Thereโs a taboo around negotiating, and itโs time it got broken. After a long and arduous gauntlet of cover letters, interviews, and take-home tests, many who receive a job offer just arenโt comfortable asking for something more.
Today Iโm giving you some tools that I hope will change that. Iโm going to try to do it without slinging any of the slippery bullshit that is too often slung by influencers and coaches.
Iโll also skip the standard pep talk about the importance of confidence. Iโm going to avoid hawking manipulative tactics like asking for a much higher figure than you actually want. Negotiating is stressful enough, I think, thereโs no need to kick it off with a lie.
Instead Iโm going to give you exact words that I have used myself many times when working to secure a better deal. Speak these words yourself, and youโll be one step closer to getting the offer you deserve.
An emotionally intelligent negotiation is a straightforward, honest conversation in which both parties are mutually seeking the best possible outcome for each other. See it this way, and youโll be better equipped to operate on a level playing field.
Negotiation Reservations
Your model for negotiating may be informed by your experience making major purchases โ a home, a car, a mattress โ or from haggling in a marketplace. Many Americans get an alarming introduction to the craft when negotiating usurious medical debt.
If youโre fortunate enough to lay your hands on a job offer, itโs time to put all of that behind you.
Your negotiating partner in most career or business situations is usually someone with whom youโre considering a lasting relationship. Thatโs a much different situation then when youโre negotiating with a stranger you may not see again.
Are you reluctant to ask for more, for fear that youโll be perceived as greedy, or because it just doesnโt feel right? Youโre not alone. I wish that nobody felt that way, but there are good reasons why many people do.
This will be easier for some, and harder for others. It helps to keep in mind two things:
Any reasonable employer expects a candidate to respond to an offer with a request to negotiate.
Whatโs the worst that can happen? Any reasonable request is very unlikely to garner a response thatโs any worse than โSorry, no.โ
I hope these next ten tips will get you into shape to take the first step towards improving your next offer.
Ready? Here we go!
1๏ธโฃ How to Always Negotiate
People who negotiate get a better deal than those who donโt, and those who donโt are often women. In the book Women Donโt Ask, we learn the unfortunate fact that women are far less likely to negotiate a job offer than men. This contributes to the pay gap that can cost each woman $500k+ over the course of their career.
Systemic, institutionalized, and unconscious biases give women and other marginalized people plenty of reasons to be reluctant to negotiate. No matter your gender or background, people who overcome their reluctance to negotiate are very likely to be rewarded with better outcomes.
I encounter resistance from coaching clients whoโve heard of someone who tried to negotiate an offer, then the employer got offended, and the whole deal was spiked. Ugh!
There are three things to know about this:
Maybe this happened, but itโs very rare. Anecdotes are memorable because theyโre infrequent and unlikely. When somebody asks for a better offer and gets it, which they do every day, they donโt run to their computer and tell the world about it.
You can use easy and safe methods to ask for an offer to be improved, and run very little risk of giving offence. Is it possible to make a mistake that causes hurt feelings? Sure, itโs possible. With some experience and forethought, this is a vanishingly unlikely scenario.
If an employer makes an offer, then yanks it because you asked for it to be improved, fuck them! Seriously, no sane person punishes someone for trying to negotiate. Megalomaniacal people probably do it all the time! If anything like this happens, youโve probably dodged a bullet.
2๏ธโฃ How to Start Slow
If this is your initiation to negotiation, you might feel apprehensive. Perhaps youโve had a bad experience in the past, or no experience at all. Maybe you think of yourself as the kind of person who is not pushy or demanding, and wants to stay that way. We love this about you. Please donโt ever change!
Whatever your reservation, you can take a small and simple step towards bargaining for something better. Hereโs one way to do that:
โThank you! Iโm really excited about this offer. Is it possible for the offer to be improved in any way?โ
Thatโs polite, modest, and straightforward. No reasonable person could fault you for asking this. If they say โNo, sorry, itโs a โtake it or leave itโ situationโ โ well, ok! Negotiation is over, and itโs successful in the sense that you know you havenโt left anything on the table.
A much more likely response is something like
โImproved? Maybe. What did you have in mind?โ
You can say something like:
โCould the salary be adjusted? That would make it much easier for me to accept.โ
or
โUnder what circumstances might you be able to offer a signing bonus?โ
You donโt need a reason, permission, a license, or a permit to ask simple, reasonable questions like these. Make no apology, just approach the conversation with humility and grace.
