Fearless Salary Negotiation
Josh Doody’s Fearless Salary Negotiation provides explicit rules of thumb that increase a negotiating employee’s sense of psychological safety and enables them to advocate for increased pay. The advice does not apply for executives, or for early start-up employees. There are 4 useful recommendations:
- Define a Minimum Acceptable Salary
- Protect your last mover rights
- Ask for 10–20% extra
- Define an explicit path to a raise
1) Define a Minimum Acceptable Salary
You deserve to do this. Everyone has a number.
Feeling lost does not put you in a position of power. Without grounding, it is easy to give in and say “Yes” to things you do not want.
Even if you don’t know “how much you want”, “how much you think you deserve”, “how much you actually deserve” or “how much the company is willing to pay”, you can always know one thing “what is the absolute least amount of money you would take the job for”.
Start there. Now you have a floor to stand on, and it is much easier to define offers and feelings in relation to this figure.
If you are offered less than this number, say “No.”
2) Protect your last mover rights
They exist.
When an HR representative, prospective future manager, or pretty much anyone in the world asks you how much you are currently earning, you are socially, morally, and legally allowed to say “I’m not going to share what I am currently earning”.
Here is one socially reasonable response:
I’m not comfortable sharing what I’m currently earning, and I don’t have a specific number in mind — I’d like to leave the first offer to your team since you have a concrete sense of what the role entails and what value you think I will bring.
3) Ask for 10–20% more
See, now you don’t have to feel like you have no idea where to start
Assuming that the salary figure you are quoted is equal to or greater then your Minimum Acceptable Salary, the next question is:
How much more should I ask for?
This is a very reasonable question. Without any guidance, you might ask for an extra $1,000 and feel sheepish to ask for so little, but be scared that larger numbers are “crazy” or “harmful”.
Having a simple rule of thumb takes away some of these fears and provides confidence when requesting.
Just having the range of 10% — 20% makes the decision much easier. To figure out where within that range you should target, consider how much you think the company needs you and how much you need/want the job. In broad strokes use a floor of +10%, add (1% * how much they need you) and subtract (1% * how much you need/want the job).
4) Define an explicit path to a raise
Because it is better than not doing that
Can we please talk about what I need to do, specifically, to earn a raise of [defined raise amount]? Can we talk about how we will be able to measure if the pre-requisites are achieved?
Make the implicit, explicit. In some companies raises and promotions can feel like moving targets. Work with your manager to define exactly what is required to get a raise and how you will both know if the pre-requisites have been achieved. It sounds simple, and it is.
