Can't speak for anyone else, but I usually just take (or turn down) the first offer, mostly I think out of poor self-image. Not sure why, because I don't mind dickering over a car.
The only exception I can remember off-hand is when a consulting company that employed me was looking to cut costs, and asked that I go independent and start invoicing them rather than being a W-2. They offered me the same rate I'd been making as an employee, which wasn't going to work for me if they stopped paying me for bench time. But mostly I say "$65/hr? Yeah, I can do that". Shameful, I know. This, by the way, is one of those differences I had in mind when I said Yankee and Indian recruiters approach the negotiation differently. American companies have a definite range in mind and aren't usually shy about stating it in the opening email. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if they give the lower part of the range, knowing they can raise it if they run across a really attractive candidate.) Indian companies don’t usually state the range up front; instead I see "please send us your resume and your lowest rate...". Different assumptions about the way the process should work, I suppose. --- Bob Bridges, [email protected], cell 336 382-7313 /* The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. -Dorothy Parker */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Seymour J Metz Sent: Saturday, December 2, 2023 13:05 How many programmers negotiate when a recruiter contacts them with a lowball offer, and how many just move it to the circular file? When I'm looking for people, I don't want to scare away good candidates with an offer that might offend them; I ask "What are you looking for?". ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf of Bob Bridges <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, December 2, 2023 12:01 AM ....On the other hand maybe it's just a negotiating tactic. There are several differences in the way Indian and Yankee recruiters approach me (and I assume everyone else too); maybe lowballing is just one of the ways they're used to doing business, with the assumption that they'll have to go higher to actually close the deal. ...$125/hr, really? I should maybe pay more attention to the advice a fellow contractor gave me a couple decades ago. I was working for ... well, apparently you would regard it as peanuts although it's always been adequate for me. But Joe said I should demand $250/hr. I'd work only about a third of the time, but since that's about three times what I typically was getting, it would come out even - and in the slack periods I could work on some saleable project. I understood what he was saying; I just couldn't find a way to say "$250/hr" with a straight face. Maybe that's a common foible. My ex made really high-end decorated cakes, the sort that we saw going for $150 and up at state fairs; but she couldn't bring herself to ask more for her work than the cost of materials. She just couldn't believe her work was worth it. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Tony Harminc Sent: Friday, December 1, 2023 17:37 I interpreted Bob's comment "...I think the rate is unusual; I'm guessing they don't think they can get one of their regulars to do it." as meaning he thought it (60-65 $/hr) was high. But I agree that finding someone with serious assembler chops for that price isn't going to be easy. $65/hour sounds much more like an all-in employee-with-benefits kind of rate back-calculated from a salary. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Farley, Peter Sent: Friday, December 1, 2023 16:31 Agreed, very low. I asked for and received $125/hr back in 1999 for a complex assembler consulting job (BTAM / BDAM / multitasking / etc). With inflation and time passing the starting rate for that kind of work has to go over $200/hr at the very least to attract anyone with the talent and experience. If it is a truly junior position though, say maintaining and perhaps documenting old single-function utility ASM subroutines, that might not be a terrible starting point to negotiate upwards. Anything more complicated than that, start the negotiation higher, or much higher depending on the actual work to be done. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Mike Shaw Sent: Friday, December 1, 2023 16:15 Gotta be low... -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Gord Tomlin Sent: Friday, December 1, 2023 15:24 --- On 2023-12-01 14:14 PM, Bob Bridges wrote: Pure curiosity: unusually low or unusually high? -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, December 1, 2023 14:14 I have a req here from Enterprise solutions for an assembler programmer, paying "60-65 $/hr" on corp-to-corp. Anyone wanted a copy, let me know and I'll pass it on. I've never done business with this recruiter but I think the rate is unusual; I'm guessing they don't think they can get one of their regulars to do it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
