Salary negotiations often spur anxiety, even a bit of fear.
What if I ask for too much, get too little?
What if they turn me down?
I'm Jenn.
As a career coach, I'm here to give you
some advice on how to secure your best financial outcome.
In this video, I'm going to share three tips for salary
negotiation throughout the interviewing process and three
tips on salary negotiation with an offer in hand.
Make sure to stick around to the end of the video, where I'll
be sharing negotiation tactics for when you don't have
any other offers to leverage.
Let's dive in.
Tip number one, before your first interview,
set your bottom line and target salary.
Start out by gathering current credible data
to fuel your discussion surrounding salary.
Look at what the current salary levels
are for similar roles in your industry
by pulling data from several trusted sources,
starting with Indeed.
To help, I've dropped a link to Indeed salary tool
in the description below.
Keep in mind, the public salary data
is most often presented as a range or an average
based upon several key factors, including the specific job
title, company size, industry and location.
Use the search filters available to identify a realistic salary
range for you.
And remember, details matter.
If you're interviewing for a staff
accountant versus a senior accountant,
this will play into the salary.
Once you've determined a realistic range,
take stock of your professional offerings
to determine what you believe is fair
given your particular profile.
Consider your career growth potential, years of experience,
education level, hard skills that
can be leveraged in the new role, accomplishments to date,
and any earned or in-progress professional certifications.
Then based on your research and your financial needs,
decide on the lowest number that you would accept for the job.
Following suit, decide what you believe
is an attractive but fair salary for the role.
And keep both of these to yourself.
I'll explain how you can share these numbers in my next two
tips.
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Tip two, in early rounds stay general
about your salary expectations.
First of all, always let the employer bring up money.
Asking first, especially in the early rounds,
can be off putting, making you seem
more interested in the pay than the opportunity.
Also, remember this is not an official negotiation yet.
No offers have been made, and there are no frontrunners.
So effectively, these are information gathering
conversations, leading up to an elimination decision.
Since they have so many options at this point,
recruiters are looking for a reason
to remove a potential candidate.
Asking for a lot of money with no context
could be one such reason.
And even if you qualify your ask with reasons,
you haven't had time to prove your value
in these early rounds.
And know that recruiters are trained to get
you to share your target number before they do.
While it's easy to feel pressured to respond
in this situation, remember, an open role
means that the budget has been approved for the hire.
So the employer or the recruiter know how much they can offer.
So if a recruiter asks, what are your salary expectations?
Don't provide an answer immediately.
Instead, deflect the question by saying something like,
I need a bit more information to get a better idea
of what the position entails.
That way I can provide a more realistic salary expectation.
What do you have allotted for the right candidate,
or you could simply ask them, since I'm just
learning about the role, I'm still
evaluating my expectations, what is the range for this position?
Then as long as your bottom line is included in that range,
you can say, yep, that works for me
without providing more insight on where you'd
like to fall in that range.
For more information on how to answer what are your salary
expectations, be sure to check out this video right here.
Tip three, in later rounds, get more
specific about your desired salary.
If you're sensing that an offer is close,
you can get more specific about your salary expectations.
That's because you've had time to demonstrate
your unique value, and you're no longer completely replaceable.
If the topic of salary comes up with the hiring manager,
it's wise to provide some general information
so that your offer isn't a total lowball.
But, again, remember since no offers on the table, this
isn't an official negotiation.
Therefore, your comments should be short and sweet.
There's no need to justify anything.
The tip here is provide a specific number, not
a salary range.
Since employers will default to the bottom number of your range
anyway, stick with providing just one number
that you're targeting.
In reality, this number should be 8% to 15% higher
than your ideal number that you're keeping to yourself.
At this stage you can say, I'm looking for around x.
Now for the fun part, let's talk about how to negotiate
when you have an offer in hand.
Tip number four, after an offer, negotiate
by sharing your value.
You have very little power until an offer is provided.
Then things change.
After long expensive interviewing process,
the employer has decided that they want you.
You are the best one for the role.
If things don't work out with you, they have to, one,
give up their favorite pick and to get
things going with another candidate, which
takes a lot of work.
However, they aren't the only ones invested.
You probably want to work for them too.
So there's a psychological game going on,
where both sides in the negotiation
have a pretty solid unspoken salary
figure in mind for the job and things
to lose if an agreement isn't met.
In this game, a win will be the compromise
that results from a calm, confident,
and professional discussion.
Any numbers you share should have rationale behind them,
whether it's based on market research,
or due to my professional certification,
or to satisfy my living expenses.
These reasons are harder for an employer
to argue against, because they're
true and grounded in data.
Make sure you share your information
on any graduate degree, internships,
work accomplishments, and professional certifications
you've earned that could save the employer money, time,
or other resources.
