How to Effectively Negotiate Your Salary (Part Two)
If you missed Part One in this series, start here. Now you know your absolute minimum acceptable salary and your target salary.
Let’s get down to brass tacks:
1: When Should I Start Actually Negotiating?
Start negotiating your salary once you’ve been offered the job. It is not a good idea to start negotiating your salary before you’re actually offered the job. Think about it from the employer’s point of view: “we haven’t even decided if we definitely want this person on our team, and they already want to start telling us how much we should pay them?” It can come off as presumptuous or arrogant, and people generally don’t want such a person on their team.
What you should do prior to receiving a job offer is establish what the anticipated salary range is for the position. Imagine jumping through the hoops of a phone screen, potentially a sample assignment or technical assessment, and in-person interview that could take up an entire day, only to arrive at the job offer 2–6 weeks after your initial application and discover that the job is paying $30,000 less than your minimum acceptable salary. (!) It’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to bring up the offer enough to meet your baseline, and then you’ve wasted a huge amount of both your time and the employer’s. If it’s not listed in the job posting, it’s much better to inquire about the anticipated salary range for the position in the earlier stages of the interview process (on a phone screen, for example).
This works both ways: the employer has a similar interest in making sure they’re not wasting their time interviewing someone whose salary requirements are far above what they can pay. This is why it’s so common for job applications to ask you to list your salary requirements, or worse—your salary history.
2: Should I Disclose my Salary History?
No. Nope. Non. Niet. Nein. Nu-uh. Nosirreebob.
But seriously—do not disclose your current pay or your salary history prior to a job offer. First of all, it’s irrelevant. The job is worth some figure within the market rate for that role, taking into account the skills, background, and experience of the person doing it—none of which has anything to do with your salary history. Secondly, particularly for anyone who’s been underpaid (and there continues to be a meaningful gender & race wage gap), it can only hurt you. And what if you actually had no idea you were underpaid? You’ll never know what kind of offer you could get if you’re content to reveal your current or past salary to a potential employer as a measuring-stick by which to determine how much to pay you. Employers may use that information to establish a percentage raise against your old salary—sometimes there are even internal company guidelines on this.
recruitHER co-founder Ashley Doyal more than doubled her salary when switching jobs partly by declining to reveal her salary history. And even if you made more money in your current or prior role, and you suppose it might help provide a reason that you should be paid more, the employer may instead view it as evidence that you’re unwilling to accept something in the expected salary range for the role and instead use your salary history as a reason not to offer you the job. So you can’t win. Or if you can, you’re playing very small odds. (Listen to recruitHER co-founders Ashley & Gina hold forth on this at length in their interview with Cristen & Caroline of Stuff Mom Never Told You.)
What about salary requirements, though? This is a different story. You can essentially take one of two approaches: A) Defer the conversation and explain that you’re willing to accept something within market rate for the role. B) Explain that, based on your research into market rates, you expect a position like this to pay somewhere between X and Y dollar amounts, where X is no less than your minimum acceptable salary. Obviously, you should have already done said research and know your numbers prior to taking either approach.
3: What Else Can I Ask For?
People can easily make the mistake of focusing solely on base salary as the end point of the negotiation. In fact, base salary should be the starting-point of your negotiation!
The entire concept of negotiation means that you may be willing to give something up in exchange for something else. See if you can identify things that are easy for the employer to say “yes” to, and that are valuable to you. Are you willing to give up some base salary in exchange for more equity? Could you start the job sooner if they can raise their offer by another $3,000? If they can’t raise the base salary offer any higher, could they provide a relocation package to seal the deal?
The wonderful thing about negotiating items other than base salary is the opportunity for creative thinking—for crafting items that would be of genuine value to you. If you’ve suffered under a string of trendy or obscure job-titles, negotiate a different job title! If parking near the office is going to be a pain, negotiate a paid parking spot or public transportation stipend! There are dozens of articles out there to give you ideas.
4: What If They Refuse to Increase Their Offer?
If you’ve gone back and forth and your potential future employer has refused to go any higher on their salary offer, you have a choice to make. If the offer is below your minimum acceptable salary, think long and hard about the risk in taking a job that pays less than you really need to live on. Could you get a better offer somewhere else? If so, you probably want to pass on the current offer.
If the offer is above your minimum acceptable salary but below your target (and you feel like you really deserve more), you’ll have to decide whether the additional benefits and perks you’ve negotiated are enough to make up for the difference in lost wages. And again: could you get a better offer somewhere else? It can feel pretty crappy to accept a job you’re otherwise excited about but feel disappointed when you look at your paycheck every two weeks. Over time, (if you can’t get a raise that makes you happy) that disappointment can build into resentment, and then you’re probably back on the job market again, looking for a company that will pay you what you know you’re worth.
Finally, if you’re unhappy with a final offer, ask for a couple days to think it over before giving them your decision. You’ll need that time to do some real reflection, and it gives them an opportunity to come back and raise it a little more—in case they were bluffing and start to worry that you’ll turn them down. (But don’t count on that happening!)
I Have More Questions!
Sweet, we’d love to help! If you’re wondering:
- Who should be the first person to name a figure?
- How can I use a range to bolster the final offer?
- What do I do if they offer me more than my wildest dreams right out of the gate? Just take it?
- How can I make sure my future boss doesn’t get unhappy with me for negotiating?
On Wednesday, May 18th from 12:30–1:30pm Central, recruitHER co-founder Dr. Gina Helfrich will be addressing these questions as well as the methods that women can use to avoid backlash against being (gasp!) A Woman Who Negotiates.
Register here (all genders welcome!) or email coaching@recruither.io for personalized, one-on-one help.
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