If that seems like too much to stomach, hereโs something even easier:
Thank you for this offer. Iโm really excited about the opportunity. A question: which aspects of this are open to negotiation? If itโs appropriate, I could propose a couple of adjustments.
If you feel like you need permission, go ahead and ask for it! Iโm a ruthless negotiator, been doing it for a hundred years, and I still ask for permission almost every time.
Everything is negotiable, as the saying goes, so this is an overly-courteous formality. Itโs like asking if you can use the restroom โ nobody has ever said no, but itโs still nice to ask. An extra humble courtesy shows youโre a thoughtful and relatable human being.
By all means, ber more decisive. Just ask for the offer to be improved, like in the first example. Or take the latter baby step if youโre feeling unprepared to be that direct before youโve had a bit more practice.
3๏ธโฃ How to be Realistic
A negotiation complication arises from โsticker shock.โ Thatโs when you offer a figure that makes the other person think youโre insane, from a different planet, or using recently-legalized recreational drugs. You should avoid this at all costs (the sticker shock, I mean.)
If you respond to a job offer with counter-proposal that the employer thinks is not in the right ballpark, or even playing the right sport โ you might find the offer incinerates on the spot, like a Mission Impossible briefing. A hiring manager might disinvite a candidate whose negotiating approach reveals a self-assessment that seems mismatched with their own.
Avoid sticker shock by asking for a modest increase โ perhaps up to 10% or 15%. You can also try asking for more without saying exactly how much more you want.
If this offer could be increased, it would be much easier for me to accept. Could you propose a higher figure that would help me feel confident pulling the trigger?
This is not the most aggressive approach, but I think itโs reasonable and safe. I had an employer come back and say โWe donโt want to negotiate against ourselves.โ I replied โI understand. I donโt want to risk causing offense by proposing something unrealistic. It you could propose what you believe is reasonable and fair, I promise to give it serious consideration.โ
Another safe and sane tip is to avoid negotiating over email. Get on the phone or video, and ask for immediate feedback on anything you request. Be ready to retreat from your position upon a bad reaction. Example:
โI understand that people at your company have sometimes negotiated for some additional vacation time. If this offer could be adjusted to include an extra 5 days per year, Iโd be delighted. Does that sound like a realistic request?โ
Again, not super aggressive and perhaps on the meek side, depending on the situation.
4๏ธโฃ Understanding Salary Bands
The foundation of any job offer is usually a predetermined โsalary band.โ This determines what the company considers appropriate compensation for that role, based on their own market research and what they pay others. Whether youโre paid high in the band or low depends on any number of things. One factor is how well you negotiate.
You can always ask for the salary range associated with the position. Thereโs a trend towards being more open about these, which is backed by transparency laws popping up from state to state. Some companies are embracing this, others are providing ranges to wide theyโre meaningless. If youโre not happy with the range you received at the beginning of the process, you can always ask:
Can you tell me the applicable compensation range for this position and give me a sense of where I might fall in it, based on what you know now?
You can be paid above the top of the band or range โ those are unusual but happy circumstances, perhaps the subject of another long post. You might be paid below the band if youโre transferring internally into a role, or being hired despite not quite meeting the predefined criteria.
Despite the transparency rules, the precise low- mid- and high-points of the band are typically kept secret. The hiring manager and recruiter may or may not even know them, depending on their level and the rules within the company. As a ballpark, imagine a ยฑ15% spread on either side of a midpoint - like $85k to $115k for example, for a position with a 100k midpoint.
Based on this rule of thumb, negotiating an increase of more than 10% from whatโs been offered means, mathematically, you very well might run into the top of the band. Thatโs not necessarily terrible โ itโs not an electric fence. It calls for a bit of caution, though. You can easily get into sticker shock territory and give the employer the impression they canโt afford you.
Here are two ways to try to maximize the offer while respecting the salary band, staying on the safe side of things:
Iโm sure thereโs a defined compensation range for this position. I think my qualifications ought to me at or near the top of it. Does this offer reflect that, or could it be adjusted to move me up in the band?
