Hello World and Blogosphere!!! I’m happy to report that I am now the father of three wonderful children! On Thursday, March 22nd my wife and I welcomed Kai Strom Thompson into the world. Mom and baby are doing great and the rest of us in the family are adjusting nicely.
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I took a nice week off with the fam after that and after a frantic week of catching up last week I’m ready get back in the saddle. Before I jump in I want to share a couple of thoughts that have occurred to me over the past two weeks:
- My god boys are different…
- After having two kids I felt like things got exponentially easier – a third does not continue the trend
- The older you get the harder it is to get up in the middle of the night.
- Kids are terrific!!!
That’s enough updates on my end. Today I wanted to jump into an issue that plagues many people – negotiating a salary. We live in a culture that is ultra hypocritical. We are all about material wealth yet talking about your income is taboo. We are also peppered with all sorts of nuggets of conventional wisdom that are just plain wrong. Some of the best I’ve heard are:
- You should never leave your job for less than a 20% increase in salary
- When asked about your salary expectations shoot really high so that when they lowball you, you get what you want
- Never discuss salary at all as companies are apt to guess high
- Companies always start with a lowball number to get you on the cheap
- Never discuss salary because the company will think you only care about the money
Here’s the deal the only real rule when dealing with companies and negotiating salaries is that there are no rules. Contrary to popular belief there is no universal business school that managers and business owners attend that tells them how to make an offer. Are there some companies that always start with a lowball? – I’m sure there are but it hardly is the norm. Will there be some people that might be uncomfortable by you being honest and open about your compensation – absolutely – but at the same time there are probably ones that won’t offer you a high salary because of your age or your hair color or your location or your suit. The fact of the matter is that you are your only advocate (unless you are working with an awesome recruiter – remember my email address is at the bottom of the article…) and you need to put yourself in the best position possible to be successful. Below are some tips to help you do so in the salary department.
1. Salary Negotiation Starts at the Beginning of the Process
I recently read an article where someone suggested that on all of your applications you should leave the salary expectations blank. Their theory was that it prevents you from being disqualified for having too high of expectations. The problem is that leaving an answer blank makes you run the risk of being disqualified for appearing stupid because you can’t fill out a simple application. It is asinine to think that you should go through a long and extensive interview process and then only discuss compensation (a very big component) in the final stages.
You need to be positioning yourself from the beginning. The best way to do this is. If you are asked about compensation give broad answers like I’m looking for something in this range. The key here is that you need to be honest and that you need to be comfortable with the low end of your range.
2. Set Expectations
Let me pose a question. If you are currently making a base salary of X, have all of your benefits paid for, get five weeks vacation and work from home on Tuesday’s so you can watch your kids – how will your future employer be able to improve on this if all you tell them is “I want something in the range of X to X” or “I’ll consider any reasonable offer”? There are two obvious solutions:
a) they read minds
b) you share it with them
It is really important that you communicate your entire compensation package including benefits, vacation and schedule. What is more important is to let the company know if you value one over the other or if you have something special. For instance, typically companies offer between one to three weeks vacation – if you have five weeks and need it matched – you need to let the company know. If you don’t give them an indication of what you want and what you value most you will be disappointed and if you aren’t it means the company guessed really well.
3. If it isn’t Right the First Time – Don’t Walk Away
I’m not sure why this happens but some people feel that if the offer isn’t perfect the first time then it will never be perfect and they should just move on. It’s almost as if this one action is somehow an indicator of the company as a whole and its overarching culture. I’ll admit that some offers that come out make me wonder what planet the company came from. However, in most cases getting the starting salary wrong by a couple of thousand dollars or a week of vacation doesn’t mean the company is broken. It just means that you guys aren’t there yet. Go back to the company and explain why it isn’t right and why you need a little more. They may or may not do something but they will tell you why.
4. Its not all about you Stupid
This is kind of a continuation of the one before. Just as the offer is not a true barometer of the company in general it also isn’t a true indicator of the company’s assessment of your value. In a perfect world companies would make offers solely based on what you are worth and everyone would be happy. The problem is that there are these tricky things called budgets and concepts like salary equity. When you are all alone in a job search and an offer is made that is lower than you expected it is easy to take it as an insult and get really mad. If you find yourself in that situation – stop, take a deep breath, and think about it logically. Would a company try to piss off the person it wants to hire? Unless they are really passive aggressive it probably isn’t the case. Again – ask to change things. The worst they can say is no.
5. The People Who Tell You Not to Talk Money are Stupid
Look, this is really easy. You have two options. You can ignore the elephant in the room and not talk about it at all hoping that the company will magically know what you want and give it to you. To be fair there is a possibility that this will work purely by accident. Or you can take a proactive approach and talk about things in a reasonable and open manner. The downside of this is that talking candidate about your needs could lead you and the company to decide the position isn’t a fit. It may not feel like it but this is a positive as in my opinion it is better to be having two to three serious conversations about positions that truly fit your needs rather then ten conversations with one to two that could work out. Why waste your time.
My last thought on this is more waxing philosophical. There will be some people that counter my arguments by saying that if you hide your compensation you give yourself the chance to impress a company so much that they fall in love with you and offer you the money you want even though it is way outside of the bounds of what they were expecting to pay. I’ll give you that one – it can happen. However, I think that this is just as likely to happen if you are open and honest about your salary situation.
That’s all I’ve got for now! Have a great week and please don’t hesitate to leave comments or send me emails at sthompson@insurance-csg.com.
Check out some of my recent articles on the blog here:
Congratulations and thanks for another informative article.
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