In our final Apply & Get Noticed lesson we talk about the Ugly Art of Salary Negotiation.
If your cover letter gets you an interview, and your interview gets you a job offer, congratulations! The hard part is all over, and it’s all downhill from here, right? Well, maybe not.
If you’ve ever tried to negotiate a salary for a new job, then you know that one of the hardest parts of the entire job seeking process is talking about money and the negotiation of what you’ll earn. And all too often, because this part is so tough, many job seekers accept a role being paid less than what they really want to earn and/or what they thought they deserved.
Almost worse yet, the employer may put a nearly impossible incentive structure into place to make you feel like if you just meet all these goals, you’ll make what you want. Yeah, right.
All hiring manager’s objectives are the same: to acquire the best employee possible at the lowest price possible. Meanwhile, your objective is to position yourself as the best candidate and obtain a position at a desired salary. You are naturally at odds with the hiring manager on this last point, so there is nothing pretty about negotiating compensation. But there is a bit of an art to it.
Salary Negotiations Is Like High-Stakes Poker
And just as if you were playing a game of high-stakes poker (because it’s a lot like that actually), you want to keep your cards close and face straight.
The Call
Try to never reveal your salary requirements before having at least an understanding of a pay range they have in mind. This is so much easier than done, but in “Apply Yourself” I share with you some tips on how you can achieve this successfully.
The Raise
Whether you reveal your desired salary first or whether the employer gives you a sense of a pay range, never accept the offer as it is given without negotiating something better. 9 times out of 10, there is always room for the employer to go higher, and if they hold him firm at a certain dollar amount, negotiate for more in terms of benefits.
In “Apply Yourself”, I share various scenarios that are likely to come into a negotiation and give you the strategies to obtain the upper hand.
Fold
How many times do you negotiate can be tricky. You don’t want to irritate the hiring manager and risk them staying firm on principle or worse, cancelling their offer. At some point, if you want the job, you will have to accept the offer.
What’s important here is understanding your lower and upper limits. In “Apply Yourself” I share with you ways you can figure this out (in any negotiation scenario) so that rather than folding, the hand is playing out and you come out of it with a job.
Before You Play
Before you go into any negotiation with an employer, you’re going to do so much better if you’re prepared and understand your personal needs and expectations.
It may not always be possible to find out exactly what the employer is willing to pay for the position, but a little research on your part ahead of time can give you at least a ballpark to work with. And with a ballpark understanding of the salary range potential, you can then assess if that coincides with your own salary expectations, compensation needs, and future goals.
Apply & Get Noticed
If you’ve made it this far, you have the drive, discipline, and motivation it will take to land a great job.
This is Lesson #5 in our Apply & Get Noticed email series. If you’re not familiar with Apply & Get Noticed, it’s a FREE course with lessons sent directly to your email, designed to help you quickly prepare, apply, and get a new job.
Here is a look at all five lessons in this free series:
- Apply to the Right Jobs, the Right Way
- The Resumé is Overrated, But Still Important
- Get Invited to Interview Every Single Time
- Answering The Tough Interview Questions
- The Ugly Art of Salary Negotiation
Let’s recap some of the things you’ve learned with our “Apply & Get Noticed” series:
- A career path isn’t always about knowing the exact job you want to have in the future, it’s about finding “Meaningful Work” right now.
- Applying for a job the right way is about being proactive and presenting yourself properly
- The resumé is a necessary evil, but it doesn’t have to be hard to write an effective one.
- The power is in your cover letter. Persuade the employer that you’ll meet the position’s objectives and you’ll get invited to interview.
- The tough interview questions become a lot easier when you focus your answers on the employer and how your answer relates to the job at hand.
- Negotiating a job offer is never easy, but there is usually always wiggle room in a job offer. It’s about playing your cards right.
The tools and strategies we’ve shared with you these past 5 weeks are powerful and can definitely help you improve your chances of getting hired. It may seem overwhelming at first, but the silver lining in the whole process is that if you don’t get a job the first time you apply and interview, you are only improving with practice.
But if you’re really serious about getting a job, and if you’d like more strategy, tips, and tools to help you during your job seeking process, then our program “Apply Yourself” is tailor-made for you.
If the job search has been a struggle, if you’ve had a hard time identifying the right opportunities and if you’ve been unsure on how well you position yourself as a candidate, “Apply Yourself” will help you get clear on your job search and help you become the top candidate that you are.
What is Apply Yourself?
Apply Yourself – the ebook
The ebook is a manual for helping you find meaningful work. It takes what you’ve learned these last 5 weeks and expands on ways to help you understand your own unique skill set, your interests, and what jobs are in alignment with your goals and vision. The ebook also gives step-by-step instruction on how to craft a solid resumé as well as write a knock-em-dead cover letter. And once you get the interview, the ebook gives you the complete how-to on positioning yourself as the best person for the job and it shares high-level negotiation strategies that are easy to understand and incorporate for yourself.
Don’t waste another day applying for jobs the wrong way.
Get your process right today, and get the job you want tomorrow.
If this lessons has been helpful and you would like to receive all of our Apply & Get Noticed emails sent conveniently to your email, click the banner below. Cheers!