SALT LAKE CITY — If you're in the market for a job, maybe you've been on an interview or two. Perhaps an employer has pitched you an offer, but the salary was just too low.
What do you do?
Those on the job hunt might think when negotiating a salary, pushing too hard could be perceived as greedy or aggressive. While not pushing hard enough might come at the cost of not getting appropriate compensation.
Studies show more than half of employers expect a salary to be negotiated when they make an offer, so if you ask the right way, there's no harm in negotiating and a lot of upsides.
According to Andres Lares, managing partner at Shapiro Negotianations Institute, the first step is to manage emotions in the moment when a lowball offer is first made. There's no need to completely remove emotion, but be aware of your reaction.
Next, it's best to know the market and prepare by learning your comparables.
“Doing research ahead of time is really critical for two reasons,” said Lares. “The first is these are the things you’re going to refer to if the number is low. You can say, not only before you ask the question, ‘What is your number based on?’ You can say, ‘I’ve done my own research and it looks like your company in this region typically pays ‘X’ for this role’. That signals to the other side that you’re prepared, that gets you a lot more prepared and that also gives you that objective standard to point to with something you’ve seen online. And then it gives you a lot more conviction and confidence.”
A good idea is to have what Lares calls a decision tree. Plan out how you may respond based on what number an employer could quote. If it's a low offer, you could say something like, "I appreciate that offer, but that is a lot lower than I was expecting. Can you tell me what that's based on?"
If an offer is higher than expected, don't be so quick to accept.
Remember that when negotiating, focus on what you bring to the table because the value you bring is worth an employer’s additional costs.