Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Make More Then The Average Salary
Make More Then The Average Salary
If there is one aspect of career life that requires (please pardon a favorite expression from David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross ) "brass balls," it is salary negotiation. The time you spend in front of a superior in an earnest attempt to justify a hike in pay will test your will and mental strength like no other negotiation you face on the job.
A successful negotiation will win you respect and admiration, but of more importance is the level of personal satisfaction you will gain. Do it well and your confidence will soar, along with your enthusiasm for the job. Fail at your attempt to get more money and your ego will crash into a million pieces. Is it possible that you are not the valuable asset you thought you were? Perhaps, or maybe you fell short in your strategy to get a raise.
There are a number of points to consider when you decide to negotiate a better salary.
keep corporate policy in mind
For an entry-level candidate, the salary range may prove to be very tight. Most organizations have very stringent rules about what the average salary is for new hires. So if you feel you deserve exceptional consideration, make sure you have exceptional grades and/or relevant work experience. You will have to prove your mettle with the company however, before you force your potential employers to extend their salary range way beyond the usual limit.
The same can apply to an employee with a certain amount of tenure with a company. Most big firms have salary tiers that you have to scale one at a time. For some, this modest jump is an insult and they want to leap over a few rungs on the money ladder at once. This is not impossible; it just requires an enormous amount of ammunition to back up your claim that you deserve it. Keep this in mind as well: Can you look fellow coworkers whom you are about to leap over on the salary scale in the eyes and tell them you deserve more money? If so, prepare your argument and go for it.
choose your words well
Salary negotiation is a pure sales job and to invoke Glengarry again, you have to be like Alec Baldwin's character in the film and always close. Always be closing . In other words, the sale starts when the customer, in this case your employer, says "no."
When you get into the details of what salary you think you deserve or expect, never use these terms out loud. When you mean that you "expect" a certain salary, what you say to the person on the other end of the desk is that you "hope" for a certain salary. "Expect" is a dirty word and conjures up ill will.
Never give them a reason to think you are being pushy or dictatorial. Even if it is not the case and you have a sweet offer on the table from another firm and are set to pick up and leave if their answer is negative, act as if your employer holds all the cards. Because more often than not, they do.
The questions to ask and the research to do...
ask questions
The onus is on you to arm yourself with information to justify your argument for better pay. Here are some sample questions to toss out as you negotiate your salary, whether for an entry-level position or not:
What is the salary range for the position?
What is the basis for that range? In other words, what does a person in this position need to have to rise to the upper range?
Is there precedent for the company to go beyond that range? If so, what were the circumstances? If not, what has to occur in the future for that precedent to be set?
What is the average salary raise for this position from one year to the next?
How often will a person in this position be subject to a performance and salary review? What are the milestones a person in this position has to attain on a regular basis in order to receive a raise or promotion without negotiation?
do your research
You have to conduct a fair amount of diligence on your own in order to be in a good position to negotiate a higher wage. Apart from the information you may derive from the questions above, here are some more points to address before you make your plea.
I suggest, for one, that you do whatever you can to discover the average industry salary range for your job type. There is quite a bit of pertinent information available on the Internet (check the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), so the World Wide Web is your best bet here.
Advertisements for like jobs that list a salary range are an obvious barometer as well. In addition, ask friends, family and industry contacts you trust to offer their two cents too. They may know something you do not.
Last but not least, it may be worth your while to contact professional associations, recruiters and headhunters and find out what you can about the average salary for your job and industry. Just remember to take the information with a grain of salt and cross-reference it thoroughly.
The data you uncover with a bit of research may lend a very persuasive and powerful argument your way.
...at the job interview
This comes up a lot in questions readers send my way, so I will address it here. It is never comfortable to discuss salary when the job is not even yours yet, but the question is inevitable and is, in essence, your first potential turn at wage negotiations.
When an employer asks what your salary requirements are, never answer directly. For the most part, this is a lose-lose proposition. Instead, relay the expectations of the position and what you hope to deliver in return. and then ask what the range is.
In the same vein, realize the fruitlessness of an honest, or even dishonest, response when an employer asks about your previous salary. Rather, tell them that your preference is to discuss the requirements of the job further before you negotiate compensation.
In addition, always offer the employer an opportunity to increase the offer on the table. Never jump at a salary they throw your way. Instead, take the time to consider it and whenever possible, increase the range so that their top figure is your bottom figure. Thus, a $40,000 to $45,000 salary range becomes $45,000 to $50,000 when you counter-offer. Just make sure that there is industry precedent for that wage.
As you embark on your mission to get paid , remember, above all else, never to bend the truth. Be honest about why you deserve a raise and if they press you, do give the exact salary of your previous job.
One last tip is to bear in mind the company's total investment in you as an employee, from a health plan, company car or any other perks they remunerate you with. If they grant you a raise, one of these could somehow disappear. Make sure that this doesn't happen -- get everything in writing.
