Consider Your Total Rewards!

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Resources of the Week!

1. My early career folks, here’s a great example of a resume for a recent grad, shared by a fellow recruiter.

2. Thought this one-pager of job search resources was pretty helpful!

3. And sign up for a networking chat!

What is Total Rewards?

Most of the time, we’re focused on our base compensation, but some companies offer a large amount of your compensation in the form of bonuses and equity. And benefits may also hold a lot of monetary value that should be considered when looking at a package.

Your total rewards package can include: base salary, commission, bonuses based on company and/or individual performance, benefits (health insurance, retirement match, paid time off, family-forming benefits, parental leave, etc.) and perks (like lifestyle budgets, home office budgets, remote work, meals at the office, etc.)

Something to keep in mind is that base salary can matter more than other parts of your package when it comes to growing your salary - you’re often not going to see growth with other parts of your total rewards package in the same way, and it can often drive increases in other areas (for example, if you have a 5% bonus potential, your bonus grows in dollar amount alongside your base salary).

A few things to consider

When evaluating your total rewards package, you’ll want to think about several things.

What benefits will you actually use and will they actually save me money?

Don’t be swayed by perks that aren’t going to mean much for you.

For example, f you’ve been working remote for years, then a few thousand dollars for a home office budget may not mean much while if you’re new to remote work or have been wanting to upgrade your home office anyway, a few thousand dollars can save you money you would have spent anyway, and hold more value.

For someone planning to start a family having paid parental leave and family forming benefits could save you tens of thousands of dollars over the next few years and be worth taking a lower salary; for someone who is done having kids, this is irrelevant.

Flexible lifestyle budgets are basically just money in your pocket. Discount programs on the other hand often go unused, or are discounts that can also be found through credit cards or discount codes that can be found online.

Unlimited PTO (assuming the company actually supports people using it of course) can be a game changer for folks who like to travel, have kids whose schedules may require lots of time off, etc. But some may be fine with set days and not really find value in this as much.

What is negotiable?

I see people saying anything is negotiable. In my experience, that’s not quite true - many larger companies will run into equity issues and can’t negotiate things like insurance coverage, PTO, or retirement match.

Some will not negotiate on equity, others will. Netflix gives you the choice of how you want your salary broken down across cash and equity for example. Amazon creates 4-year packages where the earlier years are heavier on sign-on bonuses that are then replaced by equity in the later years.

Ask early on what is and isn’t negotiable. It never hurts to ask, but don’t be surprised when companies tell you that many parts of your package are not negotiable.

How much bonus/commission are people typically getting?

At some companies, people regularly hit the bonus amount. At some, most people get just half of their potential or it may be common to get nothing at all. Ask those questions before accepting an offer. A 25% bonus potential sounds great but if most people are only getting 5%, then you need to get comfortable with that number, not 25%.

And that goes for other benefits too!

It’s perfectly acceptable to ask questions about how much PTO people take when offered unlimited PTO or about what the average annual raises are. The recruiter may or may not have this information, but they can certainly get data or share their own experiences.

I LOVE unlimited PTO but I have also had it at two employers where we’ve been supported and encouraged to use it - I know that’s not the reality everywhere!

Make sure that you’re looking at that whole package

For example, consider these two offers:

Option A: $100,000 base salary, 10% bonus potential, remote work, unlimited PTO
Option B: $115,000 base salary, no bonus potential, hybrid with 3 days in office, 15 days of PTO + 10 holidays.

For me, Option A would be much more appealing - the cost of a commute + the extra PTO (which I would absolutely use) would be worth more than 15% even if I got no bonus at all!

There are probably other people who would say Option B is better - perhaps the commute is just a few minutes and they like being out of the house, and 15 days of PTO is more than enough for their lifestyle. So for them, that extra $15k is going to do a lot more for their well-being.

But maybe you ask some questions - you find out that at Company A, they rarely hit their bonus targets, and you find out that the average employee takes just 2 weeks of vacation. And at the same time, you find out that Company B has a really aggress program for rewarding high performers with raises and equity. Now Option B starts sounding better.

So ask questions to really understand how compensation and benefits play out, and consider which benefits you’ll use when weighing two options.

🙋Answering Your Questions🙋

Each week, I’ll answer a few of your questions in this section. You can submit your questions here.

I have never looked that closely (honestly, I rarely look at a LinkedIn profile if I have a resume), though of course I can’t speak for every recruiter.

I do think we generally understand that there might be some broad discrepancies given that the documents serve different purposes. Slightly different metrics, projects, or even titles won’t phase us much. But if there’s a major discrepancy (for example, two different employers during the same period of time), this might raise a flag for an employer.
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