How to Counter a Salary Proposal After a Job Offer

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Pat Goodwin with patgoodwinassociates.com. I'd like to talk to you today about how to counter a salary proposal after a job offer. What's so exciting is getting to the offer and when you have had the interview and you are being offered a position, you may stop and think about this is not the only job that I have been offered, so I need to weigh the job itself, the work itself, the salary, the location, the quality of life. And so as you look at assessing your offer, often times its more than just the salary, but the salary is very, very important. So as you begin to think about how can I counter a salary proposal after a job offer, you want to make sure that you thank them for the offer, you want to make sure that you ask them is this provided to me in writing. You have yet to agree that the salary that they've told you is something you accept. So you want to say I want to thank you so much for the offer, is this something that you will send to me in writing? Typically the letter that they offer you in the offer letter is its called, is sent to you with the benefits, sent to you with any perks, any additional information that you may have. You may get a cell phone, you may have a car, you may have first air travel or business air travel. There are so many perks that you could have including the salary, but you want to make sure that you get the offer in writing and normally today, they will send it to you or e-mail it to you, so once you get the offer, then begin to review the offer and look at all the additional things that they are offering you. It could be relocation, it could be in a lump sum, but what's beneficial to you is if the company will pay for the relocation because they will tack that amount of relocation onto your salary at the end of the year, you will have additional taxes. So there's a lot of things that you can do besides just talking about the salary proposal. But let's focus on that salary proposal. If they are on with what it is you would like to have seen in the offer, there's not much to negotiate, you may find yourself in a really wonderful position where you're not actually negotiating salary. Most often you are negotiating something. So how far off are they? Are they $5,000? Are they $10,000? Are they $20,000? If they are a large amount of a discrepancy between what you've been making versus what they are offering you, you need to determine why. Is it the cost of living in that area? Is it because the title? Is it because that they are trying to low ball you? And so they are typically expecting a counter offer so you need to be prepared for the conversation and that is exactly what it is. Make sure that you've done your homework. Go to salarywizard.com or salary.com and take a look at the job in that city and the job that you are leaving in your city, or just compare city to city or the city you live in and try to do your homework as to what that salary should be and what the range is. So when you have the conversation, then you want to have them on the phone, ask them if this is a good time to talk. Then you want to say I'd like to visit with you about, wait and save the salary for last. Go into each of the subjects, vacation. As I mentioned to you during our discussion, I already have a trip to go home or to have a trip with my wife, the tickets have already been paid for and you all have said that there's flexibility in me being off, I just want to make sure that that's verified. And then if there's other any details about the offer, before you get to the salary, cover those first. And then when you get to the salary proposal, you want to say the salary has been offered to me at this amount, I'd like to talk to you about the flexibility of this offer and listen. Then more than likely, they're going to come back to you and say, well what did you have in mind? You need to be prepared to know exactly what you have in mind and say I would like to be given consideration for this amount of money. Or, if you're an executive, you may find that you have to have the money and say as I've talked to or discussed with the manager, this is the amount that its going to take for me to make a move from this company to that company and we've had that discussion and the offer is a little bit lower than that, so I would appreciate if you would go back to him and revisit this amount. Its always with graciousness, its always with firmness, but yet always with diplomacy. So if they then have to call you back, the offer is there, you've received it. Once the offer is made to you, the power shifts to you. So keep that in mind and you want to make sure that you are able to counter the offer and then what flexibility are you also looking for. You want them to be flexible, but how are they going to be flexible as well. And so hopefully that will help you, there is wonderful books out there, knock them dead. Martin Yate has written a book about interview questions and then negotiating chapters in there, which is excellent. Hopefully that will help you to know how to better counter an offer."