How to Negotiate Your Salary

Salary negotiation can be one of the most awkward parts of any job interview, or a very simple matter.  The key factor is you, the job seeker:  Have you done your research?  Do you know what others in your industry/position earn?  Find out, before you walk into the interview.

What are you worth?  Use the Internet to price yourself right.

Finding out what others take home in your line of work used to be a time-consuming project, requiring discretion and sophisticated investigational skills.  Fortunately, simple tools are now available online that take a lot of the mystery out of this process.

Sites like Payscale.com can help you identify the appropriate pay range for hundreds of different jobs, with a simple salary calculator.  Just identify your job title, give the site a little bit of information about your location, education and experience, and discover a range of possibilities.

Have Your Price?  Ask for It

As a savvy job seeker, you’ve done your research and you know how much you’d like to make.  Now how do you ask for it?

One oft-recommended method of salary negotiation is to ask a potential employer what he or she pays others with your job description.  At a recent career talk, Senior Development Manager of Amazon’s Digital Media Group Dorothy Nicholls described her early experiences with salary negotiation: “When I first moved here, they asked me about salary and I said ‘Well, it doesn’t cost as much to live in Seattle as it does in the Bay Area, right?’” “The best advice I can give you is to always ask: What do you pay the other people in this position?”

Having a sense of what other employees make is invaluable, but don’t rely on this information alone.  An unwary applicant may run afoul of company policies which don’t allow the disclosure of this information.  Smaller companies may not have anyone else with your title for comparison purposes, and you may under-sell yourself if an employer hasn’t hired in some time and kept up with raises.

You can ask about other employees, but use this information in combination with your own research.  Before you walk into the interview or salary negotiation, you should have identified your desired salary range.  Ask for something on the upper end, but be aware of your bottom figure and don’t take it personally if an employer balks at your first number.

Keep in mind that nonprofits, government agencies, and small businesses may not be able to offer a salary at the top of your range.  Think about other factors which may impact the quality of your employment relationship such as benefits, job security, work environment, or job satisfaction, and balance these factors against a slight reduction in pay.