This step sounds easy enough, but for a 28-year-old, it means an ability to project forward in time and to be concerned with things such as retirement and benefits, which can amount to 30%–40% of total compensation. Weigh your pros and cons by making a list of deal breakers, optional items, and disposable ones (also see Exhibits A4-1 and A4-2).

Research the company and the industry. Several websites offer salary surveys, job listings with specified pay levels, and even customized compensation analyses. If it is a government or state job, salary information is usually publicly available. When in doubt, contact people who hold similar jobs and ask them “what they think the market is,” but don’t ask them what their salaries are advises salary negotiation expert Victoria Pynchon of She Negotiates consultancy.³ Pynchon specializes in helping high-powered women who work in male-dominated fields where it is critical to know what men make to avoid unknowingly accepting a lowball offer. Doing your homework ensures you don’t ask for something that has already been institutionalized. The taboo of discussing salaries is fading quickly. Millennials in particular, are turning the tables on salary secrecy. Because they are accustomed to posting nearly every aspect of their lives on social media, they have no hesitation about revealing what they make. However, before disclosing your salary, follow a few rules of thumb: Don’t bring it up to brag, don’t betray a colleagues’ salary information, and prepare to be disappointed when you discover your friends make more than you do.⁴

Remember that you always have a BATNA. Even if you don’t have but more than one job offer, you still have a course of action. For example, you may choose to “extend” your job search indefinitely, travel abroad, do freelance or volunteer work, take a research assistantship at a university, or take a nonprofessional job while continuing your career search. All of these options are possible BATNAs; they should be assessed and the best one focused upon and evaluated carefully.

Our BATNAs are never as attractive as we would like them to be. The rare times when we have two or more fabulous job offers in hand, two bids on our house, and lucrative investment opportunities, we can afford to push for a lot more in negotiations. Obviously, you are in a much better position to successfully negotiate an attractive compensation package if your BATNA is attractive. As we stated in Chapter 2, your BATNA is dynamic and it is important to not be passive about it.

It is important to think about how we might improve our BATNA. Most negotiators do not spend adequate time attempting to improve their current situation. As a result, they approach negotiations feeling more desperate than they should.

Developing your BATNA is only half the work that needs to be done before the negotiation. The next step is to determine the other party’s BATNA, which requires tapping into multiple sources of information.

You have made your best assessment of the employer’s BATNA. The negotiation is fast approaching. Now what? The next step is to determine the issues that are important to you in this negotiation. Be ready to talk about your interests and needs but spend equal time listening to the needs of the employer.

After you determine which issues are important from your perspective, revisit your list and attempt to create an even more detailed list, breaking down each of the issues into smaller and smaller subsets. Breaking up the issues into smaller subsets does two things. First, it allows the negotiator (you) to be much more specific about what is important (e.g., the paid aspect of a vacation or the number of days allowed off). Second, it provides greater opportunity for creative agreements.

Most likely, the negotiations will not go as planned. Rather than being caught off guard, prepare your response to several different scenarios including the following:

• The employer agrees immediately to your counteroffer.

• The employer makes a low-ball offer (in your eyes) and flatly states, “This is our final offer.”

• The employer makes one small concession.

• The employer asks you to make a “reasonable” offer.

Job coaches can help people advance their careers and achieve their compensation goals. They are people who help managers plan their future. Peter Goodman, CEO of MyJobCoach, puts it as, “If you have a legal issue, you go to a lawyer for advice. When doing financial planning, you go to an accountant. So why would you not go to a career coach when planning your career, the area where you spend over 70% of your waking life?”⁵ LexisNexis legal markets provides job coaches for new employees with the idea that the new hire will successfully integrate his or her own ideas into the company culture and make the company stronger with their stake within it more rewarding.⁶ CEOs have always taken coaching seriously, at least when it comes to negotiating their compensation packages. For example lawyer Joseph Bachelder has negotiated contracts for top corporate executives for more than 35 years, pioneering the idea of CEO contract negotiation.