The salary in the offer isnโt quite what Iโm hoping for. You mentioned that itโs close to the top of the band, what other ways might the offer be adjusted to affect the total compensation?
If they say that youโre already close to the top of the band (which, amusingly, they almost always seem to do) โ respond by asking if itโs possible for them to make any adjustment at all.
In the second example, youโre inviting the employer to discuss variable compensation (bonus or commission), stock or option awards, perks, or other forms of communication that might move the needle.
5๏ธโฃ Ask the Right Questions
Hereโs a helpful affirmation to guide you through any bargaining opportunity:
I am curious, Iโm inquisitive, I am wise.
Emotionally intelligent people know that curiosity is an essential tool for developing empathy and self-awareness. By asking questions in any business setting, youโre demonstrates your interest in other people, admitting that you donโt know everything, and that youโre interested to learn.
Through research and practice, Iโm convinced that questions are the cornerstone of a successful negotiation. If you take only one โnegotiating tacticโ into your next opportunity, make it this one. Itโs an especially handy tool for people who strictly want to avoid feeling too bold or aggressive.
Hereโs how it works best:
โOpen endedโ questions are ways of being curious or inquisitive that invite an informative answer, rather than a single-word response. Think of the difference between asking a kid โHow was school today?โ and โWhat was your favorite part?โ
In the context of a job offer, open-ended questions might start with โwhatโ, โhowโ, โwhichโ, or โwhy.โ Closed questions invite a binary response, and might begin with โCould/Would youโ, or โIf.โ
Any question that invites the sharing of more context, information, or requirements can be helpful in a negotiation. Hereโs some specific examples:
What are some of the ways that an offer like this might typically be improved?
Another example:
Which aspects of this offer do you feel are set in stone, and what might be open to negotiation?
One more:
Which elements of the offer do other candidates typically look to improve?
Resist the temptation to supply the recruiter or manager with default or assumed answers. Youโre in this conversation to find the outcome thatโs best for both of you. Let them fill in the blanks for you rather than asking for yes/no answers. This is a great way to ensure the discussion is moving in a way that they feel is productive.
6๏ธโฃ How to be Resilient
A job offer is justification for immediate celebration. It can also cause a bit of stress as you work out how to respond. Itโs probably the most important thing happening in your life at that moment. The recruiter, on the other hand, is probably handling many transactions on the very same day.
High-stakes decisions are flying back and forth via email, which we all know is the worst way to do get almost anything done. It adds up to fertile ground for misunderstanding of tone and emotion, sometimes straining relationships and leading good deals to go bad.
For as long as you think thereโs a chance you want to end up working for the company, maintain a relentlessly upbeat and optimistic attitude to every conversation you have with them. Move those conversations to voice or video rather than email whenever you can.
At the end of a long and grueling interview process, you may get an offer that is so bad that it makes you want to go back to bed and pull the covers over your head. Try to keep your disappointment to yourself, and assume youโre one or two steps away from being offered exactly what youโve always wanted.
Hereโs an example response to a terrible offer:
โThank you so much for this offer! I really appreciate the positive feedback and vote of confidence. Iโm excited at the prospect of joining your team. Some of the details arenโt exactly what I expected, but Iโm sure we can work them out. Iโd love to talk with you about this. When can we talk?
Unless youโre conjuring some kind of mystical negotiation magic, never react negatively or with disappointment or frustration, even to an insultingly bad offer. It simply wonโt help you achieve your goal.
Companies toss lowball offers at great candidates for all kinds of stupid reasons. Make the effort, and you might turn a bad offer into a good one. Iโve personally been involved in negotiations that saw offers swing upwards by 20% to 40% or more. I just heard from a colleague (an amazing, inspiring woman) who negotiated and got six figures of cash and stock added to her initial offer. ๐ to that lady!
Candidates talk themselves out of getting a better offer if they react poorly to the first one. Donโt take the lazy route by letting a slow reply be the signal your ambivalence. A lukewarm response to an offer is a good way to make sure there wonโt be a second.
Why? Employers sometimes react emotionally to a candidateโs reaction to them. This is, frankly, terrible. I say this having been guilty of it myself. Hiring managers sometimes feel like theyโve put a lot of work into getting the candidate an offer. We can forget that the imbalance of power between potential employer and prospective employee means that the burden of courtesy is on us.