Best of luck.
www.askmen.com
If there is one aspect of career life that requires (please pardon a favorite expression from David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross ) "brass balls," it is salary negotiation. The time you spend in front of a superior in an earnest attempt to justify a hike in pay will test your will and mental strength like no other negotiation you face on the job.
A successful negotiation will win you respect and admiration, but of more importance is the level of personal satisfaction you will gain. Do it well and your confidence will soar, along with your enthusiasm for the job. Fail at your attempt to get more money and your ego will crash into a million pieces. Is it possible that you are not the valuable asset you thought you were? Perhaps, or maybe you fell short in your strategy to get a raise.
There are a number of points to consider when you decide to negotiate a better salary.
keep corporate policy in mind
For an entry-level candidate, the salary range may prove to be very tight. Most organizations have very stringent rules about what the average salary is for new hires. So if you feel you deserve exceptional consideration, make sure you have exceptional grades and/or relevant work experience. You will have to prove your mettle with the company however, before you force your potential employers to extend their salary range way beyond the usual limit.
The same can apply to an employee with a certain amount of tenure with a company. Most big firms have salary tiers that you have to scale one at a time. For some, this modest jump is an insult and they want to leap over a few rungs on the money ladder at once. This is not impossible; it just requires an enormous amount of ammunition to back up your claim that you deserve it. Keep this in mind as well: Can you look fellow coworkers whom you are about to leap over on the salary scale in the eyes and tell them you deserve more money? If so, prepare your argument and go for it.
choose your words well
Salary negotiation is a pure sales job and to invoke Glengarry again, you have to be like Alec Baldwin's character in the film and always close. Always be closing . In other words, the sale starts when the customer, in this case your employer, says "no."
When you get into the details of what salary you think you deserve or expect, never use these terms out loud. When you mean that you "expect" a certain salary, what you say to the person on the other end of the desk is that you "hope" for a certain salary. "Expect" is a dirty word and conjures up ill will.
Never give them a reason to think you are being pushy or dictatorial. Even if it is not the case and you have a sweet offer on the table from another firm and are set to pick up and leave if their answer is negative, act as if your employer holds all the cards. Because more often than not, they do.
The questions to ask and the research to do...
ask questions
The onus is on you to arm yourself with information to justify your argument for better pay. Here are some sample questions to toss out as you negotiate your salary, whether for an entry-level position or not:
What is the salary range for the position?
What is the basis for that range? In other words, what does a person in this position need to have to rise to the upper range?
Is there precedent for the company to go beyond that range? If so, what were the circumstances? If not, what has to occur in the future for that precedent to be set?
What is the average salary raise for this position from one year to the next?
How often will a person in this position be subject to a performance and salary review? What are the milestones a person in this position has to attain on a regular basis in order to receive a raise or promotion without negotiation?
do your research
You have to conduct a fair amount of diligence on your own in order to be in a good position to negotiate a higher wage. Apart from the information you may derive from the questions above, here are some more points to address before you make your plea.
I suggest, for one, that you do whatever you can to discover the average industry salary range for your job type. There is quite a bit of pertinent information available on the Internet (check the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), so the World Wide Web is your best bet here.
Advertisements for like jobs that list a salary range are an obvious barometer as well. In addition, ask friends, family and industry contacts you trust to offer their two cents too. They may know something you do not.
Last but not least, it may be worth your while to contact professional associations, recruiters and headhunters and find out what you can about the average salary for your job and industry. Just remember to take the information with a grain of salt and cross-reference it thoroughly.
The data you uncover with a bit of research may lend a very persuasive and powerful argument your way.
...at the job interview
This comes up a lot in questions readers send my way, so I will address it here. It is never comfortable to discuss salary when the job is not even yours yet, but the question is inevitable and is, in essence, your first potential turn at wage negotiations.
When an employer asks what your salary requirements are, never answer directly. For the most part, this is a lose-lose proposition. Instead, relay the expectations of the position and what you hope to deliver in return. and then ask what the range is.
In the same vein, realize the fruitlessness of an honest, or even dishonest, response when an employer asks about your previous salary. Rather, tell them that your preference is to discuss the requirements of the job further before you negotiate compensation.
In addition, always offer the employer an opportunity to increase the offer on the table. Never jump at a salary they throw your way. Instead, take the time to consider it and whenever possible, increase the range so that their top figure is your bottom figure. Thus, a $40,000 to $45,000 salary range becomes $45,000 to $50,000 when you counter-offer. Just make sure that there is industry precedent for that wage.
As you embark on your mission to get paid , remember, above all else, never to bend the truth. Be honest about why you deserve a raise and if they press you, do give the exact salary of your previous job.
One last tip is to bear in mind the company's total investment in you as an employee, from a health plan, company car or any other perks they remunerate you with. If they grant you a raise, one of these could somehow disappear. Make sure that this doesn't happen -- get everything in writing.
Best of luck.
www.askmen.com