About

Put 30+ Years of Employer-Side Experience in Your Corner

I’m John Gates. For more than 30 years, I’ve worked on the employer side of recruiting — leading hiring teams, training recruiters, shaping hiring processes, and overseeing tens of thousands of job offers.

Now, I help you to make your next executive move – and make sure it pays.

Meet John

Executive career and compensation strategy

If you check out my LinkedIn profile, you’ll see titles like “Recruiting Process Architect,” “Head of Global Recruitment,” “Director of Recruiting Operations,” and “Head of Talent Acquisition.” Here’s how that applies to you:

I have 30+ years of experience with compensation, hiring, and offer strategy — including salary, incentives, benefits, and executive compensation.
As a corporate recruiting leader, I’ve been responsible for more than 75,000 extended offers.
I’ve personally changed companies, navigated career transitions, and started businesses multiple times during my career.
I understand the anxiety that comes with a high-stakes career move, because I’ve been there.
I know what recruiters are thinking as they screen candidates, evaluate fit, and build an offer package — because I’ve spent decades leading and training them.

With the right strategy and coaching, you can make better decisions, protect your leverage, and pursue the strongest practical outcome available without taking unnecessary risk.

I also offer payment structures designed to make coaching easier to access during a career transition, including options where most of the fee is deferred until your income resumes.

Invite me to put 30+ years of employer-side experience in your corner — and help you make your next executive move, and make sure it pays.

About Salary Coach

Founded in 2021, Salary Coach is an executive career and compensation advisory practice built around one central idea:

“

You don’t have to become aggressive or adversarial to get all the money still on the table.

Clients Served

Executives in Transition: VPs, SVPs, EVPs, C-Suite, Function Heads

Expertise

Job Search Strategy, Interview Preparation, Executive Pay Negotiation

Track Record

Most executive clients achieve 5–6 figure improvements to their offer packages

Meet your coach

About John

For 30+ years I’ve been a recruiting insider — leading corporate recruiting, overseeing employer-side offer strategy, and training hundreds of recruiters to screen and negotiate for employers. Since 2021, I’ve put that knowledge in the corner of executives in transition.

Former Head of Global Recruiting for major corporations
Frequent speaker and podcast guest on executive pay negotiation
Lifelong basketball fan, adoptive father of five, and global traveler

▶ Watch my story

Best-selling author

Act Your Wage

Available on Amazon.

The Salary Coach Mission

Put employer-side hiring and compensation expertise in the candidate’s corner so important career moves are made with better strategy, stronger leverage and fewer avoidable mistakes while keeping risk exceptionally low for our Clients.