It is advisable to make the first offer before they offer you one. Avoid round numbers. Negotiators who require a more precise salary such as $63,500, might receive a counteroffer of $62,000, while an applicant who requests $65,000 is more likely to receive a counteroffer of just $60,000.⁸ Remember to back up your offer with a compelling rationale. Use objective standards. Focus and select those standards that are favorable to you and be prepared to indicate why standards unfavorable to you are inappropriate.

Do not ask, “Can I negotiate the offer you have made?” Always assume the offer is negotiable and articulate your needs and interests. Consider the following conversation starters: “I have some questions about the insurance coverage that I would like to talk about” or “I have some concerns about the moving allowance, and I need to talk to you about it.”⁹ A survey conducted by careerbuilder.com indicated that 31% of employers were willing to negotiate salary increases with current employees and more than half (51%) planned to leave some negotiating “wiggle room” when extending first offers to new employees. Also, 21% were willing to extend two or more offers to the same candidate. Additionally, many employers who reported they were unable to provide raises indicated that they were willing to negotiate nonmonetary perks such as flexible work hours, bonuses, and training.¹⁰ However, many job applicants do not push employers at the negotiating table, particularly women. In one investigation, 57% of male MBAs took the liberty of negotiating their salary for their first job compared to only 7% of (equally qualified) females; the men ended up making $4,000 more per year on average.¹¹ The failure to negotiate a first offer from an employer can cost workers a lot of money. Negotiate on behalf of your spouse and children, or future spouse and children. If you don’t negotiate your first job offer and someone else gets your position for 7% higher, that lost 7% translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars in the future.¹² The effect is even more dramatic for an MBA student negotiating a $90,000 job offer. What’s more, if you do not negotiate what you want in that brief window between your receipt of a job offer and your acceptance of it, you may never get it. Your power is greatest when you are responding to “their offer” because it is the one time the employer may want you more than you want them.¹³ (For a list of things to ask for in your negotiation, see Exhibit A4-3.)

Companies don’t hire out of charity; they want to know why you are the right person for the job. Salary negotiations are really about candidates helping recruiters to solve their problems. So, focus the conversation on how you can help the company succeed in their goals. The discussion should not be so much about what you want, but about what you can provide. Pynchon coaches her clients to say something like, “I walk on water, and I can walk on water at your company too.”¹⁴ Aiming too high may eliminate you from consideration, so think carefully about your aspiration point.

Negotiators have a million ways of asking people about their BATNAs. Asking a potential job recruit about his or her current salary and wage package is one of them. Remember that this information is your business, not the recruiter’s. If you are currently employed, redirect the discussion by indicating what it is going to take to move you (e.g., a more exciting job and a wage package commensurate with the job). If you are not employed, explain what it will take to hire you. Ward off direct attacks about your previous salary by explaining that your acceptance of a position depends on the nature of the job offer and wage package.

You should be prepared to take the initiative in the conversation. Practice by role-playing. If the employer attempts to get you to talk about why you are leaving a former job, avoid falling into the trap of trashing a former employer even if you did have a miserable experience. It is a small world, and a relationship you do not immediately see may be involved. Even more important, the employer will probably get the wrong impression about you (e.g., regard you as a troublemaker or overly critical).

If you have not yet been offered the job but sense that the employer wants to find out what you desire in a job offer, avoid talking about salary or specific terms until you have an offer. You are in a much weaker position to negotiate before you have a job offer than after you are offered a position. If you have been told “Things will work out” or “A job offer is coming,” express appreciation and inquire when you will receive formal notice. After that, schedule a meeting to talk about the terms. While you are negotiating, you should assume that everything is negotiable. If you are told that some aspect of the job is “not negotiable,” ask questions, such as whether everyone (new hires and veterans) receives the same treatment.

