Published Feb. 13, 2019
You nailed the interviews, convinced the hiring manager and are on your way to negotiate your future salary. But how can you put yourself in a good position?
Preparation is super important. Use resources like Glassdoor, PayScale or similar and calculate the median salary for someone with your level of experience, in your location.
This will help you manage your own expectations, but also give you a good argument in negotiations (“… but the median salary for someone with my experience is…”).
It will help you to know what you are worth.
Again, Glassdoor might be of help here. Can you find any data on what the company is usually paying for this position? Sometimes, companies will even give a salary range on the actual job vacancy.
Keep in mind, this is what the company is comfortable paying. If you want to optimize your salary, think about the top half of the range, rather than the bottom half.
If a company is offer an annual salary that corresponds to what you found out in Step 1, this is the place where you can go from a good salary to a great salary.
Cash isn’t everything. Think about the baseline of cash you really need on a monthly basis, and think about other things you could substitute it with.
Research all of this beforehand and make a plan in your head of what ranges you’d be comfortable with.
Example:
I'm looking for an annual salary of $150,000 If I can get 35 PTO days, I'd be willing to have a salary of $130,000
Nothing better than leverage. Before going into a negotiation, collect your leverage. That can be:
If you need personal coaching when it comes to these things, why don’t you check out one of our many career mentors?
Be it changing your careers, reaching for that promotion, transitioning into a new skill area or starting a business, we all could use some help.
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