Anna Kim/Getty, Tyler Le/BI
Sarra Bounouh has worked at consulting giant Accenture and three Big Tech companies.
But she still deals with imposter syndrome, especially when talking compensation.
"Going into a negotiation is always, at least for me, a very uncomfortable discussion," Bounouh told Business Insider. "I just want to push through and ask for what I deserve."
She and four other tech employees from Meta, Google, and Cisco shared their salary negotiation tips before joining a company or when trying to get promoted. They have used these strategies to add tens of thousands of dollars to their original offers in recent years.
Sarra Bounouh
Avoid offering the first number. If you must, back it up with research, said Bounouh, a product manager who joined Meta earlier this year.
She suggested using resources like Levels.fyi or Glassdoor and selecting your role and geography to see recent offers and compensation that makes sense for that job.
"I personally don't like having detailed conversations about level and compensation from that first call with the recruiter because I want to meet the team, I want to meet the hiring manager, I want to get excited about the role," she said.
Bounouh prefers to negotiate her level and compensation once there's an offer on the table.
She said she often gets asked about salary expectations early in the process because recruiters say they want to save time for both sides.
She politely declines to share a number by telling the recruiter: "I don't have a number for your right now. I will need to do some research before getting back to you. At this stage of the process, I'm more focused on meeting the hiring manager and team."
Rehearsal is key for conversations about promotions or raises, she said.
Bounouh said she practiced her pitch for every job after Accenture and increased all three jobs' initial salary offers: Microsoft by 32%, Snap by 19%, and Meta by 37%.
Ketaki Vaidya
Internal transfers between teams or offices are also an opportunity to negotiate your compensation package.
Ketaki Vaidya, who moved from Oracle's India to California office in 2022, said she approached her negotiation with an "everything under the sun is negotiable" mindset.
First, Vaidya looked at Glassdoor and talked to people who'd made the move to gather salary data. She wanted to ensure she was getting a fair offer for the US' cost of living.
"I was being given this offer for the credibility that I had built in the organization. I felt like I had an upper hand in negotiating," she said. "I was much more confident in asking for the things that I deserve — so it ended up being a very smooth transition."
After negotiating her base salary up to $80,000, she discussed other compensation components, including the timing of her next review, sign-on bonuses, relocation costs, paid leave, and remote work. She negotiated a sign-on bonus of $15,000 and a relocation allowance of $15,000, which weren't part of the initial offer.
Now, her compensation is about $130,000 annually, including stock units and bonuses.
Varun Kulkarni
When Varun Kulkarni switched from consulting to tech to work on more artificial intelligence projects, he was careful not to come off as aggressive during his pay negotiations.
Once he had offers from Cisco and others in hand in 2022, he was transparent with recruiters and mentioned other offers, without introducing his own counter number.
He asked recruiters how high they could go and what they thought about other offers.
"You want to kind of not be too pushy" he said.
His offer from Cisco already matched the market rate and what several competitors were offering, but he managed to negotiate it by 5%, bringing his total compensation to $180,000.
Yung-Yu Lin
During his 2022 recruitment process at Google, Yung-Yu Lin used his employer at the time, PayPal, to land better offers from both companies.
He interviewed and landed jobs at several places — but their pay did not compare with Google's offer.
Lin decided to negotiate a retention package. PayPal countered with a 10% pay bump. He then renegotiated with Google.
Google offered a 20% raise on his original compensation at PayPal, which brought his offer to the $350,000 to $400,000 range as a senior product manager, including stock-based compensation.
Hemant Pandey
Hemant Pandey, a senior software engineer at Meta, used other offers and research in his most recent job search.
After two years at Salesforce, in 2021 he applied to Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, and two other companies. He used offers from these companies to negotiate his compensation at Meta.
"Be very transparent that you have other offers. Even if you have interviews going on, mention those, because it's also leverage," he said. It signals to the recruiter that they have to move fast and work with your parameters.
Meta's recruiters matched the base salary and restricted stock units from the highest of all offers.
Aside from being transparent, Pandey said it is important to be proactive and research how compensation works in different companies. For example, candidates should compare how stocks are refreshed, he said. A refresher is when the stock option portion of an employee's compensation is updated.
"I also negotiated my sign-on bonus and said, 'Hey, at Salesforce, I'll be leaving my $30,000 to $40,000 of annual bonus if I join you. Can you help me accommodate that?'"
Pandey was offered $520,000 in annual pay, including stock options, in that 2021 move.
"The most significant thing happened in my career when I made the move from Salesforce to Meta, which was close to almost 80 to 90% hike" in pay, Pandey said.
Do you work in tech, consulting, or finance and have a story to share about your career journey? Please reach out at shubhangigoel@insider.com.
