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4. Taking on a short-term
project can dramatically improve your bargaining power.
While you're holding informal discussions about the
company's needs, you're in an excellent position to suggest that you
take on a short-term project addressing a critical issue. (This is also
a great way to make yourself stand out if you've entered the hiring
process after stage three). Possible projects include:
- Conducting a customer survey
- Organizing and running a focus group
- Evaluating and making suggestions on a proposed employee-benefit
program
- Exploring and reporting on better sources for contract
manufacturing
- Flow-charting operating procedures and suggesting a more
streamlined processes
- Scoping out a potential new business alliances
- Finding new business prospects
Properly structured, such a project gives you several
potential advantages:
You can demonstrate the quality of work, rather than
relying solely on your r�sum� and the inferences people make when
interviewing you. Of course, it's essential that the demonstration show
you in your best light - that you meet the deadline, produce more than
you promise, and provide facts and insights that are clearly worth
having.
You get to operate on the inside, where you'll get a
full picture of the firm's needs. This kind of knowledge will prove
valuable later when you're discussing the job and what you bring to it.
You can charge a daily rate that may be substantially
more than what you'd earn doing similar work as a full-time employee. So
when the company does offer to bring you aboard, your frame of reference
on salary - and theirs - is this daily rate, rather than the lower rate
that might otherwise apply.
(Note: Your daily rate depends on the nature of the
assignment. If you're filling in for someone and need considerable
supervision, the rate could reasonably be from 100 to 150 percent of
that person's salary prorated by the day (go ahead and ask if you don't
know what the person's salary is). But if you're working on a
high-priority project, adding your own expertise to the manager's, or
improving business opportunities, for example, your rate can be
considerably higher - as much as double a staff person's regular pay).
5. Know the market and develop
alternative job offers.
Researching industry standards for compensation will
help you advance your case. If you know what others are paying, you can
use this information if the company seems to be giving you a lowball
offer. This way you can express surprise - tactfully - at the proposed
salary and have the figures to back up your reaction.
Even better is developing alternative job offers or
hot prospects. You may well find something better, and the process will
bolster your confidence and give the impression that you're a person in
demand.
We know what you're thinking, but inventing
alternatives is no substitute for developing real ones. Real
alternatives have the ring of truth and allow you to cite specific
attractions as bargaining chips. Imaginary alternatives tend to sound
phony, and you run the risk that the hiring manager will invite you to
take the nonexistent offer. Then you'll have to scramble to find a
plausible reason for taking the real job after all, which makes your
bargaining position mighty weak.
Knowing that you have real alternatives will also
help you ask for what you want with more firmness. You'll be able to
walk away from the negotiation without anxiety rather than accept
unsatisfactory terms. After all, there's little point in accepting an
offer inferior to one you already have - or expect to have - in hand.
6. Establish your priorities,
and evaluate offers accordingly.
Salary usually isn't the only consideration when
evaluating a job offer. Other factors that may be important to you
include:
- The quality of the learning opportunity
- Rapport with your supervisor
- Respect for your colleagues
- The workplace atmosphere, whether intense or relaxed,
competitive or mutually supportive, chaotic or organized
- Other forms of compensation, such as bonuses or commission
- Benefits such as health insurance
- Perks and recognition
- The company's prestige
- The importance or value of what the organization produces
- Career-advancement opportunities
- Vacation and time-off policies
- Flexibility of the work schedule
- Location
- Commuting distance and related considerations
- On-site facilities, such as fitness and child-care centers
7. Be aware of what the
employer can offer.
The forms of potential compensation are many. Some of
the following confer other benefits, but they all boil down to money:
- Salary (usually the base for figuring bonuses and raises)
- Signing bonus (often given if you are being induced to leave a
good job)
- Moving allowance
- Bonuses (best if tied to measurable criteria)
- Early review for salary increase or promotion
- Commissions
- Health plan, and the company's share of the premium
- Tuition reimbursement
- Stock award or options
- 401(k) plan
- Severance package
Learn as much as you can about industry-wide and company standards for
each form of compensation before you sit down to negotiate.
8. Assess your power position
realistically.
Just as you shouldn't underestimate your bargaining
power (you don't want to shortchange yourself), it's important not to
overestimate it. To overestimate is to court resentment and lead the
employer to search for someone less troublesome. Your tactics throughout
the hiring process should reflect, as accurately as you can assess it,
your actual bargaining power.
Your bargaining power may shift during the course of
your interactions with the employer. The company decides it needs
someone with more experience than you to jump in at full speed; your
power drops again. You perform admirably on a short-term project; your
power grows. You flub it - sorry, your power vanishes. When the
situation changes, you'll need to adjust your tactics accordingly.
If someone recommended you for the position or
there's a recruiter involved, he or she may be able to tell you what's
going on. But you need to learn to read the cues. Frequent calls,
requests for references, and hopeful inquiries about your interest are
all good signs. Phone calls unreturned for days, interviews repeatedly
rescheduled, and vague put-offs don't bode well.
To avoid getting to this point, try to resolve any
likely reasons for doubt early on. A less-than-glowing reference is
better explained before the reference is checked than after. If an
objection is raised by someone on the hiring team (too little employment
continuity, the wrong kind of background) it's better to bring it up and
discuss it, rather than letting it eat away at your bargaining power.
9. Never be the first to name a
salary.
If you name a figure in response to a question about
your salary expectations, it could be well above what the employer had
in mind, and your interviewer's thoughts will shift to another
candidate. If the figure is too low, you'll be stuck with less than what
the employer was planning to pay - and you may even come off as suddenly
less qualified to boot.
There's no need to fall into such a trap. The
employer knows the responsibilities of the job better than you do, and
so is better qualified to give it a dollar value. Once that happens, you
are in an excellent position to discuss why you could bring more to the
position someone else might.
10. Always negotiate with the
decision maker.
You've just negotiated an excellent price on a new
car and are ready to sign on the dotted line. Then the salesman tells
you he has to clear everything with the boss. The boss (who remains
faceless) sends word that he can't possibly go that low - his invoice
price is just $100 less, not counting transportation charges. The
salesman made a mistake. But he could do the deal for another $450, just
to cover the transportation cost. He'll pay for your first oil change.
What can you do? You've burned up most of your Sunday already, and you
want to drive home in that sports car!
A word to the wise: Don't deal with intermediaries in
your job negotiations, lest you end up in a similar situation.
Intermediaries - human resources representatives, staffing specialists,
recruiters, or occasionally someone delegated by the hiring manager -
usually don't know as much about the job as the person you'll actually
be working for, nor do they have the same concern about losing you if
the negotiations go astray. They have a lot less latitude to take
special circumstances into account. And they're often unaware of what
can be done "creatively" - flexible working hours, extra vacation days,
a signing bonus, or company-furnished laptop - to sweeten the pot.
11. Try to create situations
that benefit you and the company.
Listen closely to what the hiring manager says and
find out what his or her most pressing needs are. If you can meet some
or all of those needs, the manager can probably meet yours. Suggest
solutions that are mutually beneficial, that are less costly for the
firm, or that let you meet each other halfway.
Finally, avoid pushing things so far that your deal
will be resented. You may become the victim of over-eager scrutiny, be
criticized unfairly, or otherwise find yourself made to be
uncomfortable. You have to live in the climate you create.
Concluded. |
