Microsoft Salary Negotiation - How to Navigate a Microsoft Offer Negotiation

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Microsoft provides competitive compensation and perks to their employees, but how do you know if you're getting a competitive job offer before accepting?
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In this episode, my goal is to cover everything you need to confidently navigate a Microsoft salary negotiation.
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I'll first cover the compensation structure at Microsoft so you know more about Microsoft's base salary, their bonus, equity package and sign-on bonuses in the job offer.
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That way, you know exactly what to expect in the offer before you get it.
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Then I'm going to walk you through my five recommended steps for negotiating a Microsoft job offer that are proven through real Microsoft salary negotiations that I've actually led for my clients.
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That way you can filter out some of the bad advice out there and use salary negotiation strategies that actually work with Microsoft.
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And I'll close out the episode by highlighting three common mistakes you should avoid in a Microsoft salary negotiation (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/resource-center/how-to-negotiate-your-microsoft-job-offer).
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That way you don't risk the opportunity and do actually secure competitive compensation.
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So let's get into it.
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Hi everyone, welcome back to the channel If you're new here.
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My name is Brandon Bramley and I'm the founder and lead negotiator at thesalarynegotiatorcom.
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I provide professional job offer coaching, salary negotiation courses and tools to help professionals like you navigate the negotiation process and secure competitive compensation.
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I'm not just a career coach or recruiter giving out generic salary negotiation advice.
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There's already enough bad advice floating around online.
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Instead, I've personally led hundreds of salary negotiations across various roles, helping my clients to incur hundreds of millions more in compensation.
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My background is in strategic negotiations and my goal is to debunk the bad advice out there and give you proven negotiation strategies that are actually going to help you earn more.
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So, if you're a career professional looking to earn competitive pay, subscribe here for actionable tips and, when you're ready to take your negotiations to the next level, visit the salarynegotiator.
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com (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/) for coaching, courses and tools designed to help you negotiate the best possible offer.
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Now, before we dive into how to negotiate a Microsoft job offer, let's talk about the compensation components.
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It's really important to understand the difference between your base salary and total compensation.
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Too many people focus only on the base salary for a role, but that's just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to pay at Microsoft.
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When you consider a move to Microsoft, you need to look at the whole picture, which is your total monetary take on pay, also known as your total compensation.
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This includes your base salary, your annual bonus, the value of your vesting equity each year and any sign-up bonuses.
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Now you will find four core compensation components in a Microsoft job offer (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/total-compensation-calculator).
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The first there's the Microsoft base salary.
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This is your consistent guaranteed pay that you'll see in every paycheck.
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It only changes if you get promoted or if you see a merit increase.
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Otherwise it's a set rate.
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You should all be familiar with that one.
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Second, you'll have an annual performance bonus at Microsoft, which is a percentage of the Microsoft base salary.
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This typically ranges from 10 to 45 percent at Microsoft, depending on the role and level.
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It's based on your personal performance each year and it can fluctuate annually.
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While the Microsoft bonus is tied to your base salary, it's generally not negotiable.
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But if you negotiate a higher base salary, the Microsoft bonus will increase along with it.
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So keep that in mind.
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Third, you will receive equity at Microsoft (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/microsoft-software-engineer-salary).
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Your initial Microsoft equity package comes in the form of RSUs, which are restricted stock units.
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These represent our ownership in Microsoft.
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These RSUs are subject to a four-year Microsoft vesting schedule, which essentially means that the Microsoft equity is going to go ahead and invest over a four-year period in equal increments, meaning that you'll receive 25% of your RSUs in year one, 25% in year two, 25% two, 25 in year three and the final 25 in your fourth year at microsoft.
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You don't get the full value of the microsoft equity upfront keep that in mind but you do share in the value fluctuations over that period.
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So if the microsoft stock price goes up, so does the value of your equity.
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The flip side, though, is also true.
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If the microsoft stock price drops, your equity value decreases as well with it.
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So there are risks when it comes to equity at Microsoft.
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Also, it's important to note that if you do leave Microsoft before the Microsoft RSUs fully vest, then you're gonna forfeit the unvested portion, so keep that in mind.
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Finally, there's the Microsoft signup bonus.
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This is a one-time cash payment, typically paid out 30 days after you start.
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It's often designed to offset lost incentives or equity from your previous company, or just as an incentive to join the team.
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Microsoft sign-on bonuses aren't always included in the initial Microsoft offer, so you might need to negotiate to get one.
