Five simple starting salary rules
When you are negotiating a starting salary for a new job, knowing the appropriate starting salary and successful negotiating techniques is invaluable . We’ve teamed up with acclaimed salary negotiation expert and author, Jack Chapman, to bring you practical advice on negotiating a starting salary for a new job.
Five simple starting salary rules:
- Rule #1) Postpone talking about starting salary until there’s an offer on the table
- Rule #2) Let the other person name a figure first
- Rule #3) Repeat their starting salary offer and be quiet
- Rule #4) Share your researched starting salary range and establish your individual value
- Rule #5) Clinch the deal and deal some more
Starting Salary Rule #1 – When to Discuss Starting Salary
There’s not much point in discussing starting salary unless you’re sure you’re going to get an offer, make sense? But more than that, it’s not to your advantage to talk about your starting salary. When an employer asks “what are your salary requirements?” or “what are you currently earning?” they are gathering information on your likely expectations. There are maybe two or three right answers to this question and more than 20 wrong ones. Too high and you’re screened out, too low and you’ll lose money in the initial offer, or you’ll be eliminated as under-qualified based on your low salary requirements.
The proper time to discuss your starting salary is after the job position has been defined and you are sure the employer understands what you are bringing to the table.
Until then, a good postponing phrase would be, “All I’ll require is a competitive salary. I will likely be using PayScale and other resources to help determine that — as I presume you will, too. So I’m confident the starting salary will take care of itself, if I’m the right person for the job.”