Negotiating salary has been a nightmare for many career aspirants or for the one who grab their first job. When you get a job through a campus drive, you go through many stages like Aptitude tests, Group discussions, technical interviews and then finally HR interview to prove your worth. So you absolutely deserve the right to negotiate your salary with dignity.
However when it isn’t a placement drive you can use your brag sheet of accomplishment and experiences as leverage to get the value you deserve. The most common mistake done by many aspirants is undermining their value and importance as an employee.
Negotiating salary is an important stage in any interview. It helps you establish your worth in the corresponding company. To ace that phase you have to be prepared way before the interview.
Before Interview
1. Know your pros.
Knowing your pros always acts as a benefit while negotiating a salary. Knowing pros helps you know yourself in a better manner. Helps your calculate your value.
2. Have a strategy to overcome your cons.
As you have your pros you will obviously have some cons. These don’t make you undeservable. The way you choose to tackle these cons make you even more worth it. Knowing your cons helps you decide how you want to present yourself.
3. Calculate your deservable value.
Now by keeping these pros and cons in mind try to calculate a value that you think you should deserve. This helps you get clarity of thoughts and ideas. This makes you gain some confidence and put a clear proposal in front of the recruiter.
4. Be prepared for tough questions.
As its your duty to look that you don’t get undervalued, its the recruiter’s duty to get the best possible deal for them. The recruiter will test you by asking tough questions like ‘do you have any other offer?’,’ Are we on your top priority?’ These questions wouldn’t seem hard but are asked to check if you get defensive.
The best advice here will be to be honest and never lie. If you lie it won’t only harm you in future but will also seem unprofessional and unethical.
5. Know the recruiter.
Knowing the recruiter’s needs always plays on our better side. This helps you plan your strategies about presenting yourself and helps you know where to focus while enlisting your skills.
6. Prepare your brag sheet.
A brag sheet is a list of your accomplishment and experiences which you intend to inform your recruiter about to increase establish a perfect value for yourself. Try to avoid sounding too conceited while talking about your achievements.
7. Know the exact number.
This will help you get clarity of ideas, know the target to negotiate and help you know when to walk out. The people who know the exact number tend to grab an offer close to their desired figure. This makes the employer think that you have done intense research to know your market value.
During Interview
1. Present your thoughts in organised way.
Presenting your thoughts in an organised way puts a light on your clarity of thoughts. An organised way will not only include your interests but also the recruiter’s interest to show that you will prove to be an useful asset for the company.
2. Ask for more than decided.
Ask for more than you want. This will help start at great foot in negotiating. Try to avoid ultimatums this will restrict your scope of negotiations.
3. Know when to walk away.
Be willing to turn down a offer that is very low than what you deserve. The recruiter will try to keep you on the position on weakness while negotiating but your willingness to walk away from an undermining offer can sometimes represent your strengths. It won’t be easy but it’s important to know when to say no.
4. Be confident.
Confidence is your armour while negotiating a salary. The recruiter will try to get your guard down to close best deal for the company but don’t stop until you get the desired number.
5. Don’t worry to ask questions about the responsibilities of offered positions.
This is a strategies used by many job aspirants to get a better hand in negotiation. Asking questions about the responsibilities of the offered position makes the recruiter release the importance of your requirement and gives us a better foot in negotiation phase.
E.g. If you are interviewing for a position of design engineer, you can ask the extent of analysis required for the job. You can ask about the projects that you will work on.
6. Focus on you as an asset to them.
The recruiter will try to use your past mistakes as a way to get away with one sided deal. Try to focus on your skills that will help the company in coming future. Try to convince them how you will be an asset for their company. Remember the brag sheet we prepared. This will be the perfect moment to use that sheet.
7. Don’t threaten them, Stay positive and avoid being pushy.
Threatening to leave and bragging about the offers you have is considered highly unprofessional. Don’t be rude while negotiating a salary. A recruiter sees for values like coordination and maturity. If your behaviour contradicts to his/her needs then it will surely put you in the position of weakness.
Try this instead- ” I have experienced that my scope of work and responsibilities have expanded and roles have risen to much extent since last few years. I would like to discuss my compensation again over this perspective.”
Getting an Answer
1. Consider other options.
Sometimes you won’t be able to reach the targeted number for your salary but that doesn’t always mean you should walk away from it. Try considering other options like, leave periods, bonuses, project commissions, assignments, better title, etc. This can help you a better deal as a whole.
2. Listen Carefully.
Listening carefully is very important if you really wish to know the recruiter’s needs. This will help you find a solution that will make both the ends happy.
3. Don’t negotiate just to negotiate.
Many people negotiate just because they are obliged to negotiate and prove that they won’t budge in easily. Haggling over little things will make you seem irritating and immature. Try to negotiate multiple issues at the same time instead of going serially.
4. Don’t hesitate to ask time to think over the offer.
This one doesn’t work more but is used by many people to display that they will be considering their offer and they are in a position of strength. Some people even get a call back with a better offer to make a early closing for the position.
Conclusion
Negotiating salary won’t be an easy task. You are expected to know your value, skills, abilities to much greater extent. Try to work on your negotiating skills. The main crux of negotiating salary is being able to convince the recruiter your value without being rude and avoiding any mispresentation.
You will be judged at many instances during this phase but never let them have an edge over you. Knowing when to back out is also be important. Try to strike out a deal that is not biased and will serve good to both of you
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Sandeep Bhandari is the founder of PrepMyCareer.com website.
I am a full-time professional blogger, a digital marketer, and a trainer. I love anything related to the Web, and I try to learn new technologies every day.
All the team management, content creation, and monetization tasks are handled by me. Together with the team at PrepMyCareer, the aim is to provide useful and engaging content to our readers.