The University of St. Thomas

Job Offers & Salary Negotiation

JOB OFFERS AND SALARY NEGOTIATION

Before you can consider any salary negotiation, you must have an offer. If the employer perceives a fit between you and the organization, he or she is likely to make an offer. But what will you need to decide if this is the best offer for you at this time? What if there is more than one offer? What if all offers you have on the table are really good ones? This is where you go back to your criteria.

Criteria

Before you start a job search, identify your criteria. These often reflect your values in some prioritized way. What some criteria might be:

  • Travel or time away from home
  • Hours-either the number of them or the flexibility around them
  • Money
  • Enjoyment from using your preferred skills in an organization that values them
  • Alignment of your values and those of the organization
  • Health care
  • Child or eldercare
  • Profit sharing
  • Company car, cell phone, laptop, or other similar resource
  • Vacation, parental or sick time policies
  • Opportunities to develop, to add new skills
  • Opportunities to advance or take on responsibility
  • Culture within an organization that matches your style of working

Make your list of criteria and rate them from more to less important. Review this list frequently. Use it when an offer is extended. The opportunity offered might not meet all your criteria, but it must meet your most important criteria and many of the other factors that you listed.

Salary Research

Even before you begin your job search or salary upgrade discussion with your manager, you will need to do research. You want to know what the market says that your skills and experience are worth. You?ll want to get a sense for yourself about the value you bring to the negotiating discussion. Salary surveys are available in print and on-line. Since these are more national or regional in scope, you may want to talk with local colleagues or resources that can help you with the local market information.

The Offer

Your best bargaining position will be as the candidate the employer most wants to hire. If a hiring person expresses interest in you and starts talking about salary and benefits, you need to know if this is a job offer. Often it helps to just ask: ?Is this a job offer?? ?Are we talking about a job offer here?? If the answer is yes, then you are ready to move to the next phase of working out the details. And negotiating is part of working out the details. If it is not an offer, then sidestep a discussion of salary or compensation.

Negotiation Goals

The most successful negotiations are those which result in a win-win situation for both sides. The hiring agent wants to feel as if they?re getting value for their dollar and you want to feel that the worth of your skills, knowledge, and experience is acknowledged by your compensation. This is why it is so important to do the research and get a realistic sense of the market and what it will pay for various skill sets.

With your market knowledge, identify a range from which you will negotiate. Know your bottom, know the market?s likely top, and be willing to walk away if you can?t get a reasonable accommodation!

Let the hiring manager state the salary range allocated for the position. That will give you the advantage. You may need to do some maneuvering to get this range or a specific figure because the hiring agent will want you to declare first what your salary expectations are.

The only defense you have for bargaining for more is what you bring to the table. You need to consistently be highlighting what both you and the potential employer already know: you are the preferred candidate because you are bringing a unique combination of assets to the position. State these assets in as many ways as you can!

When you sense the salary negotiations are stalling you could:

  • Reiterate what you?ve agreed on thus far and suggest a time out
  • Move beyond salary and ask about other benefits
  • Start to bring the discussion a little farther by summarizing and asking; ?Is this your final offer?? Then be silent and wait!
  • Express your continued interest in joining the organization and ask for time to think about the cost/benefits. Ask for a meeting in another day or two.
  • Decide to withdraw and thank the other person for their time, interest and effort. You don?t want to burn any bridges.

If the salary is fixed, has little room for stretching, or barely meets your bottom line figure, remember the total compensation package. You can bargain for these and should think ahead of time about what would be acceptable if the salary is not. Go back to your criteria. Would more vacation, a larger share of stock options, a flexible schedule, including work at home be acceptable trade-offs for the lower salary? Might you ask for a review in 6 months instead of a year with a concurrent salary increase or bonus to meet your needs? What about a sign-on bonus? Nothing is so set that it can?t become part of the negotiation process.

