trajectory.
So when someone tells you, “We’re valued at this much now, and at our growth rate we’ll be worth ten times that in a year—your shares will be worth millions!”
That’s mostly nonsense.