Salary Negotiations
Positioning Your Candidacy

Before salary negotiations begin position yourself to maximize your leverage.

This is the point in the job getting process where you need to determine whether your pay requirements are within the position hiring range. There's no reason to waste time pursuing a position that won't meet your needs.

At the same time you must delay negotiating pay as long possible. This is easier to accomplish than you might think.

The First Step in the Salary Negotiations Dance

Most often when a company is interested in pursuing your candidacy, you will receive a telephone job interview call. One purpose of this call is to make sure you meet the minimum position requirements including pay rate fit.

At some point during the call the recruiter will probably ask something like, "How much are you looking for in the way of pay?"

Most people will name a specific pay rate. You, however, will be smarter than that. Recognize what she really wants to know.

A recruiter wants to know whether what you're looking for falls within the hiring range the company is willing to pay someone to start in this position.

That's it. So that's all you're going to tell her. To do that without tipping your hand you need to determine what the position hiring range is.

Position Your Candidacy
Don't Start Salary Negotiations.

A good recruiter will be prepared for this question and will have an answer for you. If the range she gives is impossibly wide ask whether she's quoting the position salary range or the hiring range. If she doesn't know the difference in all probability it's the position salary range.

When the hiring authority is doing the screening and she can't or won't give you a range ask if the pay range is within the going market range. (You will know what this is because of your research.) If necessary you can quote "the market pay range based on your research". Name a market range with the top end slightly higher than your personal range top end. Do not quote your personal range during the screening call. The caller should be able to give you either a yes or no. She may even give you an adjusted "market salary range" to fit her opportunity.

Once you have this information you need to decide whether to keep going down this particular job seeking road.

If appropriate you can let the recruiter or hiring manager know that your salary requirements are within her range. Enough said. (This hiring range information helps you during the actual salary negotiations down the road too.)

If your requirements are above the hiring range consider carefully whether to continue your pursuit of this opportunity. There's a 90% chance it will be a big waste of your time and the hiring authority's time to do so.

If you decide not to pursue the opportunity. Tell the caller in a pleasant but business like way that her hiring range does not meet your requirements. Be sure to tell her also that you appreciate her time and consideration of your candidacy.

Pre-Negotiation Positioning - Part 2

Continue to position your candidacy during the interview. Don't ask about perks or benefits. Bringing up the compensation issue first only weakens your position. (If you don't already know you'll learn about these things once an offer is forthcoming.)

But what if the hiring authority asks about your salary requirements at the beginning instead of toward the end of an interview? At this point in your meeting the interviewer has not had a chance to learn about all your best qualities. And you haven't had a chance to learn about exactly what would be expected of you in the position.

So if this question comes up too soon try saying something like, "I'm open to a rate that would be in line with the going market rate for the job you want done. So with all due respect, I'd like to defer my answer to that question until I have a more thorough understanding of the position responsibilities and what would be expected of me in this role."

Follow this up with a question of your own such as, "How do you measure success in this position?"

If all goes well during the rest of the interview, this question will come up again. Here's guidance on negotiating pay from there.