Try to stay upbeat. Donโt think of it as a bad offer, just think of it as the first. Always believe a better one is possible. If you can, try to forgive the employerโs errors or discourtesies โ as long as they fall short of abuse, neglect, or bogosity.
Believe in your own ability to make the best out of any situation.
7๏ธโฃ How to Sell Yourself
Without qualification, maintain your โjob interviewerโ persona throughout the process until it is signed or dead. Express your passion, be excited about the opportunity, and express ravenous curiosity to learn more, starting on your very first day on the job.
Itโs great if he employer believes theyโre doing an amazing job of recruiting you. The stress of dealing with a negotiation often causes candidates to inadvertently give the impression that theyโve lost their enthusiasm for the role. Give the sense that youโre right on the verge of saying โYes.โ
When communicating by email, donโt cut corners on being polite. If youโre feeling gratitude and appreciation for your negotiation partner, try something like:
I really appreciate you working through these compensation issues with me. Thank you for working through these things with me.
Are we blowing sunshine up their butt? Maybe. Thereโs a time for everything, and perhaps the time for that is now. Hereโs why.
A candidateโs conduct during the negotiation has often caused me and other managers to start having second thoughts about their pick. For me, a candidateโs choice to negotiate has never been problematic. More than once, though, their style or approach to the discussion revealed something that I didnโt see in the interview process.
If we get a slow reply to an offer, we might speculate the person was pursuing another opportunity, and weโre their second choice. A candidate who pushed too hard, making unreasonable or unorthodox requests, might make us question whether weโd enjoy working with them under pressure.
A long laundry list of assorted requests, like a eccentric rockerโs green M&Mโs tour rider, might make us wonder if they lack self-awareness or humility. Itโs fine to make a bunch of requests, if thatโs what it will take to get the deal done. As the list grows longer, be mindful of how theyโll appear when shared among the team.
This role is a great fit for me, and Iโm really excited to get started. Iโm super optimistic but could use a day or two to think things over. Could we plan to talk on Thursday at 2pm?
Do not fear rejection of any reasonable request. You wonโt get everything you ask for, but youโll never know if you donโt try.
And donโt test out what โreasonableโ means by sending it to the employer! If youโre not sure how a request might be perceived, find someone to ask (you can always ask me!) Failing that, you should go out of your way to pose it as a polite and humble question.
8๏ธโฃ How to Make a Connection
In every conversation, strive to make a personal connection with the people you encounter. Send a โHuman Being, Here!โ signal to everyone you meet as you interview, negotiate, and explore each opportunity.
I have really enjoyed this interview process. Tell me a little bit about how this has gone for you.
People want to do business with people who they like. Cognitive bias causes us to be more trusting and welcoming of people we perceive as similar to us. This is the root of harmful prejudice, but can also be made to work to your advantage when you connect with someone on a human level.
Recruiters are often not treated as well as they should be. Plenty of candidates feel theyโve been treated poorly by recruiters in the past. Recruiters Iโve talked to blame this increasingly sweatshop-like conditions, with ever-growing expectations of productivity from managers who scarcely understand the work.
Foster the best, most empathetic, home-team relationship with the recruiter or hiring manager from the very word โgo.โ Find a few moments in every conversation to ask them a question about themselves. Tell them something extra about yourself that they didnโt strictly need to know, if it helps them understand something about who you really are.
Developing a rapport with a prospective employer can give you an unfair advantage over other candidates. The interpersonal aspect of recruiting is so influential that large companies train recruiters and hiring managers not to engage in โunnecessaryโ conversation with candidates. Some of us may have sometimes broken that intolerable rule. With luck (and maybe a little charm) perhaps you can overcome that. If you do, you' might earn yourself an unfair advantage over the competition.
Here are some conversation starters:
Iโd love to know a little more about you and your work. How you wound up at the company?
Hereโs another:
Iโm really excited about this role. Do you have any suggestions for me on how to improve my chances?
There are three great reasons to ask a recruiter for advice. First, they know as much as anybody about what works and what doesnโt for someone in your shoes. Second, the recruiter is likely motivated to help get you hired. Theyโre usually measured by successful placements, not the number of candidates interviewed.
