Tips to Negotiate your job offer

Before you start, decide your walk in, walk-out salary – the going in position can be a range. Your walk out is the least you will accept, before turning down (find a number at which you will genuinely be prepared to walk away with no regrets).

State of mind: decide that this is simply the professional approach, you know your worth and you know what the likely pay scales will be for your peers in this organization, or other similar roles in other organizations.

Recognize: you have nothing to lose - you will manage this in a way that still enables you to accept the existing offer-  if that is your walk-out position, or that you will walk away leaving a good positive perception and your reputation intact. You can only gain from negotiating, you know, or can imagine, the long term impact to your future wealth and career of starting a salary that is genuinely too low.  

Be relaxed, open and to the point.  

Practice saying the next few things until you are comfortable to speak with relaxed professional confidence.  

Firstly thank them for the offer and the opportunity – say something positive about the role and the company   Then mix and match a blend from the following approaches, practice a form of words that you are comfortable with:  

1.       "As long we can agree a fair market value for the level of responsibilities that this role has, I am sure we can work out a reasonable arrangement, acceptable to us both”

2.       "I am very interested in this offer. I need to have some clarification. Do you think that this offer is a fair market price given the responsibilities of the position and my talents?"

3.       "Thank you for the offer. I am very excited about working for you, because this is my first choice at the moment and knowing that the going rate at this level is around_________ and based on my experience and skills match, I was looking for a basic salary in the range of ........ to ..............; What is possible here for you?”  

Give them the option of reviewing your request and coming back to you later. You could say something like “I know you will need to have time to discuss/think about this and I would welcome a further discussion myself.”  

Firm up a commitment to get back to you, ask something like “would you be able to come back with your thoughts on a revised offer this week, or next week?”  

If they flat refuse to negotiate, then you have a couple of options:  

Ask, “who else do you recommend I talk to, to clarify the seniority and responsibilities of the role” and/or you need to say, something like “Well, thank you for considering me for this position, I also need a couple of days to think about this further, I will come back to you with my decision on…… How would you like me to communicate my decision?”.  

Finally if you do reject – do it in writing; be professional – you can use some of the words above and leave the door open to a revised offer “I would be happy to discuss this further with you at any time”.

If you do get to have another conversation, with the hiring manager or HR, you have at least two options:  

Say you that you have been impressed by the company, that the role really excites you and that you do not feel that the offer reflects the responsibilities of the role and/or you don’t feel incentivized to move and/or motivated by the offer – ask what options exist to help you make the right decision…..  

Or, say you have been impressed by the company and the role really excites you and regrettably the offer doesn’t meet your expectations in relation to the responsibilities of the role and that you would like a couple of days to consider whether to accept or not.  

Say that you understand the hiring manager may need to also take some time to consider what options exist.   Either approach may get you into a discussion on “what would it take?”, in which can be prepared with a range, and/or a suggested level of other options, such as bonus level, pension contributions, sign on bonus, etc, i.e other things that may be easier for a company to engineer.  

Remember there is nothing to lose, you still leave the door open to go back and say that in view of your excitement for the role you have decided to take this great opportunity anyway, or to politely reject and say that you will explore other opportunities – remember to include that you would be happy to discuss this decision further (this is the real hardball approach – they have a potential opportunity cost of not taking you on – of finding another good person, who they may even have to pay more for….)

Comments

[Indy]

Martin....
Thanks for this... very helpful.
Cheers
Indy