Proceed with caution.

Yes it is risky which is why you need to determine ahead of time what you think you’re worth (and if you’re going to be under-employed, what the job should be worth). In this economy, some unethical employers will lowball candidates knowing that there’s always someone out there desparate enough to take the job.

For example, if you’re an office manager and you typically make between 50k to 60k per year, you should think very hard about positions that offer only 30k for what’s essentially the same work.

If you counter-offer and they say no, you could always frame it in the context of the job duties and responsibilities. It’s possible that while they’d like you to have a broad range of skills, they only need you for a small subset and will be willing to give you a raise when those extraneous skills are needed.

Again, you want to work for someone who will at least openly and fairly discuss what your options are. An employer who refuses to discuss the compensation package is someone you’re likely to leave before the year is out and in my personal opinion, having multiple jobs each only lasting six months or less, is a black mark.

Say you’ve applied for several jobs over the course of a few months, and you finally get an offer. Isn’t that kind of a tough position from which to negotiate? This company didn’t track you down and beg you to work for them. You applied and met their requirements. What if they’re just as satisfied to take the next best candidate who will take less money? Isn’t that risky? If they say no to a higher wage, do you still accept the job?

So, no matter what the economy is like, when asking for a raise, you need to ALWAYS demonstrate your value to the company, and talk directly about that value.

Like the article said, don’t worry about what others make; likewise, personal reasons for wanting more money are irrelevant. The only thing to focus on is the value you provide to the company.

Maybe you’ve reduced costs, or increased revenue, or lowered employee turnover, or expanded a product line, or expanded sales into new markets. Whatever you’ve done, talk about it specifically. Think like a business owner. Ask yourself: if you were the owner, why should you pay this person (yourself) more?

Now that you’ve laid out the reasons WHY you should be paid more, you can talk about HOW MUCH you think you should be paid.

Some people think that whoever gives out the first negotiating number loses; I disagree. Instead, YOU should be the one to set the salary anchor (the “anchor” is the number around which the negotiation takes place), and make that number significantly more than your currently salary, but justified by your value to the company. Maybe a 40% increase is warranted, so ask for 50% (since it’ll likely be negotiated down). Whatever the number, say it matter-of-factly, and don’t blink. You’ve laid out your case and you know your value. Don’t be emotional. Practice your meeting with a friend or spouse.

Back when I had a corporate job, I did this, and boosted my salary about 25%, when the typical salary increases at the company were 2%-4%.

People are often reluctant to ask for more–especially if it’s a big jump in salary. That reluctance boils down to not valuing yourself; it’s fairly common, creeps into other situations and life choices, and can be extremely limiting. I talk more about it and how to overcome it on my blog.

Greg Miliates
http://www.StartMyConsultingBusiness.com

If I get the offer, what move do I make? Do I ask for more even though I’ve been told it’s the most they can offer me and it’s already what I wanted to make?

The job interview came up suddenly and I have not had time to properly research salary negotiation.

Its too bad he didn’t negotiate. There are times when negotiating is appropriate and when it isn’t. I’d like to add that not everyone wants a house with a 30 year mortgage, yes if you want that then be sure to go for the high paying job.

But don’t work at a high paying job if you don’t want those things and you don’t care for those types of careers. Not everyone wants kids and not everyone wants to get married either.

This article assumes a lot, it assumes that most people want to do similar things. I also think that no matter what you make 10k or 100k you need to save, invest, be savvy with your spending (frugal).

I mean in the media you’re hearing stories of how people with 100k incomes now have to struggle just like people from working class incomes. Why is that?

Because they had debt, and never saved. I read an article on Yahoo a few weeks ago about the baby boomer retirement crisis, they interviewed this guy in his 50s who is just starting to save. He had never been on a budget before in his life.

That was pretty shocking.

I do think going to college can help, right now I’m earning my associate in accounting, then I want to go for the bachelor’s and then maybe the masters in accounting. Not sure about the masters in accounting just yet, I’m still debating if I want to become a CPA.

People have that marketable degrees such as accounting, nursing, programming (computer science), have a much better say in the job market than someone who was an English major. Yes there is the odd liberal arts major who can make it in the real world with their English degree but most people can’t.

When an HR person knows you don’t have any college degree, not even a 2 year degree they know they can take advantage of you by paying you less, knowing that you have to take whatever you’re offered. I hate this about my life which is why I’m in college.

I was laid off from my position, interviewed and was offered a position for ~20% less (15-20k). I told the manager that was too far from what the going rate for someone with my skills and backed it up with hard data (from various websites). I was able to obtain $2k and review in 6 months. I accepted the job with expectations of getting decent bump in salary at review time (6-8% increase). It did work out in my favor. I got the bump. But in the annual review they froze salarys for the next year. Then from there we only had 3% raises. Eventually I got a promotion and I’m back up to where I was 3 years ago. However, that is 3 years of less salary. The one thing I will warn of is if the company low balls salary they are probably tight on everything else (needed equipment, upgrades, etc.). So, be wary of going to a company that won’t budge–unless you are willing to keep your options open and jump ship. Because eventually another opportunity will come along paying that 20% or more you deserve. Then you’ll need to decided what to do.

