The ur-guide to salary negotiation is this one:
Salary negotiation advice, mostly for engineers. Running total of raises negotiated due to this essay: $15M+.
Disclaimers: it's written mainly for software engineers. It is kind of dismissive of creative fields, but I still suspect it'll work if you're very good at what you do. I'm not a software engineer, but I have found the advice generally applicable for me because I have a decently niche skillset that is pretty hard to replace.
Double disclaimer: whoops just realised I contradicted the post. Yes, salary negotiation is sometimes limited by industry. Some industries are bound by union/ enterprise agreements. The way to improve your salary at those places is to get involved with the union so you can have input into the enterprise agreement. That is a completely different negotiation game to this article so ignore everything and look for union-specific advice.
For industries, roles, or companies with that pay by "salary band", it's still applicable if you're not in the highest band yet. Instead of the specific number, focus on negotiating your way into the next band up. There may be a surprising amount of movement there.
For anyone who finds the authors's slightly tech-centric tone unbearable, here's my summary:
The aim of hiring anyone in any job is to increase revenue and/or decrease costs. Before even applying for the job, you must work out why they are hiring. How will that role increase revenue and/or decrease costs?
Be someone who has a track record/ reputation for increasing revenue/ decreasing costs. If you are good at your job, this will not be particularly hard. If you're a creative, you can use client testimonials, especially any that say they came for YOU or your portfolio specifically. If you're in sales, you can just use your sales performance. Figure out what the point of everything you're doing at your current job and put dollar values on them wrt to increasing revenue or decreasing costs
Get your job/interview offer through networking whenever possible. For the employer, wading through resumes from job seeking sites is horrible and they hate it. BGR has a good networking guide - use that
GET TO YES FIRST. Recruiting is a huge pain in the arse, so employees are often "sticky", plus those pesky laws that say you can sue if you're wrongfully dismissed. The people interviewing you are TERRIFIED that you're gonna be shit at the job and horrible to work with because it can be hard to get rid of someone who sucks (got any coworkers who suck? Yeah, they're scared you'll be That Guy). So at the interview, do your level best to get them to think "oh hell yes this person will make my life easier"
DO NOT GIVE NUMBERS UNTIL YOU GET TO YES. Just focus on the value you'll bring to the table. Use every trick in the book to dodge the question. Say you're flexible on the exact form of the compensation, you just want to focus on how you can be useful to them, what value you brought to your previous job, etc. If it's a webform, enter either $1 or $1,000,000. DON'T GIVE THE NUMBER!!
Once you get to yes, ONLY once you get to yes, start negotiating. When negotiating, keep in mind that typically in the USA, your total cost to the employer is something like 150% - 200% of what your salary package says, because on top of the salary they have to pay taxes, health insurance, payroll, and other overheads that you can't control. This means on their end they're not actually that sensitive to differences on the order of several thousand dollars because you're gonna cost them so frigging much anyway, so kicking an extra $2k or $5k your way isn't going to make a massive difference to their bottom line. EXCEPT IF THEY'RE RUN BY ASSHOLES! (who will refuse to give you something like that on principle).
If they won't negotiate, RUN (or be prepared to use it as a stepping stone, anyway). Salary negotiation is a really good way to screen if your prospective employer is an Asshole. If they refuse to negotiate, consider that a bullet dodged because that means they have a specific Attitude to their employees which will make working there really miserable. Employers who are willing to negotiate signal that they see you as a respected partner with unique talents, who will help them achieve business success and glory. Employers who aren't willing to negotiate signal that they see you as a disposable machine to be exploited as efficiently as possible!
Negotiation: DO NOT GIVE THEM A NUMBER FIRST. DO NOT GIVE THEM THE NUMBER. Let them come up with the number. If you give them a number, this instantly compromises your negotiating position. This was the key thing I did - and my employer gave me pretty much as much as he was willing to spend because as a prospect I'm already a Yes, but he needs me to actually Say Yes.
When you do hear the number, don't say yes right away. Say it's "interesting". If they're desperate (and because hiring is very dysfunctional this will be more often than you'd think), every day you fail to say yes costs them money, so they'll want to close the deal quickly. Use that to counteroffer, and use the above tricks - if they can't budge on the number, maybe they can shift on something else, etc. You must make it very clear that you'd LOVE to work with them but, y'know, you're a very valuable, in-demand professional, it's got to be worth it to you.
In white collar corporate environments hiring experienced professionals, sometimes managers actually get prestige if they ask for More budget, not less. If they're hiring creatives, for example, less budget means they could only get starving grads to apply. More budget means they managed to get some really in-demand superstar genius to sign up with them. They want to be managing Leonardo Da Vinci, not some nameless art school dropout. Paying you more will give their boss the impression that they've managed to hire someone awesome, ie you! (This only works if you carry yourself confidently, like how a superstar is supposed to behave)
Though I personally think this prev point is much more relevant for jobs that increase revenue E.g sales or people who make/ do stuff, not bookkeeping, audit or risk-management. Note that you can still be a profit centre even if your industry is mainly there to Do Maintenance rather than make new things/sales by applying to a business which provides this service to other businesses. E.g even though technically keeping tidy books is a cost to be reduced, if you work for a company that tidies other companies' books, you're now bringing in revenue.
Hopefully, happy ending - get paid what you're actually worth and everyone feels like they got a great deal!
andulkaphoto
romaincrisis
discoholicmusic
2087
jbbartram-illu
gummygunk