For example, if you hold the PMP, which
is a Project Management Professional certification,
you can see I've earned and maintained
my PMP certification.
As a result, I believe I'll be able to get settled
into the role quickly, and you don't
need to spend time or money to train me on effective project
management.
Tip five, use leverage.
At any point in negotiating an offer,
it's wise to use the leverage you have,
but this is especially the case if the employer isn't budging
based on your presentation of market research
and your professional value.
So if you're evaluating multiple offers, say so.
This signals that you're a hot commodity.
It's not necessary to share how much the employers are
offering, unless it's higher and your seriously considering
taking the other job, but do disclose
how many offers you have, or even
if you're in the late interviewing stage
with another company.
The goal here is to put some pressure
on the employer to up their offer if they really want to.
Tip six, if you don't have leverage,
consider diplomatically implementing
negotiation tactics.
While these are helpful for everyone,
these are especially important for those
who don't have leverage.
However, keep in mind that with the wrong tone or wording,
all of these tactics are easily identifiable
and can come across as insincere or aggressive.
Never demand.
Instead, subtly suggest, request, ask, or explore.
Set a positive tone.
If you both out of the gate with a demand to increase salary,
it may make your potential employer feel
like there is no desire for a compromise that
is truly mutually beneficial, and you can't
negotiate with a brick wall.
The best negotiations are team efforts
where two parties come together around a solution.
So start out by expressing your excitement and gratitude
for the opportunity.
Increase their interest in working with you
by demonstrating humility, professionalism, and enthusiasm
for the opportunity.
Start out with giving.
If you're going to make an ask, you
can consider demonstrating that you're already
conceding on the ask that they're making a view.
This could look something like, I'm used to x benefits,
but I'm willing to accept y, because I'm
so excited for the role, or I didn't
realize this job would require as well as b.
But given this wonderful company,
I'm willing to take that on.
Whether it's one big thing or several small things.
It's up to you and how significant of an ask you
you're making, but showing that you're giving does two things.
It creates an invisible debt.
You're explaining that, although, you're
grateful for the opportunity, it isn't
a perfect offer, where the only issue is a bit of salary.
If the employer thinks everything's great,
except for the salary, they may not
think it's important to listen to your request.
So by acknowledging and not complaining about things
that you're seeing as yourself giving on,
it suggests that when it comes to salary,
it's their turn to give back.
And it shows that you're flexible.
You're already demonstrating that you're
willing to work with them.
So if you're ask is too much, you've
opened up other options for them to negotiate on.
Create time pressure.
Of course, if you have the leverage of another offer
deadline that you need to respond to,
you can and should directly share that.
However, if this is your only offer,
it has to be done subtly, almost like a throwaway comment.
Something like, if we can tap on XYZ to this offer, done,
I'd sign right now.
The simple introduction of a quick and easy end
to negotiation can be enticing enough
to increase a desire to close the deal.
Think creatively.
So what if they say no.
If you're still interested in the job,
but want something more get creative.
Remember a hard no on any request,
be it from them or you, it's an opportunity
to find a yes somewhere else.
So if they won't meet your salary goal,
you can consider accepting if they change something else,
whether it's bonus, PTO, retirement,
or stock options, health insurance, tuition
reimbursement.
Benefits can translate into real dollars
that get you close to that desired salary,
be a different means.
Here's another example.
You could ask for a three to six month reward.
Request a commitment in writing from the employer
that if you perform really well in the first few months
on the job, you'll receive a bonus, raise, promotion,
review, or some type of added perk,
maybe like additional PTO.
There's a million different ways to creatively bargain.
So don't be afraid to pose out-of-the-box solutions.
Even, if they say no, a suggestion
would show willingness to find a shared solution.
Most of all, if you find yourself still
stuck after much negotiation, remember, you can walk away.
Hold true to your value and don't sell yourself short,
especially when it comes to salary.
All right, let's quickly recap what we've covered today.
Before your first interview, set your bottom line
and target salary, but keep these to yourself.
Reflecting on the market and your professional value
are critical steps.
In early rounds, state general about your salary expectations.
You have no leverage yet.
So try to avoid giving them a reason to eliminate you.
In later rounds, get more specific
about your desired salary.
If salary comes up, sharing a rough number above your target
salary is the safest way to go.
After an offer begin negotiations and back up
your value.
Use leverage.
If you have other job offers, let them know.
If you don't have leverage, lean into other negotiation tactics.
Set a positive tone.
Show that you're giving.
Create some time pressure and think creatively.
Please hit the Like button down below
if you found this video helpful.
And you can subscribe to our channel right here.
For more tips on interviewing, I'd
recommend checking out this playlist here.
And to increase your powers of persuasion,
check out this video on body language.
Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.