Negotiating Salary on Government Contracts

bpenn

Well,

I am thinking that negotiations for salary are minimal if even that. Had two offers in the last few months and they wouldnt negotiate AT ALL on the salary. It seems the government gives the company a specific amount of money for the position and thats it, unless the company goes and asks for more money from the government. So, seems like negotiating is really a waste of time. Is there anyone who has had any luck with this? Any tips for getting a better salary on a government contract?

supasecuritybro

bpenn wrote: »

Well,

I am thinking that negotiations for salary are minimal if even that. Had two offers in the last few months and they wouldnt negotiate AT ALL on the salary. It seems the government gives the company a specific amount of money for the position and thats it, unless the company goes and asks for more money from the government. So, seems like negotiating is really a waste of time. Is there anyone who has had any luck with this? Any tips for getting a better salary on a government contract?

I have worked in government contracting for the last 15 years. I have learned that negotiating with contracts comes down to two different things. The company needs you and the you need the company. A company that needs you will be flexible (to a point) and give you a little bit of a raise. This tends to work well with smaller businesses that are in the market and trying to make sure they bring quality people on board. The other part is that you need the company (this is the big ones) they are big and have a lot of overhead. They will sit on a price they believe is "fair" and only sit there until someone just takes it. They can sit on a position for a little longer since they have a lot more business elsewhere. Of course they will not sit on it until it becomes an issue where the customer can hit them on failure to meet the contract, but they can move people around without a problem. Its messed up and they companies know where to be. It's some time better than the private sector in the sense of salary base, but it can feel worse since at least with private sector you can negotiate more time off or remote work or anything else that government contracts cannot offer due to contractual obligations.

Hope that makes sense.

Mitechniq

The dynamics of contract bids have changed dramatically in the last 5-7 years. When I took my first contract job in 2006, I made pretty good money relative to the work I did. The contract was based on 'Best Value' which meant the current company that held the contract had significant leverage in keeping the work and the quality of it's employees because of the experience they had on that particular contract. Since 2008, the prevalent contract bid is now 'lowest cost technically acceptable.' This gives free reign to any company to bid on the contract. Before I left my last job the company who won the bid underbid my company by 3 million dollars. In that type of environment, there is no wiggle room, and they would rather risk bringing in non-experienced or non-technically capable employees to win the contract.

bpenn

Mitechniq wrote: »

The dynamics of contract bids have changed dramatically in the last 5-7 years. When I took my first contract job in 2006, I made pretty good money relative to the work I did. The contract was based on 'Best Value' which meant the current company that held the contract had significant leverage in keeping the work and the quality of it's employees because of the experience they had on that particular contract. Since 2008, the prevalent contract bid is now 'lowest cost technically acceptable.' This gives free reign to any company to bid on the contract. Before I left my last job the company who won the bid underbid my company by 3 million dollars. In that type of environment, there is no wiggle room, and they would rather risk bringing in non-experienced or non-technically capable employees to win the contract.

This sounds exactly like my current contract. Everything is low-ball, win contract, then procede to ask the government for more money because you didnt ask for enough. It feels like an all time low for salaries around here in Florida. One of the sys admins I work with only makes around 43k and he manages servers for an entire wing. I make more than him doing desktop support...

OctalDump

When I think of people negotiating with the US government, I think of this.

TheCudder

I recently took my second government contacting position and was able to negotiate the salary with no problem. I suppose it all depends on the company, but the way I see it....is they're usually willing to budge a little as they want a body in position to bill to that contract.

andSo

OctalDump wrote: »

When I think of people negotiating with the US government, I think of this.

LOL. I wish it were that way.

mistabrumley89

I agree with supasecuritybro.
The bigger companies have more leeway with employees, so they will sit at a lower offer and hardly negotiate
If you want a very high paying contract job it is usually with the Small Businesses, or Veteran Owned, Woman Owned, Disabled Veteran Owned, or any sort of combination of those.
Each type of business falls under a different Title, like Title 8, and get incentives, writeoffs, etc....
So these companies can afford to pay the employees more.

Don't quote me on ANY of this because idk how it really goes. This is just how it was explained to me by some colleagues. I agree with it because for a normal Net Eng position I'll get offered between 80k-100k, but all of the ones where I've been offered 130k+ have been one of those smaller businesses.