Since starting her career in 2014, Sarra Bounouh has worked at consulting giant Accenture and three Big Tech companies. But she still struggled with imposter syndrome, especially around talk of compensation.
“Going into 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.”
Bounouh, originally from Morocco, worked at Accenture in Paris and later moved to the US, where she worked at Microsoft and Snap. She is currently a product manager at Meta in the company’s Seattle office.
She shared three tips for negotiating compensation before joining a company or when trying to get promoted.
Competing offers
“The best strategy is if you can have competing offers,” she said.
It gives you alternatives and more confidence.
“It doesn’t mean you’re not going to be respectful or anything like that, but it just gives you more negotiation chips,” Bounouh said. She added that it is one of the most data-driven strategies, because you can provide numbers from the competing offer.
Bounouh said she unsuccessfully tried negotiating her salary when she converted her internship to a full time role at Accenture. It was her first job, and she did not have a competing offer.
“When I joined Microsoft, I had a few years of experience behind me so I could try to negotiate the level and also the salary that came with it.”
Practice the pitch
Negotiating a promotion or a raise is a difficult conversation, and it is helpful to practice exactly what you are going to say, Bounouh said.
She considers how her skills map to the job and keeps a reasonable counteroffer in mind.
Bounouh said she practiced her pitch for every job after Accenture and increased all three jobs’ salary offers: Microsoft by 32%, Snap by 19%, and Meta by 37%.
Avoid giving a number first
If you can, avoid offering the first number. If you do, don’t do it without research, Bounouh said.
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 role.
“Some recruiters actually ask about the compensation expectations from the first call,” she said. “I personally don’t like having detailed conversation 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.”
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 have good intentions and 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.”
Look at multiple components
Tech compensation usually has three main components: a base, which is determined by seniority; a sign-on or annual bonus; and restricted stock units.
Negotiating your role’s level, which determines compensation in all three categories, is hard to do. It’s nearly impossible for new hires, as when Bounouh converted to a full-time Accenture employee.
She said she has focused most of her negotiations around RSUs and bonus, except for Microsoft, when she did not think the level offered aligned with her experience.
“They didn’t account for my consulting experience, but managed to bump up my level after I made the right arguments on how a lot of the consulting skills are transferable,” she said.
Increasing the base salary can also help increase target performance bonuses, which can be 10% to 20% of the base depending on level and company, Bounouh said.
Another strategy is to bring competing offers with higher individual components.
“You don’t have to share the numbers from competing offers, but I would recommend it if you want the company to match it,” she said. “However, I would definitely not recommend starting a “bidding war” between competing offers.”
Make your full compensation ask at once, rather than negotiating the various components at different stages, she said.
Do you work in tech, finance, or consulting and have a story to share about your career journey? Please reach out at shubhangigoel@insider.com.
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