Hi Reader,

Yassas! 🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷

We’re currently in Greece on the last leg of our annual summer trip to visit Gerta’s family in Europe. We’ve actually been in Europe since early June getting a ton of family time, but have also been super heads down on work throughout.

The time difference with most of our clients has been brutal (regular client calls between 12-6am local time), but we’ve had some huge wins that we’re so happy about - one client whose offer we helped negotiate got bumped up two levels and added $340,000 first-year comp and almost $1M total comp on top of what he was initially offered! 😯 (Btw, if you’re job searching and are curious how these sorts of wins are possible even in this market, you can book a free strategy call with us to see if it makes sense to work together.)

For today’s newsletter, we wanted to cover a question we got in our Facebook group. (For those who don’t know, we have a Facebook community for all things negotiations! In the group, we answer your questions, share awesome job postings from our network, and you can connect with peers on navigating comp conversations and career growth. Request to join here).

Should you namedrop the competition?

Someone in our group recently asked:

This is a great question, and our usual recommendation still stands: you always want to refrain from sharing details of your other offers or other companies you’re interviewing with. In our work with our current and recent clients, we’ve seen that this is just as important to do in a tough employer’s market like today’s versus job markets that favor candidates. To illustrate this, below is a scenario that cuts the other way:

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Anon is essentially wondering: if the company knows that you have other opportunities and they really like you, they may be more motivated to see if you’re a fit in another role as quickly as they can before you’re won away by another employer.

However, details about your other opportunities are strong leverage for you, so why give it away freely?

Disclosing details of other offers or opportunities (the numbers, who your offers are from, names of companies you’re interviewing with, the titles/pay bands/leveling, etc) can feel like a strategic move, but in practice, you’re only arming the companies with information that’s useful to them but may hurt your case.

For example, telling a small, mission-driven startup that they’re competing with a giant tech company won’t push them to give you a higher offer. They may not try to give you even just a little bit more since they will assume the gap is huge. On the other hand, telling the tech giant that they’re competing with a tiny startup tells them they’ll win on money, so they’ll have no reason to increase their offer even just a little bit either.

While it’s important to let companies know you have other offers, make sure to stay general and vague on the details. Leverage grows from strategic information flow, tone/approach, and carefully timed communications.

At the end of the day, throughout the interview process, your goal should be to make them fall in love with you and have you be their chosen candidate to extend an offer to over others (in other words, crush the interviews). All the while, protect your leverage throughout the process while showing lots of enthusiasm for the role!

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Warmly,

Gerta & Alex

Founders, YourNegotiations.com

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

If you have an offer coming or are mid-process, we’re always happy to help you think through how to approach it. Book a free call here: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $250 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.