How Facebook decides how much you'll make working there (FB)

Facebook employees office

• At Facebook, starting salaries for new hires and raises for employees are determined by a set formula.

• The reason, Janelle Gale, VP of HR at Facebook, told Business Insider, is because determining compensation based on employer-candidate negotiations simply rewards good negotiators.

•At Facebook, you're not necessarily getting hired for your good negotiation tactics.

At Facebook, salary isn't up for negotiation.

"Compensation fairness is a very, very important thing for us," Facebook VP of HR Janelle Gale told Business Insider. "We spend a lot of time making sure it's a very tight system."

Glassdoor recently dubbed the tech giant the best place to work in 2018. Gale even spoke about how to keep employees happy during Glassdoor's Best Places to Work Tour.

According to the job site, the average annual base salary at Facebook is $120,000, while the average total compensation comes in around $155,000.

But those six figures aren't the result of candidates and employees playing hard ball, Gale said. Facebook has its own system for determining compensation, which takes into account factors like job category, experience level, and location.

Here's how salary offers and raises are determined, according to Gale:

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1. It's not a negotiation — and there's a reason for that

Negotiation is an important skill.

But it's not everything at Facebook — not when it comes to compensation, anyway.

Gale said a compensation determination system that revolves around negotiation rewards shrewd negotiators at the expense of everyone else.

"We don't want to get into a negotiation, because that basically means whoever is the best negotiator wins," Gale said. "We're not hiring you for your negotiation skills, unless you are in a negotiation role, like business development or whatnot."

2. Candidates' previous and current salaries may be taken into consideration

While straight up negotiation might be out, candidates do have a means of letting Facebook know where they stand.

"We want to hire you based on your experience and what you're going to deliver for Facebook, so we do take into consideration what your current situation is," Gale said. "If the overall value of the standard offer is below a candidate's current and competing compensation, a compensation analyst will work to provide a competitive offer."

And, if the proposed salary is more than the recruit's current or competing offers, then it's given the green light.

3. It's all about fairness

Gale said Facebook's formula "... helps weed out any differences that might happen between different types of people we're hiring."

For example, studies indicate women tend to accept the first offer they're given, while men negotiate for more. And, according to research from McKinsey & Co., when women do ask for more in a negotiation, they're viewed as too aggressive.

"We do a ton of benchmarking around our jobs that's based on our job category, the level, the location," Gale said. "We have a very, very tight stance around compensation."

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