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Salary Negotiation Tips For Everyone

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  • Jul 4th, 2011 3:40 am
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Mar 24, 2005
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Salary Negotiation Tips For Everyone

Hi Everyone,

I decided to start a new thread to share some thoughts, advice and guidance on salary negotiations and juggling multiple offers/interviews for everyone, in response to an earlier thread. Read if this interests you but please note, I do not intend on providing further advice and comments on here as I do lead a busy life.

Thanks are appreciated.

Disclaimer: I am in no way a certified expert or trainer - speaking on personal experiences and own education. This thread is intended only to serve as a guide. While the topic of discussion is more suited for people with a lot of experience, many of these concepts can be applied to people with only very little experience - this is dependent on the value you bring to the table. For fresh grads, these concepts can also be used as well, considering what school you are from, what designations you have, GPA, co-op or internship experience, etc.

My Credentials (as of 2017): Managing Director at a Global Consulting Firm with an income in the top 1% of earners in Canada.

Original Thread:
http://forums.redflagdeals.com/juggling ... s-1054977/
rofl wrote: It seems everytime I'm looking for a job, I go through a dry spell for a month or two. Then all the offers and interviews come at once. Right now, I have 2 offers on the table and I have 3 or 4 interviews on the go. I know I should just settle on one but both offers are just what I would expect interms of salary. How should I leverage these offers/interviews to get a high salary without the offer getting pulled back?
I've handled many salary negotiations in the past including juggling between multiple high profile offers. To successfully negotiate a higher salary you're going have to know some concepts of negotiation - i.e. what is their position and what is your position. What is at stake here? Are you being considered for a senior level position? Is the market in high demand with someone with your specific experience and skillsets? Is it hard to find someone like yourself? Is the employer willing to do what it takes to get superstars into their organization? Are you willing to walk away if the offer falls below expectations? Is the position that you're applying for have a very high value market demand? Have you already given up valuable information in terms of what you make right now and/or what your salary expectations are? You also have to know when to expose your salary figures (i.e. what you're making or what you're expecting - different strategies) depending on the type of negotation you want to do. There's also position taking as well - who comes up with the first number - remember, it's easier to come down on a number than to go up a number. One important factor is, knowing what the fair market value is for the industry you are applying for and where the company stands in terms of paying that value or higher. These are just some of the things you're going have to consider when negotiating for a higher salary - you have to look at what is the appetite for negotiation here.

Some other things you're going have to realize is that if you approach them NOW, after they have presented an offer to you, your power to negotiate is not very strong. When someone first approaches you, or when you first interview with them, you should always tell them up front that you are considering other options but you are very interested in this particular opportunity - which is TRUE (you're not just shopping at 1 store now are you?). As the process continues, be sure to offer them the status of your other discussions with competing companies. All this sets the stage for you to leverage this information later on, if you find yourself in a negotiation. Going to them NOW makes it look like you are bluffing - which in many cases, people try to do in a weak attempt to squeeze more money out of the employer. Most employers will budge a little bit - others will stand firm stating this is the most they are willing to pay. Employers recognize it is very common for candidates to try and negotiate for the best they can get. Of course, if the employer already came in at your expectations, then you really should not negotiate any further. There are other leading indicators that you can do, to create a sense of urgency and a sense of demand for your particular skill sets. Of course, this can only be *sold* to prospective employers if you have an impressive resume that makes it believeable that you will be in a situation where you will get competing offers. Sure, you can always tell the employer last minute that the "situation" has changed but it lacks a lot of punch when you show up last minute like that - even if that is the truth.

If you are indeed a superstar, then getting multiple offers will come naturally anyway - it's just how well you communicate that process to prospective employers, so they can up their bids. When entering negotiations, you will be expected at some point to give up your position - how well you do this is going to depend on how much you're willing to gamble, take risk, and how much you're willing to walk away from it - it's going to be a combination of all of these.