Once I got on board with the company I saw on our HR management website that the first offer I got was at the very very bottom of the salary tier for admins. I managed to negotiate a salary somewhere in the middle. All companies have a budget, they’ll always kind of low ball you.

Always negotiate or counter-offer at least once when you are offered a position.

I know of an ex-friend I’m not particularly fond of who negotiated this way, “Give me a raise or I quit! Because I’m worth it and I work hard!” She was unemployed for a few months after that. Don’t do that.

1) postdoc at a national lab where ‘specialty’ (e.g. engineering vs. science background) dictates pay with the salary incremented up by years of experience.

2) postdoc at a private university that happens to use the NIH formula for salaries based on experience. I.e. you put in your years since Ph.D and out pops a salary that then gets adjusted once a year.

3) Postdoctoral fellowships that automatically dictate the stipend amount based on experience or available money.

In these cases, I perhaps wrongly assumed that salaries were not negotiable. I later found out that someone in case #2 had negotiated for an additional ‘bonus’ added on of about $1000/year to cover transit expenses.

So, is there really a lot of freedom in #1 and #2 to negotiate for how much one will get paid even when it seems as if there is a prescription? Does anyone have any suggestions for negotiation in these cases?

Our salaries are all public information since I work at a publicly funded college.

“In my current role I am underpaid compared to both my co-workers…”

How did you find that out?

When my boss at the engineering company started to ask if I could come on full time, I was honest. I told him that I wanted to, but the other place paid better. Eventually I said that if he could match what I was making at the other place, I would give my 2 weeks notice to the other job that afternoon. He accepted, so I quit the other job ($8k/yr raise plus great benefits for about a 2 minute conversation).

Later, my boss started asking me when I would get a car (so I could go to meetings and site visits etc, since previously I just biked to work). I was honest once again – I told him that I couldn’t afford a car with all of the student loans I had to pay. When he kept asking, I told him I needed a raise to afford it. He agreed, gave me a raise, and I bought a car.

There were a few other small raises over the past two years, mainly cost of living increases and a small bump when we merged with a big company, but those were based off of the negotiated increases.

Just by asking, and being honest, I managed to get an extra $20,000/yr (new salary ~ 170% of my starting salary). Negotiating (stalling?) works!

I did negotiate my offer with job #2 at a startup, because I already had a position with good benefits, so I had some solid data to counter with. I ended up with a bit more salary and a signing bonus.

With job #3 (a few months ago), I was fortunate to be able to “play dumb” and simply say what I had been getting working in California, rather than trying to guess a good pay range for a new city with typically lower pay. I ended up with a bit more money (I think) than they were planning to offer, and a additional week’s vacation. Since my current issues are more about time than money, vacation and flexible work hours and locations are more where I negotiate.

Now fast forward 4 years and I am the top internal candidate for a job that has significantly more responsibility but I probably won’t get as large of a raise as I would like since I didn’t attempt to negotiate the first time around. On my application for my new job, I requested a 27% raise, but I figure I will probably be lucky to get a 20% raise.

Fast forward 6 years and 2 jobs and I am now earning 20k more than that first job. The problem is (in South Australia) is that to get any ‘real’ pay increases you have to shift jobs and that’s the only time you ever get to negotiate, so go your hardest and get the most out of them!

Faculty pay is traditionally dependent on fickle government funding; he may well be stuck in a salary strata for years that compares unfavorably with the private sector.

In addition, cost-of-living raises can become non-existent (I haven’t had one in 6 years – it’s starting to hurt). He needs to get what he’s worth up front. There won’t be another chance.

There are articles posted about this very topic at the chronicle of higher education: http://chronicle.com/section/Home/5.

Great advice you gave!

I like that one.

In terms of negotiating, ask for more in most cases. It’s very often a good idea not to just take the first offer provided. If you counter, and still can’t get more money, maybe they’ll make a concession in another area (vacation time, for example). It generally doesn’t hurt to play the game and ask.

Also keep in mind that in some cases, your future salary maybe based on where you start. For example, your raise will often be applied as a percentage of your base salary. Your negotiations for a new job may well be oriented around change from your current salary. These are reasons why it’s important to actively try to keep your head in the game and in most cases ask for a higher figure.

Some things like vacation days/leave are really not items that can be negotiated. Most of the larger companies have standard amount of days and benefits new hires are authorized. So to make a blanket statement about everything is negotiable, it’s just not a true statement. It really depends on what company you’re seeking employment from.

Here’s a big tip. When you apply for a position on a company’s web site and create a “profile” on their web site, depending on the HR system they have, the hiring manager may be able to see all the other positions you’ve applied for currently and even ones in the past. The system we use shows me how many positions a person applied for, interviews they’ve had, rejections, etc. Bottomline, if a person is applying for a whole slew of positions (especially different ones), it makes me a little skeptical of the skills they have on their resume and more importantly tells me they are definitely desperate for any time of job/salary.

I think that just may be the most concise and best advice on this whole topic!

1. You are my candidate of choice. I want you as much as you want my position.

2. I only have so much money in my budget to pay you.

3. I start a little lower than where I will go knowing you may want to negotiate.

4. I have a maximum I will go to before I will withdraw an offer and turn to my second choice candidate. I will share that number with you if you think you want or need more than what my maximum offer would be.

So, my advice is always ask for more, but don’t be greedy!