Salary Negotitating

readtm88

What is the best way to go about negotiate your salary? Be it a raise, a job change or new position at a new company?

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dynamik

Show them why it's in their best interest to give you more money or responsibilities. Quantify what you have done for them (i.e. I've saved you x dollars by performing y).

If you're going to another company, tell them about how bad of an employee you've been and how much better off they'll be without you.

HeroPsycho

LOL!

A few tricks I've learned:

* Keep a work journal, and note down when you've done an exceptional job, or have gone above and beyond what is required. As mentioned before, quantify how much value you've brought to the company.

* When going for a job elsewhere, if required to provide information of previous salary, speak of it as your "total compensation package" and roll everything in addition to your salary into a number, and speak of it as if this is your current salary. For example, if you currently make 50,000, plus a company laptop ($1000), cell phone reimbursement of $75 a month (12 x 75 = 900), let's say 100% matching 401K for 5% of your salary ($2500), plus your current employer paid you $5000 to move to where this job is, then your "total compensation package" was $60,000, and then negotiate a salary that's a significant jump from there. Don't forget tuition reuimbursements, paying for exams, etc. A common tactic by potential employers is to offer you something significantly more than what you make, not what your market value is necessarily, so fight fire with fire this way back. Also, this helps you quantify better what you're really making before you jump ship to a job with higher salary but not as many benefits.

* Negotiate similar to how you negotiate a car.

Do's:

Know your market value.
Know the value of the job you do.
Especially when a prospective employer is offering bonuses, etc., negotiate each item of your compensation separately.
Ask for a bit higher of a salary than you think you can get, and then "compromise down" to the salary you were realistically targeting.
Know that there are other jobs out there, and be prepared to leave the job you have to get the money you want.
One time lump sums given to you upon being hired, try to negotiate that as a raise for the following year. For example, if your company paid for moving expenses, attempt to get that money as part of a salary increase. It sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

With that said:

Don't get threatening, indignant, angry, or give any indication or hints you're thinking about leaving to your current employer unless you have a documented offer of a job you are very certain is real and are willing to take. That includes if they screw you on raises!
Don't ask for outlandish, or unrealistic money.
Do not count any bonus as guaranteed, no matter how much your employer tries to convince you otherwise.
Don't let your employer or prospective employer deceive you about what is guaranteed or "projected" income.
Do not negotiate holistically your "total compensation package". Negotiate each item and get the most you can for each. Don't forget about asking for more training, more vacation time, etc. If an employer can't give you as big a raise as you deserve, they may be willing to make up for it in other ways.
Don't lowball yourself and ask for what you want in a salary or lower.
Don't ever take it personally. If you don't like offers or raises, remain cool and calm, and rationally assess the situation and what to do about it. That might mean look for another job, turn down the offer politely, or in the lack of the raise you wanted asking for what you can improve on and an earlier salary review than is normally given if you achieve the benchmarks outlined, etc.

royal

Excellent post HeroPsycho.

hetty

royal wrote:

Excellent post HeroPsycho.

famosbrown

HeroPsycho wrote:

LOL!

A few tricks I've learned:

* Keep a work journal, and note down when you've done an exceptional job, or have gone above and beyond what is required. As mentioned before, quantify how much value you've brought to the company.

* When going for a job elsewhere, if required to provide information of previous salary, speak of it as your "total compensation package" and roll everything in addition to your salary into a number, and speak of it as if this is your current salary. For example, if you currently make 50,000, plus a company laptop ($1000), cell phone reimbursement of $75 a month (12 x 75 = 900), let's say 100% matching 401K for 5% of your salary ($2500), plus your current employer paid you $5000 to move to where this job is, then your "total compensation package" was $60,000, and then negotiate a salary that's a significant jump from there. Don't forget tuition reuimbursements, paying for exams, etc. A common tactic by potential employers is to offer you something significantly more than what you make, not what your market value is necessarily, so fight fire with fire this way back. Also, this helps you quantify better what you're really making before you jump ship to a job with higher salary but not as many benefits.

* Negotiate similar to how you negotiate a car.