Finally, thereโs the Ben Franklin effect. Itโs an old maxim which lately has gained convincing support from cognitive science. People are more likely to want to help someone theyโve already done a favor for.
9๏ธโฃ How to Break the Money Taboo
With few exceptions, the cultural taboo against talking about money seems to exist in almost every culture. Thatโs unfortunate, because it works against our interests as employees. Employers once discouraged or forbade workers from discussing compensation with each other. Thatโs a pretty good sign that itโs beneficial to our interests! (This practice is now illegal in the US.)
Talking about oneโs earnings still causes discomfort for many people. You gain nothing from observing or maintaining this taboo, other than conformance. Breaking it benefits you, because an informed negotiator is a better one. Talk to your peers about money. Start conversations about other aspects of whatโs worked and what hasnโt in their own career development.
Hereโs one way to start that conversation with someone you trust:
Hey there. Iโm working on a job search and Iโm trying to figure out where I stand on compensation. Could I share some of my experiences with you, and maybe you could tell me some of yours? No need to divulge anything youโre not comfortable with.
Frank compensation conversations are a normal part of almost every professional coaching relationship. A professional coach has an advantage over mentors chosen from colleagues at work, or from your network or community. It just feels more comfortable to talk about these things with an otherwise uninvolved third party, and to someone who youโre paying. Thatโs why itโs often easier to talk to a therapist about things you donโt even tell your bestie.
My clients have used compensation calibration conversations with me to negotiate job offers, promotions, and to change the way they market themselves. This translates to money in the bank for them, and thereโs almost nothing I enjoy more than that.
๐ How to Use Data
Through investigation and evaluation, you can learn what people are paid for comparable roles in your industry. Having this data on hand fortifies your own requests and can stiffen your negotiating resolve. Collaborate with your professional and personal network on this, and check out a few salary survey sites (hereโs my favorite.) These accumulate job titles and pay ranges via reports from anonymous contributors.
Iโve cross-checked survey site pay bands against what Iโve seen in my own work. They can be both frighteningly accurate and factually incorrect. Itโs a bit like the estimates of home value on Zillow. You can use them to get a useful impression of whatโs going on, but donโt run out a buy anything based on what you see there.
Never rely on any individual report from a salary survey site. Donโt quote an individual figure you see there to your prospective employer. Itโs frustrating to have somebody throw a poorly-sourced internet figure at you when you know the actual facts but probably canโt say them out loud.
You can definitely disregard the top ~20% of compensation figures reported for any given role. People who got a unicorn deal for an unusual reason rush right to these sites to crow about them. I think quite a few more find creative ways to round up their own numbers, because you know, internet. Selection bias is at work here also, as people who got a lowball offer are probably less likely to report it.
Combine all of the information you find to make an educated guess about what the salary range for your role is. This anecdata will give you an impression of what is reasonable and customary for the role youโre considering.
This doesnโt make sense mathematically, because the bands should be responsive to the offers that actually get made and accepted. That doesnโt seem to happen, though, because almost every first offer Iโve been able to check turns out to be in the third quartile (50% - 75%) of the band.
One explanation is the Lake Wobegon effect โ nobody makes an offer to a candidate who they think is below average. Itโs also politically expensive to say your candidate is strong than everybody who came before them, so you should expect to have to negotiate your way into the top of the band.
When you get an offer that you think is not near the top of the band, you can say something like:
โI got the impression from [site] that the range for this position could go up to [figure] โ what can I do to get myself into the high end of that range?โ
Wrapping it Up
Thanks for staying with me as I wrote the word โnegotiationโ about seven hundred times.
I hope this negotiation education is facilitation for your compensation communication. Use it with any corporation in a hiring situation. Like a Hatian on vacation in a woody wagon station. Sorry, this is turning into mentalโฆuh, self-indulgence?
One more piece of advice for anybody whoโs feeling nervous about a negotiation: donโt do it alone. Pick up the phone, call someone (anyone!) with a little more experience than you, and ask them:
Hey there! Iโm working on getting a new job and Iโm nervous about making sure I donโt sell myself short. Could you help me think through my negotiating approach?
Donโt put too much pressure on yourself. If you donโt get every penny you deserve out of the job offer, thereโs another chance coming in your annual review.
More on that in another post. Let me know what you needed but didnโt get from this post, or about your own experiences negotiating.