My advice to you? Because you failed to communicate about the potential for competing offers to come your way (i.e. earlier tell them you are in the final stages of interview already but no firm offer yet), and because you did not lay the ground work earlier on in terms of numbers, it's going to be a LOT harder to raise the salary at this late in the game - the companies you have applied for have taken the first position, so you being in the second position is going have to fight hard to raise that number. The best you can hope for at this point, is a small, slight increase from the initial offer, if any.

Future advice? Be the first to do position taking - a lot tougher to do but with salary resources out there on the internet (e.g. glassdoor, careerbliss, etc), and you knowing the industry, the market, the demand, the appetite for the company and knowing what you're worth, it's all going to come down to an art and a skill.

There's a lot of misconceptions about what is out there on the internet about salary negotiations - what you read is true but what you don't read about is when to take the first position. Yes, you never reveal your current salary nor should you ever reveal your salary expectations - not early anyway. But there will come a point, futher down the line, where someone is going have to start talking numbers. When that happens, you take the first position by throwing a number out there. Now, there are other times when you may want to throw the number out there first, early on - Only do this if you are entering a new negotiation, and you already have talked numbers with another company and are expecting an offer soon. This gives you an extremely strong position to start with and you'll need to communicate how quickly that company will need to turn things around. Yes, companies want time to shop but if they find the right candidate, they can turn things around fairly quickly - regardless of the size of the company of their geographical make up. Of course, in this situation, you want to throw a higher number first, and see if they bite. This of course, is a lot more risky because it's sending a message that "if you want me, you're going have to fight for me". Consider whether or not that company can just as easily drop you and look for someone else - or if you are considered a rare commodity and that company really wants to hire you or not. Is the second company the one you REALLY want to work for? In that case, you may not want to take such a risky bet.

So, after all your ground work is laid out and you are presented with multiple offers - the one thing you're going have to be concerned with is the deadlines of each. From there, it comes down to the opportunity, the base salaries of each, the total compensation package, benefits, vacation, etc... by now it's just a matter of choosing which offer.

What a lot of people don't realize, is that the negotiation process should occur before the offer - not after. By the time the offer comes, it's pretty damn late to do much about it. But if you've laid the ground work and have negotiated some numbers earlier on already, and you get multiple offers that you're juggling with, you can go back to the one company you want to go with and throw a counter offer and state the grounds for it. Leverage the salary offers that you are getting from other companies - be sure not to expose the company name if you were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement before offers are presented to you.

Hopefully, I've given everyone who's taken the time to read this a lot of food for thought.
Last edited by Coke355mL on Jul 1st, 2011 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
9 replies
Sr. Member
Jul 13, 2009
932 posts
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Good post.

Any thoughts on salary negotiations for a raise/promotion after you've already been at a job for a while?
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Mar 7, 2008
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I like your post!

But haven't grab the concept of getting a higher salary yet....

I have been working for 4 yrs now and have consider applying for other positions outside of my current employer. Do you suggest to discuss salary doing interview? b/c once the interview is over, the company will either make you a offer with dollar value or simply reject you as a candidate. If so, what's the approach in discussing salary doing the interview? The goal is to get top dollar.
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Apr 1, 2006
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I appreciate the time taken by the OP to write this. All credit given for experience, because I don't have a whole lot in negotiation. But it is something I am passionate about; reaching mutually wise agreements.

That said, OP, have you ever heard of or read the book "Getting to YES" by Roger Fisher? Its honestly a great book about ALL types of negotiation, not just salary. It's based upon research in the Harvard Negotiation Project and focuses on Principled Negotiation, not positional. It's used as a reference in many MBA negotiation classes.

Your post alludes to several of the points in the book (knowing your value, etc), but I think it could be strengthened with some of the techniques discussed in the book. Anyone else read it and can comment?
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Mar 24, 2005
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Excellent recommendation Truemana.

I've taken negotiation classes that required us to read "Getting to Yes" - a wonderful book. I downloaded an audiobook instead and listened to it on my commute to work - a great way to utilize your time if you have a long commute and to be honest, I find I have very little spare time elsewhere to commit to learning. That book helped me shape the way I negotiate. I myself, should do another re-read and continuously improve my approaches, now that I have developed some of my own srategies that worked for me.

