they understand your value, you give the employer time to move to the “Judgit” stage. That’s a place where they are the most flexible, resourceful, and creative about compensation.
Problem: It’s tough to avoid salary talk. And employers are growing more and more insistent about knowing your salary parameters up front.
| Possible Solution 1: | Trade disclosing salary info for an assurance you’ll get an interview. |
| Possible Solution 2: | Preempt their question by asking them first what the position pays. |
| Possible Solution 3: | State an all-inclusive wide range. |
| Possible Solution 4: | Use any of the 15 phrases in chapter 2. |
What if you’ve already told them your salary history or expectations? Don’t despair. To make up for the blunder, do an extra special job researching your market value (chapter 5) so you feel very confident in asking for your full market value.
Read The Book To Learn
• Postponing phrases
• Stories about success using salary making rule 1
• A deeper look at Budget, Fudgit, and Judgit stages and how to use that for negotiating leverage
• Importance of salary negotiations to overall job satisfaction and success
Lightning Round II
Salary-Making Rule 2
I radically revised this rule for this 6th edition. It used to be: “Let Them Go first.” It’s now: “Let Them Go First Unless...”
Good negotiations achieve a happy medium between your ideal compensation package and what the employer is willing to offer. But being at the higher end of the medium is better for you than being at the lower end.
NEWS: Recent studies show that the final negotiated amount on this common ground tends to end up closer to the person who goes first.
The thinking behind the original Salary-Making Rule #2: “Let Them Go First,” was that you minimize the risk of botching the negotiation by coming in too high or too low. An added reassurance is that if the employer goes first, you have an offer. You have no doubt they’ve reached the make-an-offer point when it’s then okay to engage in money talk. You won’t go lower than the prospective employer’s initial offer, and following it with your researched response could add even more to the compensation package. All that is still true.
Not everyone wants to opt for the security of a firm offer that you get by going second. But, if you can tolerate a small degree of risk, research says you’ll do better if you go first.
This makes it doubly important that you wait until you’re sure they’re ready to make an offer. If they’re still window-shopping and you start negotiations with a high number you can bump yourself out of the contest. Salary-Making Rule #1 tells you to avoid serious money talk until they’re making you an offer. Ask them, “Are we ready to explore compensation, or is there still some other consideration about hiring me we need to handle?”
Whether you go first or second, use Salary-Making Rule #3 to reply to the employer’s offer. Rule #3 is “repeat the number or the top of the range, and be quiet.”
In the moments of silence that ensue, think and compare the offer with your own trio of numbers you brought with you: Ideal, Satisfactory, and No-go.
I = Ideal. The biggest package you can imagine that still passes the “laugh test.”
S = Satisfactory. A salary that would have you feeling okay and satisfied about going to work.
N = No-go. Any offer below this is unacceptable; you’ll go back to the drawing board to see if there’s other compensation that can make up the difference.
Read The Book To Learn
• Principles behind good Salary Negotiations
• What’s true and what’s not about “The one who goes first loses”
• The full overview of negotiations regarding who goes first
• Fuller explanation of the benefits of going first
• Fuller explanation of the dangers of going first
• An example of “You Go First”
• An example of “You Go Second”
• Unique nature of Salary Negotiation vs. ordinary negotiations
• How “anchoring” functions in negotiations
Lightning Round III
Salary-Making Rule 3
When you hear the figure or range, follow Salary-Making Rule #3: repeat the figure or top of the range, and then be quiet.
Whether the hiring decision maker is going second and responding to your “Ideal,” or whether he’s speaking first to enter into hiring negotiations, your action is the same: repeat the figure or the top of the range and be quiet.
What Happens When You’re Quiet
Sometimes you’ll get an explanation of why the budget allows only that much. “Times are rough, competition’s tough.” Sometimes you’ll get a raise in those seconds of silence.
Don’t compare the offer with your most recent salary. Instead, use the thirty seconds to compare their offer with your number trio, based on the formula below.
Formula
The numbers for the market value range for you are your own trio of numbers. Ideal, Satisfactory, and No-go, or ISN, Market Values. Here is how to determine this crucial trio: Your Ideal, Satisfactory, and No-go Market Value.
A market value is a picture made up of several pieces: your Objectively Researched Value (ORV$), your extra Individual Value (IV$), what I’ll call your Risk-factor Dollars (Rf$), and benefits and perquisites.
Think of it as a formula in which your personal market value equals the sum of four other values:
ISN Market Values = ORV$ + IV$ + Rf$ + Bennies/Perks.
To fully understand these factors, you need some definitions.
ORV$ (Objectively Researched Value). Objectively researched information from current published data about the going rate; this year’s average earning range for people doing the kind of work you’re considering.
IV$ (Individual Value). A subjective assessment of the strength of your past track record as it applies to this new job or promotion. It puts you somewhere on a scale from entry level to seasoned professional, possibly with a unique competitive advantage. IV$ measures how you stack up individually above or below the competition.
Rf$ (Risk-Factor Dollars). Compensation you are willing to make contingent on your future success, or performance-based compensation.
Benefits and Perks can round out the package.
Calculating the Three Factors (Objectively Researched Value)
Find out in what range people get paid for work similar to yours by consulting published surveys. Make sure you’re comparing apples to apples, that the salary