Salary Only Part of the StoryI was recently offerred a position with a pay increase of less than 10% at a company with substantially more growth potential than my current position. As I start to crunch the numbers on my current salary I realize that I negated to fully appreciate the impact of stock options/grants and PTO. My current employer has awarded me an average of $20K/year in stock options(30% stock return) for the past six years. Do I ask for a percentage of this in salary? Also, leaving would leave over $10K in unvested options. In addition, the Paid-Time-Off is one-third lower (20 vs. 30 days). Lastly, they would like me to start ASAP whereas I would like to take a month off. Unless you are a unique superstar in your field, someone who this company could not do without, you may be pushing yourself out of the opportunity by asking for all of that. As for the options, an employer may make some sort of arrangement to offset your loss there, but in a lateral move part of the 10-15% increase we look for is to offset these lost benefits. In addition, what if your options were underwater? Could we expect the employer to come back and say "Well, your last job paid you $50K salary and $20K in options. Since those options are $10K underwater, we'll just offer you $40K." I think if you looked at the bigger options picture you would see that in general they have not added much to salaries of us regular folk. As for the PTO, this is also something that is considered covered by the additional 10-15% increase in a lateral move. PTO usually vests with length of service and it is difficult, but not impossible, to change company policy to get more. If you think you are really needed by the company, put your cards on the table and explain what you are giving up in order to see if they may be able to sweeten the deal. But remember, one of their options is to make the decision that they will never be able to make you happy and just move on to the next candidate. I agree. If I were you, I' d ask if the salary offer is negotiable and see what they say. It it is, I' d counter with a salary range by saying something like, "I was anticipating an offer in the $X to $Y range," letting $X equal 15% more than you' re earning now, and letting $Y equal about 17% more than you' re earning. The increase in salary you' re seeking is the inventive to leave the stock options behind but, as Chet noted, the value of stock options depends on the success of the company over time. They' re often looked on as deferred compensation, but they' re really not, because deferred comp is money you will receive, assuming the financial viability of the company, stock options represent money you may receive. Regarding paid time off, I doubt that you can negotiate a 30 day delay, particularly if the prospective employer has PTO established as policy in the company handbook. I also think you have to look at the extra PTO from the employer' s standpoint: What you' d be doing is asking to be paid a full-time salary for only 11 months of work, not counting holidays. Asking to be paid not to work is a little difficult to do when you haven' t even demonstrated your value to the employer yet. Finally, I think you can talk about the start date, but expecting to push it back a month, might be asking too much. They might agree to a couple of weeks, but I certainly wouldn' t push for a month-long delay if they really need you sooner rather than later. I appreciate your insight and agree with most of your comments. Yes, delaying the starting period one month maybe too excessive (my wife agrees!). One can look at vacation time from two different vantage points. Yes, a salary increase to make up the difference in lost PTO can be quantified by simply assuming that 10 days less of PTO would be equivalent to one two-week pay period. I think the 15-17% scenario that Paul outlined above would account for this.The other side to this arguement is that vacation/sick time is a key part of any person' s employment package. The difference between 20 and 30 days is two full weeks. I would argue the value of being able to have this time off is worth even more than its pure monetary value I outlined above. As Americans, I think we are programmed to disregard this as a key part of any benefit package which I adamintly disagree with. Value, embrace and enjoy your vacation time! In principle, I couldn' t agree with you more regarding the value of time off. I' m merely pointing out that most companies have a formal vacation/PTO policy to which they adhere rather strictly in order to insure that all employees are treated the same and, more importantly, that the employees know applies to everyone. For two employees who have been with a company the same length of time and for one of them to have an extra week of paid vacation the other doesn' t is a potential disaster waiting to happen, hence the adherence to an approved vacation policy. So, it' s possible that you could be whistling in the wind if you try to negotiate more time off than an employer' s policy allows. Stock options have no value at all until/unless they are exercised. No one is going to "buy you out" on those since although recent stock history with this company is good, there' s no guarantee that they will be worth anything later. 20 days PTO is very good. Unless you' re an upper level executive, they probably won' t budge on that. You can ask however after everything else is settled. If they want you ASAP, they' re not likely to wait a month. So, it all comes down to how much you want this job. Is the potential for growth enough to outweigh these inconveniences? Only you know the answer to that. | |
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