There's a lot of techniques and concepts in the art of negotiation and developing what works for you will take time to develop. I highly recommend that book for people to read, to help you develop some of the thought process when you are negotiating. Yes, you should do your negotiations based on principals - it's important to recognize that everyone has a position and I agree, it's not how you should be negotiating - it's the principals you negotiate with - hence, all the questions I laid out at the beginning of my post that people should think about before entering negotiations. The position taking reference in my post is specific to talking numbers only. People should determine what aspects of the opportunity are at stake and determine your total power to negotiate. People should not talk numbers until later on in the process, when you can guage more accurately, the level of interest from the employer.

When speaking to principal based negotiation, you have to demonstrate your knowledge of the market, the industry, and the demand. Additionally, you discuss what value proposition you will bring to the company, and you can only do that by identifying what needs that company has. This is why it is so important to discuss and ask a lot of questions to probe and understand where that organization is at, where they want to be, their pain points and challanges, and you, as the solution. People often focus on interviews and think about how to answer questions (using certain models like explaining the situation, opportunity, what you did, the results).... But people often forget to ask and address the main reason why you are there in the first place - identify the company's problem(s) and how you are the solution.
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Mar 7, 2008
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Interestingly, I had read a book call "Persuasion" by Jame Borg and it really change the way I do things, such as in a meeting.
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Sep 9, 2005
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This is not a thread meant for grads negotiating fresh out of school. OP should put some sort of disclaimer that this thread is meant for senior/management level job offers.. People with 5+ years experience in their field absolute minimum.

Someone is going to read this thread and start talking numbers during their first interview and not get a call for the next one. "y u cost me job and life RFD?!" they will wonder, only no one will care.
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Sr. Member
Jul 5, 2006
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eightyeight wrote: This is not a thread meant for grads negotiating fresh out of school. OP should put some sort of disclaimer that this thread is meant for senior/management level job offers.. People with 5+ years experience in their field absolute minimum.

Someone is going to read this thread and start talking numbers during their first interview and not get a call for the next one. "y u cost me job and life RFD?!" they will wonder, only no one will care.

Haha... people who lack reading comprehension may have those complaints... but the op's post makes it clear that how much you can negotiate depends on how "valuable" you are. I thought it was pretty good info, some that I'll definitely be putting to use next time I move jobs (and some that I realized after going through my last salary negotiation... live and learn!).
Member
Feb 2, 2010
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eightyeight wrote: This is not a thread meant for grads negotiating fresh out of school. OP should put some sort of disclaimer that this thread is meant for senior/management level job offers.. People with 5+ years experience in their field absolute minimum.

Someone is going to read this thread and start talking numbers during their first interview and not get a call for the next one. "y u cost me job and life RFD?!" they will wonder, only no one will care.

I agree with this, but with some smaller companies, I find it easier to negotiate salary. It's only with big companies (ie: Banks, corporations) that have a standard non-negotiable salary with entry-level positions.
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Mar 24, 2009
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eightyeight wrote: This is not a thread meant for grads negotiating fresh out of school. OP should put some sort of disclaimer that this thread is meant for senior/management level job offers.. People with 5+ years experience in their field absolute minimum.

Someone is going to read this thread and start talking numbers during their first interview and not get a call for the next one. "y u cost me job and life RFD?!" they will wonder, only no one will care.


I have only been in my field a little over 4 years...but I successfully negotiated my own salary and also spearheaded a group effort in negotiating the bonus payout of an entire division. Many of my colleagues and former colleagues also successfully negotiated their own salary levels. In fact, I don't know of a single person at my previous employer who DIDN'T try to negotiate when applying for new jobs.

You don't have to have 5 years of experience to be sought-after. A high performer can be spotted by management within 6 months. Depending on the industry, word can spread pretty fast.

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