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Luckily, I can confirm that I've had great success in securing them for my clients with our Microsoft negotiations.
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So they do exist and don't give up on this item.
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Clients with our Microsoft negotiations so they do exist and don't give up on this item.
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Microsoft does also offer annual equity refreshes, which are additional RSU grants each year.
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However, these Microsoft stock refreshers aren't usually guaranteed and they're going to fluctuate significantly from year to year based off your performance as well as how the company is doing.
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So we don't usually include them in our total compensation calculations, but I will say it's worth asking your recruiter about these to see if they'll give any specific details, but usually they shy away from those details.
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Now, these four main microsoft salary components, your base salary, bonus, equity and sign up bonus are going to make up the total compensation at microsoft.
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To help you visualize this, we have a total compensation calculator on our site.
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It lets you input your base salary, your bonus percentage, the equity grant with the vesting schedule and sign on bonus then shows your estimated compensation over four years, both in total and on an annual basis.
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You can find our free compensation calculator at the salarynegotiator.
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com and I'll also link to it in the episode notes below, so you can use this free tool All right.
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Now that we've covered how Microsoft's compensation structure works, let's discuss the Microsoft salary negotiation steps (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/microsoft-product-manager-salary).
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These are the strategies that I personally use to successfully negotiate many Microsoft job offers, and I recommend you to follow them to navigate your Microsoft salary negotiation once you actually have an offer in hand.
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Note that Microsoft does typically provide their offers verbally initially instead of a written offer, and they'll only give you the written offer after you verbally accept.
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So instead, make sure you write down the offer details before accepting and ask them to send over the offer benefits package for your review, so you can kick things off now, once you have the Microsoft job offer.
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The first step to negotiate is to make sure you fully understand the compensation components and benefits in your Microsoft offer package.
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The biggest takeaway from this is that understanding the Microsoft total compensation before negotiating is very important.
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That way, you're going to know exactly how to value the Microsoft offer and what to negotiate, including the base salary, the annual bonus, equity and the sign on bonus, if there is one, in your initial offer.
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The second step is what I call doing your due diligence and asking strategic questions.
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This is where you're going to review the Microsoft offer and come back with a list of strategic questions for the recruiter.
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This not only helps you clarify any questions that you might have about the offer, but it actually allows you to strategically ask questions that are going to build negotiation leverage.
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You can call on things that might not be as competitive as your current company or what Microsoft's competitors offer.
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If you do need some ideas, you can grab a list of our strategic questions asked from our templates page (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/salary-negotiation-templates) or from our course (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/courses), but don't skip this step, even if you think you understand the offer.
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This step is very important for building salary negotiation leverage by showing you're doing your research and due diligence on the offer before sending a Microsoft counter offer.
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It also lets you secure any freebies or items that Microsoft might use as trade-offs later on in the salary negotiation.
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The third step is to do Microsoft compensation research and find the base salary and total compensation ranges for the specific role, location and level at Microsoft.
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You can use various online resources to find this data, but make sure that you use multiple sources and you average the results.
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We're really trying to identify the compensation ranges so we can see exactly where your initial Microsoft offer sits and how much more room there is for improvement.
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We found that Microsoft typically tries to hire employees at the lower to mid end of the pay bands, but I always suggest pushing for the top end of the Microsoft pay ranges for your role in the negotiation.
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Just remember this publicly reported data might not always be accurate.
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People might report higher equity than a new hire would get due to stock appreciation, or they might not upload the compensation components correctly.
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If you want to help with this, you can use our compensation research comparison tool on our template page (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/store/counteroffer-examples) or in our course (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/job-offer-negotiation-course), which will help you actually organize the data and build the ask in your Microsoft counteroffer.
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Once you have the Microsoft compensation research done and you've gotten the answers to your questions, you're finally ready to send a Microsoft counteroffer.
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This is where we're going to take a database approach and craft a Microsoft counteroffer to send to the recruiting team.
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We'll present the top end of the range that you targeted based on your research and call out any items that were competitive based on your due diligence questions.
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I highly suggest doing this by email, because it gives the Microsoft recruiter everything they need to advocate for you internally and can simply send your points to the comp team instead of hoping that they're going to note your comments on a call Plus.
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If you think about it, recruiters at Microsoft negotiate offers all day and they're prepared to call Plus.
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If you think about it, recruiters at Microsoft negotiate offers all day and they're prepared to negotiate.
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So if you do try to counter verbally, they're going to cut you off and steer you in a different direction.
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The final step after sending a Microsoft counter offer is being prepared to handle recruiter pushback.
