How to Negotiate Salary?

Either you’re looking for a promotion at work or looking for a better job outside. No matter, where you are in your career journey, you want to have a high salary. But why do most of the people don’t get the decent salary they want? Why they end up settling at average or below average salary? What’s missing? To get a better salary, a person must do upfront good salary negotiation. With proper negotiation, a person can increase his/her chances to get higher salary. In this article, I will be sharing with you some of the tips and techniques that may help you for a better salary negotiation.

Preparation

Perform a detail research for the company, in which you are applying for a job. By exploring glassdoor.com, salary.com, or using your informal networks, find out how much average salary specific company is offering to their new employees for the same job classification. Ask your recruiter, how long does it take to find a good candidate? With this knowledge, you will be better prepared for salary negotiation.

“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate" - ― John F. Kennedy

BATNA [Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement]

For a better salary negotiation, person must have a strong BATNA. Your BATNA can be 1) having multiple offers on hand, or 2) possibility of a promotion in the current job. Strong BATNA would give you a strong fallback plan. Normally, you don’t have to mention your BATNA during initial salary negotiation. But as you advance in negotiation process, you may disclose and ask to address your concerns and demands. In case, if salary negotiation does not go the way you want, you can always select your best BATNA.

Negotiation Strategies:

A) Box in technique:

Recruiter may ask you “how much salary you are looking for ?” Don’t answer this question, instead say “I don’t have specific number in my mind, but based on my education, experience, and expertise, I would like to get a better competitive offer from you”. By not providing a clear number, you have prepared a good negotiation zone.

B) Anchoring technique:

Most recruiters may use Anchoring techniques at some point, and provide you a convincing story and sell you a salary range, and try to put you in a higher spectrum. Example “ We normally offer between 90K and 120K, but you are very talented candidate, so I will offer you $115K plus $5K bonus”. Be careful with this anchoring technique, it just hides the true salary range. You should not say “Yes or No”, instead say “I will think about it”, take some time and wait for recruiter to call you back. When recruiter calls you, just explain you are looking for more, don’t provide a clear number, and try to push recruiter with a higher number. Once you reach the number that you like, make sure to negotiate on vacation, signing bonus and other perks.

Quick decision:

After completing your final / face-to-face interview, recruiter or hiring manager may push you make a quick “Yes or No”” decision providing a verbal salary offer.. Again, don’t rush. Take your time and delay the decision, just say “I would think about it”. By delaying decision, you are increasing chances of high salary, because company has already invested huge time in interview process, and selected you. So now you can easily ask $10K+ more than the starting offer, and I assure they will be happy to increase the amount. As per our research, it takes around 15K to hire a new candidate, and as long as you are in a reasonable salary range, you would have a better chance to get the higher salary.

“In life you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.” ― Krishna Sagar

Multiple options:

If in case, you hit the wall and salary negotiations are not going your way, then start suggesting multiple options like: 1) increase in vacation days, 2) increase in signing bonus or 3) increase in relocation package, etc.

It’s always up to you, how much and how far you want to go in negotiation process. Please do keep in mind that this is a very delicate balance. In this process, you may be working with your hiring manager, so please make sure you consider a relationship and interest first, and then focus on negotiating the salary amount.

“Any negotiation has a limit. Otherwise, war is irrelevant.” ― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

I hope these tips would work for you, and you get a better outcome in your next salary negotiation.

If you want to know more, then please contact me at info@itexps.com