How to Negotiate Your Salary

Whether you’ve been in the same company for a while, you’ve taken on additional responsibilities but haven’t received the right remuneration for it, or you’ve just been offered a new job, you need to know how to successfully negotiate your salary.

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If you know that you deserve more than what you’re currently earning, you’ll want to follow these tips to get a bump in your salary.

1. Conduct Market Research

To justify a higher salary, you’re going to need to talk about your ideal salary expectations and to ensure you go in with a logical figure, you’ll need to conduct some market research.

Ask friends with a similar background and experience what they get paid, check out job posts for similar roles and do some online research.

Once you have a clear understanding of what others are being paid, you will have a more exact figure of what you are worth.

2. Discuss Your Value

If you’re asking for a raise or negotiating a new job offer, you’re going to have to prove your worth by discussing your value.

To do so, you’ll need to bring up instances where you’ve helped the company by increasing profitability or decreasing costs, taking on additional responsibilities and generally aiding in the development of your team and department.

Although you’d expect management to recognise you as a strong performer, they often don’t know what you do on a day-to-day basis, so you’ll need to show them that by highlighting just how valuable you are to the company.

3. Give an Exact Number

When a hiring manager asks you, ‘What are your salary expectations?’, most candidates freeze and fail to provide a number or give a salary range.

However, by providing a salary range, you’re allowing the employer to offer you the lower end of the scale, as you’re suggesting that you would be happy with that figure.

So, to ensure you get offered a salary you’ll be happy with, it’s a good idea to go into negotiations with two figures in mind: the salary you want and the salary you’re willing to negotiate down to. That way, you will most likely end up with at least the lower figure.

4. Have Leverage

If you’re job seeking and have a few offers on the table, then you should let the hiring manager know about it.

If they really like you, they might consider increasing their offer to ensure you become a member of their team.

That said, if you are negotiating a higher salary, it’s not the best tactic to use.

Instead, simply present market information and use that as leverage instead – you’re indicating that you would consider jumping ship without actually saying those exact words.

5. Time it Appropriately

There’s nothing worse than catching your manager completely off guard.

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They will be entirely unprepared for your questions and will most likely give you a negative answer.

Therefore, if you’re going to ask for a raise, do it in your yearly review, or request a formal meeting.

Likewise, if you’re applying for a new job, wait until you’ve been given an official offer before you embark on your negotiations.

6. Be Calm and Confident

When discussing a tricky topic like a raise, it’s easy to get emotional, nervous or even aggressive.

But if you want to be taken seriously, you need to speak in a calm and assertive manner.

You’re not asking for something that you don’t deserve – and what’s the worst that can happen?

You can just end up with a ‘no’ which can help you realign your career goals.

7. Consider Other Negotiating Factors

Sometimes it’s not all about the money – there may be other factors that could hold equal or higher value to you in terms of job satisfaction.

So, if you’re not too fussed about getting a pay increase, consider asking for other benefits like additional paid days off, the ability to work remotely or stock options.

So, now you’re well-equipped with the best practices to help you prepare for the big question! The only thing left is to start gathering the facts.

Zona Marwah