Get a competing job offer.
A minimum price lets labor sellers know if it is worth applying or not, and trends in supply and demand for that type of labor (based on which way the minimums are moving industry wide).
For this reason always try to cluster job interviews together as much as possible so that the offers come out around the same time. This situation is generally going to be very favorable for you as an engineer!
Consider that some hiring manager probably has been played games with for months in terms of head count and interviewing poor candidate after another. When they extend that offer to you, they want you seated yesterday. Mentioning "I have 2 offers, I've had 100% offers for every interview so far, and btw I'm interviewing at a FAANG tomorrow." - that will perk up some interest and can elicit a pro-active better offer.
I've had one outfit ask me, "How much for you to just stop interviewing and come work for us?" This sense of urgency on the employer side is the only time where an engineering employee has more power than the company. Most employers will try everything to make this window of time short - usually by trying to get you to stop interviewing and do no salary negotiation, or give you an exploding offer, or counter and say there are competing candidates.
It's also a risky maneuver. There are a lot of companies that will immediately, as a matter of policy, reply "then take one of those offers".
That's not to say it isn't a gamble worth taking, of course. Just that it comes with some risk.
Have they ever said that? Why would they interview you or make a job offer? I find this sentence hard to believe. Having a job offer is a signal that someone else did due diligence on you and is willing to commit capital at a year rate for your talents. Skin in the game.
Sure other companies don't have to compete on the price is if what you are trying to state that, but you didn't state that clearly.
Yes.
> Having a job offer is a signal that someone else did due diligence on you and is willing to commit capital at a year rate for your talents.
Sure, but applicants can and do lie about the existence of such offers, so ignoring such statements is not a terrible strategy. And that another company did "due diligence" is not as valuable as you might think. The investigation prior to an offer letter is often cursory, and different companies have different concerns they're looking for as well as differing levels of scrutiny.
Some companies also view an applicant leveraging other offers as a negotiation tactic as a bit of a red flag, depending on the sort of applicant they want to hire.
I'm not saying any of this is universal, nor that any of it is smart or appropriate. I'm just saying that I know there are a nontrivial number of companies that think like this.
> Sure other companies don't have to compete on the price is if what you are trying to state that, but you didn't state that clearly.
No, that wasn't what I was saying.
If I happen to already have a competing offer, sure. But when job searching I'm not carpet bombing resumes, I'm targeting specific companies that I think would be a match.
Though, in at least a somewhat healthy company, adjusting down nominally leaves too much of a bad taste, so layoffs are used instead where the remaining employees’ pay to qualify of life at work ratio goes down (more work responsibilities, more hours, less amenities at work, etc).
Also the last few places I've been at have made a conscious attempt to reset once a year or two to combat this effect. I can't speak to prior employers as that was before I started to be privy to how the sausage was made. Companies that don't reset compensation aren't worth working for.
You'd be surprised how many companies will simply pull you out of the candidate process and decline the offer. Companies you would probably work for, to be honest.
This works when you're pitting say, Netflix vs Meta or Apple vs Microsoft, or Google vs Amazon etc. but if you go down the ladder just a little, you'd be shocked at how much this doesn't work, is all.
I feel like its too general of advice to say you can simply play two companies off each other.
There's other tactics too, like setting a high minimum acceptable amount of compensation upfront, that one can use.
Its all a little risky in a way
I've done the "two competing offers" thing four or five times at companies big and small. I've never had a company rescind an offer or ghost. In fact they all seem to expect a competing offer; all have asked "Are you interviewing anywhere else?" at some point.
I agree with discussing a minimum early on in the interview process. It's a good smoke test to ensure neither party's time is being wasted.
As a hiring manager, I’ve certainly never done it, because I basically don’t care where else you’re considering working. I’ll put our situation (project, team, comp, culture, etc) forward and you decide if you think it’s your best option. We might negotiate a tiny amount, but if you find a place that’s a lot better for you, you should go there, but I’m not pulling back the offer we made.
More often, alot of times the company will say something about going with the other offer, like you stated, or something in that ballpark.
A couple times though, I had a company dutifully try and convince me that the perks and work-life balance were better, even thought the salary maybe was not. That was an interesting one.
But I haven't been in a true job hunt where I'm just hoping someone picks me out of a pile for over 20 years.
But say you don’t want to forge one for just any company because that might not be legal. You could make your own company with a site and make offer letters that way.
FWIW I've done this several times (multiple offer scenarios where I have companies compete against each other for me) and never once has a company asked to see actual proof of the other offers on condition of hiring me. If that was a condition, I would say, sorry, I'll go with one of the other ones
You really don't want to bring up a "competing offer" unless you're prepared to take the counteroffer/just walk away.
Even worse, im just now getting interviews/rejections for jobs I applied to months ago.