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I can tell you it's almost guaranteed that you're going to get some pushback from the Microsoft recruiter.
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Microsoft recruiters are trained to deter you from negotiating and get you to accept the initial offer.
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So be prepared for pushback and know exactly what to say to overcome those objections and get them to take your concerns back to the Microsoft compensation team.
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Essentially, you want to say that you understand their concerns but nicely reiterate yours and ask them to take your ass back to the Microsoft compensation team for another look.
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It might take overcoming a few objections, but once they agree to take back for another look, nine times out of ten they're going to come back with a better Microsoft job offer.
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We have a full list of our objection handlers that you can download, if you want, on our templates page or find in our course (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/salary-negotiation-course) if you want the exact strips on what to say when you encounter this pushback.
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From here, the Microsoft recruiter will either come back with a better offer that fits your needs or is lower than your ass.
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At that point you're going to be able to decide if you want to send another Microsoft counter offer to push again or if you're ready to accept the updated offer and get it locked in.
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Just note that salary negotiation with Microsoft is not how you negotiate at a dealership, right?
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There's not going to be a lot of back and forth and you usually don't want to send more than two Microsoft counter offers.
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Otherwise, you're going to risk coming off as aggressive and possibly jeopardize the relationship.
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So don't do that.
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Now.
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The last thing I want to cover is a few Microsoft salary negotiation mistakes.
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Before you decide to negotiate a Microsoft offer, the main item I recommend against is sharing your salary expectations or your current pay with the Microsoft recruiting team.
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This is only going to work against you, so just don't do it.
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If you actually think about it, if you throw out a number now that's lower than what microsoft could offer, you're more likely going to get a less competitive compensation package at the low end of their pay range, or you run the risk of being down leveled, which is very common at microsoft.
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Microsoft has multiple internal job levels for each role, like 63, 64, 65.
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They're tied to specific job levels or job titles you don't want to get down level to that lower level within that role title by sharing comp expectations that are tied to specific job levels or job titles.
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You don't wanna get down level to that lower level within that role title by sharing comp expectations that are too low.
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And then, on the flip side, if you throw out a number that's higher, thinking that's gonna help your case, they might think, shoot, not sure if we can afford this person, so let's go with another candidate instead.
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So overall, it's just not a good strategy.
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And remember, the Microsoft recruiter is going to know exactly what they can pay for the role.
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This isn't new to them.
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You always want to turn that question back on them to learn more about both the base salary and the total compensation ranges for that position and not really discuss comp until you get an offer and start working through the negotiation process.
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My second tip, or the mistake to avoid, is making sure that you're being realistic about what you should ask for in your Microsoft counteroffer.
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Too often I see people that ask for way too much which just doesn't make sense for the role.
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They either get laughed at it comes off as aggressive or in some cases you could actually get the offer rescinded by coming off as unrealistic.
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You want to avoid that and you should always take a data-based approach with Microsoft to ensure you're asking for realistic comp that they can actually provide.
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At the end of the day, microsoft has set compensation bans and they'll only pay within those bans for the specific role.
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Don't jeopardize a Microsoft job offer by coming off as too aggressive and asking for unrealistic numbers.
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Just don't do it.
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And finally, don't be worried about a Microsoft salary negotiation.
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You might feel nervous, but as long as you follow proven strategies and keep the negotiation professional, there's no reason you'd risk your Microsoft offer.
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If you do it right, you should secure a more competitive Microsoft offer package before starting the new role.
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So have confidence in this, but make sure you're following proven strategies or get support if you need help negotiating a Microsoft offer.
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That wraps up this episode on Microsoft salary negotiation.
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I hope this breakdown of Microsoft's compensation structure, our proven Microsoft salary negotiation I hope this breakdown of Microsoft's compensation structure, our proven Microsoft salary negotiation strategies and negotiation mistakes to avoid with Microsoft help you feel more confident in these discussions.
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If you're serious about getting the best possible offer with Microsoft or any company, I highly suggest you don't go into the salary negotiation alone.
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Head over to thesalarynegotiator.
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com to either work with me directly as your salary negotiation coach or check out my salary negotiation courses and tools (https://www.
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thesalarynegotiator.
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com/resource-center/salary-negotiation-script-strategies-for-job-offer-negotiations).
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You'll find all the links in the episode notes below, and if you find this episode helpful, make sure to subscribe, leave a comment and share it with someone who could use this advice in their career.
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Thanks for tuning in and happy negotiating.