When and How to Negotiate Salary In Our Industry
Negotiating salary can be nerve-wracking and filled with emotions. Trust us, we know. We’ve lived through this countless times, and now we advise our clients on how to navigate this experience. “A survey by Salary.com revealed that only 37% of people always negotiate their salaries — while an astonishing 18% never do” (The Muse). This shouldn’t be a daunting task — you should feel empowered and confident.
The When:
Before Accepting A Job
The best time to negotiate salary is before you’ve actually started the job, and you’re waiting to put pen to paper on an offer. This can be for an internal promotion at your current company or when you’re deciding to take a new role. Salary negotiations feel confrontational and you might believe that starting off on the right foot means accepting the initial offer. In reality, the opposite is true. When you’re starting a new role, you should feel properly valued by your company or at least like you’ve had the chance to state your case. Coming in with bad feelings or disappointment will not set you up for success. It’s important to realize that your company may not be able to fulfill your salary request, but you’ll never know if you don’t ask.
When you are applying for a job, ask for the salary amount you want. If you give a range, the company will be hoping to pay on the lower end while you will be hoping for the higher end of the range. Knowing this, only put forth numbers that you would be happy with.
The How: After A Positive Performance Review
If your company does any kind of performance review, that would be another time to consider asking about salary increase or renegotiation. A positive review is a good time to bring up your salary level. Remember that small incremental increases still have the potential to add up and companies are more willing to consider them if you’ve been hitting performance goals and benchmarks. Similarly, when you hit a milestone such as a year at your company, that’s a great time to bring up your salary goals and expectations. Again, you may not always get the salary you want, but your company will know your feelings and will keep you in mind for a pay raise.
We all wish our employers would give us raises without us asking, but think about it from their perspective. They have budgets to consider and every raise they give means a higher raise the next time. Of course, solid companies reward good employees, but they aren’t going to rush to raise their costs if they don’t feel they have to. Stand up for yourself and be your own advocate. If your company tells you that you’ve been succeeding, ask them if there could be a reward for that success. If they say it’s not the right time, ask them if certain performance metrics would make them more comfortable having a salary conversation. There is no perfect time to talk about salary and it won’t always be clear to you, but if it’s on your mind, try and identify a good time to talk about it. Letting it simmer in the background will do no good for you or your employer.
The How:
One of the biggest rules to remember is: be realistic. Know your actual value. Understand that if you ask for a number that’s outside the range offered, you must be able to back up why you ‘deserve’ that amount. Keep in mind geographical location as well; bigger cities traditionally pay more due to higher costs of living and vice versa with small cities. If you’ve just graduated from college and are applying for a Junior Account Executive role, don’t expect, or ask, for $75,000/year. Likewise, if you have 12+ years of experience and are going for a Creative Director role, see what the agency is offering, and if it matches what you’re wanting, great! If not, think about why you think you deserve higher and go for it.
A great way to prepare for this conversation is to research on sites such as Glassdoor or Payscale to see what other people in the same position are making. Or, if you’re comfortable with a few peers, you could reach out and ask if they’d share what their compensation is. Another suggestion we have is to talk with recruiters, like BLT, to hear what you should be asking for based on your experience; recruiters will always know what a fair asking number is as their job revolves around helping candidates get placed.
If you have specific questions, or need to talk it through, we are here for you! We’re career oracles on a mission to support candidates at every turn. Contact Us.