ITEMS TO CONSIDER IN NEGOTIATION FOR A JOB

  1. Salary
  2. Benefits
    • Vacation
    • Life/health
    • Pension
    • Stock options
    • Dental/vision
    • Child care on site/off
    • Mileage
    • First Class Travel
    • Product discounts
    • Toward relocation:
      • Multi cars
      • Apartment
      • Closing costs
      • Buy out
      • Storage
      • Mortgage differential
      • Home visits
      • House hunting trips
  3. Other Negotiable Benefits:
    • Training/conferences
    • Tuition reimbursement
    • Professional membership fees
    • Social club membership
    • Company car/phone
    • Computer for home/modem
    • Flex hours/job share
    • Telecommuting
    • Bonus Package
    • Support Services
    • Salary review 3-6 months
    • Outplacement assistance
    • Golden parachute
    • Professional insurance
    • Summer employment for kids
    • Clothing allowance
    • % Interest in the business
    • Cost of living adjustments

IMPORTANT ISSUES TO CONSIDER DURING JOB NEGOTIATION

Timing: Be sure to negotiate only after an offer has been made to you.
Premature negotiation may have poor results.

Self Confidence: The more self-confidant you are, the better you will be able to make a case for yourself.

Know the Company: Learn the culture, research the salary structure, and do your homework.

Have a Strategy: Make a list of your wants, likes, will-live-withouts. Demonstrate a willingness to give on some items.

Risks: By not negotiating, you may appear like a weak candidate; in rare instances, negotiations have stalled out.

Warm Up: Negotiations with your potential boss will give you both insights about your ability to give and take and operate in a win/win atmosphere.

Ask Questions: Ask questions about how they arrived at the items in the offer; hearing their logic in the decision may give you clues about logical alternative ways to see the situation.

Distance: The less attached you are, the more relaxed you?ll be in the exchange.

Time: Ask for the offer in writing and a reasonable time to think about the offer.

HELPFUL NEGOTIATING PHRASES

Responses to the question, ?What are your salary expectations?? when the question is asked before an offer is made:

I?m sure when the time comes; we?ll be able to work out a fair compensation package. For now, if you don?t mind, I prefer to focus on whether we really have a match here.

To be honest with you, I feel uncomfortable discussing money right now because I don?t want to box myself in or screen myself out prematurely. First, I?d like to know more about the position and its responsibilities.

I imagine that the company has already established a salary range for the position. What is this range?

Can you tell me what range you?ve budgeted for the position? Can you tell me how you arrived at that number? (Listen to needs, priorities!)

It would be easier for me to discuss my salary needs if I understood more about the job and how my qualifications might fit. Could we discuss the position in more detail?

I can tell you how much I was earning but until I know more about the responsibilities of this particular job, I can?t really tell you how much I?m looking for here. (Separate past earnings from future income; useful when looking for higher earnings)

Based on my understanding of the market value for the position, I would expect my compensation to be in the range of _____.

Response to a failed counter offer:

Why do you feel my offer won?t work for you?

Response when negotiations are locked:

We?re getting stuck on the numbers; let?s back up and look at the responsibilities a little more closely (indicate flexibility, desire to learn more; later revisit compensation when your negotiating position is stronger).

SOME RESOURCES FOR SALARY INFORMATION

Print Resources:

  • American Salaries and Wages Survey, Helen S. Fisher, Gale Research Inc.
  • American Almanac of Jobs and Salaries, John W. Wright, Avon Books
  • Area Wage Survey: State of MN, Twin Cities and Surrounding, MN Dept. of Labor
  • Directory of Business Periodical Special Issues, compiled by Trip Wyckoff
  • Dynamite Salary Negotiations, Ronald and Caryl Rae Krannich, Impact Publications
  • How to Make $1,000 a Minute, Jack Chapman with Steve Sanders, Ten Speed Press
  • Job Hunting for Dummies, Max Messmer, IDG Books
  • NBEW Interviewing, Arlene S. Hirsch, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  • Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Department of Labor, Publisher
  • Wyatt Data Services (1994-1995) Series of salary data from top management to office personnel
  • Trade or Professional Associations

Internet addresses (sampling):

For a fee you may call: (312) 472-5279 (312-4-SALARY)