Salary negotiation is like death and taxes. It’s inevitable.
If you are in the job interview process, at some point you will be asked the magical question that we all know is coming:
What sort of money are you looking for?
If you’re working with a recruiter, they have probably already told you to leave it up to them to negotiate salary and they will suggest that you tell the interviewer that you are there to talk about the job and that your recruiter should negotiate the salary on your behalf.
If the recruiter is smart, they will have already told the hiring manager that they will negotiate the salary too, so that the interviewer isn’t surprised when the candidate doesn’t answer the question themselves.
The thing is that many recruiters don’t really negotiate anything. They should know what the employer wants to pay for the job and will probably just tack a few thousand dollars on top of whatever salary number you told them you wanted in your next job. So if you told the recruiter that you wanted $50,000 and the recruiter knows that the job pays $50,000-$60,000, they will have already told the hiring manager that you want $55,000. That way, if you get $55,000 you’ll be super happy and will think that the recruiter is a magician. The hiring manager will be happy that they didn’t have to go all the way to $60,000 to secure you. Even if the hiring manager offers to split the difference and pay you say $52,500, both parties will be still be happy.
But often you don’t end up getting to this point because you were told by your friends and colleagues that the key to getting a job is to show flexibility. Employers want to hire people who are flexible you were told and when it comes to salary negotiation you show flexibility by quoting a salary range that you’d be happy with. When you’re asked about your salary requirements, instead of deferring the question to your recruiter as asked, you want to look flexible just like your friends told you.
When asked, you tell the hiring manager that you’re “looking for a salary of between $50,000 and $60,000.” What you’re thinking is “$50,000 would be ok but I’d really like $55,000 and would really, really like $60,000 so by stating this range, not only will I look flexible but the last words out of my mouth will be ‘$60,000’ and that will be the last thing the interviewer hears when I tell them my salary requirements and they’ll know that $60,000 is what I really want.”
Unfortunately, you had them at $50,000 and that’s when the interviewer stop listening. When you told them you’d be happy with a salary of between $50,000 and $60,000 they of course hear that you’d be happy with $50,000 and they’ll be happy to hire you at this rate so that they can tell their superiors that they just saved the company $10,000 in the process by hiring you for possibly less than you might otherwise be worth.
If you are using a recruiter for this job, the company also saved the extra money they’d have to pay the recruiter because a $50,000 salary for you typically means they then pay the recruiter less than what they’d have been paid to get you a salary of $60,000.
So now you have the choice of taking a job for $50,000 that you really wanted to do for $55,000 – and ideally $60,000 – or rejecting the offer, hoping they increase their offer to you, and hoping the recruiter won’t pester you by calling you at home begging you to take the job for $50,000. By the way, this is where caller ID comes in handy and if a blocked call comes through on your home phone or cellphone, it’s most likely your recruiter calling to pester you but not before having dialed *67 to block the call so you don’t know it’s them calling. Now you know.
The company probably won’t increase their offer to you and the recruiter will pester you at home and if they’re really motivated, they might have their boss get on the phone and strong arm you too.
So now you either accept the job at $50,000 and make the recruiter, their boss and your new company happy and live with the fact that you might be underpaid, or you reject the offer and try to find another job, probably just not with this recruiter or with this company.
In order to avoid this sort of situation, you really need to have a good idea of how you’re going to answer the question of “what sort of money are you looking for” before you go into the interview and understand that your answer once stated verbally, is usually written in stone.
When you’re using a recruiter, you also need to know who is going to actually going to negotiate salary, too. Is it you or the recruiter?
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