Do's:

Know your market value.
Know the value of the job you do.
Especially when a prospective employer is offering bonuses, etc., negotiate each item of your compensation separately.
Ask for a bit higher of a salary than you think you can get, and then "compromise down" to the salary you were realistically targeting.
Know that there are other jobs out there, and be prepared to leave the job you have to get the money you want.
One time lump sums given to you upon being hired, try to negotiate that as a raise for the following year. For example, if your company paid for moving expenses, attempt to get that money as part of a salary increase. It sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

With that said:

Don't get threatening, indignant, angry, or give any indication or hints you're thinking about leaving to your current employer unless you have a documented offer of a job you are very certain is real and are willing to take. That includes if they screw you on raises!
Don't ask for outlandish, or unrealistic money.
Do not count any bonus as guaranteed, no matter how much your employer tries to convince you otherwise.
Don't let your employer or prospective employer deceive you about what is guaranteed or "projected" income.
Do not negotiate holistically your "total compensation package". Negotiate each item and get the most you can for each. Don't forget about asking for more training, more vacation time, etc. If an employer can't give you as big a raise as you deserve, they may be willing to make up for it in other ways.
Don't lowball yourself and ask for what you want in a salary or lower.
Don't ever take it personally. If you don't like offers or raises, remain cool and calm, and rationally assess the situation and what to do about it. That might mean look for another job, turn down the offer politely, or in the lack of the raise you wanted asking for what you can improve on and an earlier salary review than is normally given if you achieve the benchmarks outlined, etc.

+2 Excellent post...I'll add that depending on how big your company is will determine who you are doing the negotiating with. Most small company's will have you negotiating a salary to stay with your supervisor or someone in your chain of command...this will be very risky and a little uncomfortable if you do come to an agreement, especially the employer knows that you have an offer from another company. This can be good or bad depending on your supervisor...he may want to reward you for your growth, but he might not want to spend more on salary for the budget he/she has been praised of having. Larger companies will have all of the salary negotiation done by the HR department, so this would be the ideal situation to really get what you want to stay and still be at peace with your chain of command (depends on situations).

undomiel

Great post HeroPsycho, just wanted to add this:

Get everything in writing, and I do mean everything, before you sign up for the job. I've looked over the fine print of a number of the jobs I've taken and all of them have in there that when you sign this document all verbal agreements made prior are now null and void. Now this doesn't mean that the employer won't follow through on the verbal agreements, but I've noticed that they always drop a detail here or there, usually relating to promised raises. Get your salary in writing, promised vacation days, benefits, pre-scheduled time off, job duties, anything and everything you can think of.

HeroPsycho

Yep, yep! Completely agree!

Also watch them trying to slip a non-compete in there.

And a little tip about non-competes. If they have you sign it after you have come aboard, it's null and void. They can't have you agree to a non-compete after you left your other job.

readtm88

how does a non-compete work?

If you make your living working in IT as an admin, how could any one say in a non-compete that you cannot make a living? I would not see how that could ever hold up. You still have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness regardless, right?

HeroPsycho

Non-competes are predominantly for consultants.

And in right to work states, they rarely hold legal water.

jbaello

I LOL at dynamik post

excellent advise heropsycho!

vistalavista

Do you think your answer in salary questions during an interview will affect your chances of landing a job?

undomiel

It could, but it all depends upon who is interviewing you and what answers you get. I got a call from a recruiter the other day and right off before asking me about what I'm looking for, what skills am I bringing to the table, discussing my resume whatsoever, he asks for my current salary information. Well I've decided that unless they can give me a really good reason I am not disclosing my salary information. I am sick and tired of being low balled all over the place. So I told him it was confidential. He repeated the question again incredulously and I gave him the same answer. So he told me to have a nice life and slammed down the phone, which kind of hurt my ears to be honest.

But that type of reaction is rare so far. Everyone else has respected my right to privacy and has been cool with it. Some people use salary information to gauge your skill level, and if you take that away then they'll have to actually look at your skills and gauge those instead of what your previous employer could get away with.