It is important to plan for negotiation. According to global online compensation company PayScale, negotiating for a raise requires a three-part action plan of proving worth, building PR, and practice. Practice asking for a raise by pretending that a friend or a loved one is the boss. It might even be helpful to state your case to a mirror!¹⁵

Many people are reluctant to negotiate their job offer because they feel greedy or have a hard time being assertive. However, these same people are quite effective when negotiating for a company or for someone else. One solution is to approach a job negotiation as if you were negotiating on behalf of an important company: your own family. If we think about the direct effect our salary will have on our ability to provide for our children, our spouse, and our parents, we can be much more effective. Even the unmarried student without children is well advised to think about the family he or she will have or might have in the not-so-distant future and to negotiate on behalf of those people.

Probably no other information is perceived to be more valuable in the job negotiation process than what similar employers are offering or what current employees are receiving. It is important to keep in mind that such comparables or benchmarks can affect the perceived attractiveness of the job offer in question, but the negotiator may be unaware of this. For example, people are more likely to accept a lower-paying job that pays other employees the same amount than a higher-paying job that pays other employees even more. People do not want to be “underpaid” and would even give up more absolute money if this meant they were treated like others.¹⁶ Concerns for social comparisons (comps) are more important when people evaluate a single option than when they evaluate two options. Moreover, discrepancies in pay (i.e., social comparison concerns) may take priority over absolute salary amounts in situations in which choosing a job that is favorable on social comparison but unfavorable on actual salary can be “justified,” as in the case when an inferior (i.e., dominated) alternative is present.¹⁷ An analysis of how MBA students react to job offers revealed that signing bonuses did not affect acceptance rates; rather, job candidates strongly consider how responsive companies are to their questions and whether recruiters are cordial (rather than derogatory).¹⁸

First and foremost, don’t post anything negative about your experience on social media. Documented cases of employers discovering candidates’ postings following interviews that ultimately led to job offers being retracted have occurred. A reporter hired fresh out of journalism school landed a job with a Delaware’s largest newspaper, until the company discovered a post on his personal Tumblr blog trumpeting the hire with quotes from the offer letter and use of the company logo. Upon discovery, the newspaper called to rescind the offer due to what they said was an illegal use of the company logo as well as disclosing private information contained in the letter.¹⁹

Do not start negotiating until you have a firm job offer and a salary figure from the employer. Do not prolong negotiations however; this approach only frustrates the employer. Instead, give the employer positive reinforcement. Job negotiation coach Karen Cates suggests saying something like “This looks great. I need to go over everything one last time before we make this official. I will call you at [a specific time].”²⁰

If the employer says it is not standard to make written offers, be sure to consult with others who would know this (e.g., the company’s human resources division). At the very least, inform them you will write down your understanding of the terms and put it in a letter or memo to them. Keep notes for yourself regarding the points agreed to during each meeting.

Someone has just made you an offer. Thank them and show your appreciation but do not accept immediately. Say, instead, “Let me go home and think about it.” Make an appointment to return the following day and state your negotiating position in person.

Before you begin negotiating or contemplating a counteroffer, determine who in the company has the ability to negotiate. Generally, those persons higher up in the organization are the ones who negotiate and the ones who care most about hiring good people. You should be well versed about the advantages and disadvantages of negotiating with an intermediary, such as a human resources manager (see Chapter 9 on multiple parties). If you sense that things are not going well in the negotiation, try to bring someone else into the loop. However, make this move in a gracious way so as not to antagonize the person with whom you are dealing.

A powerful negotiating strategy is to let the employer know exactly what it will take for you to agree. This technique is effective because the employer can put aside any fears about the negotiation dragging on indefinitely. When you make your demands though, provide logic and a clear rationale. Requesting something viewed as outrageous may lose you the job. One man applied for an entry-level job in a company that paid an admittedly low salary for the industry. The salary was made clear to the job applicant in advance. The candidate went through several rounds of interviews and ultimately demanded double over what the employer was willing to pay. He was intransigent about his demands. Ultimately, he was not offered the position.²¹

Suppose that you are the lucky person sitting on four job offers, all from consulting firms (A, B, C, and D). You have done enough research, cost-benefit analysis, and soul searching to determine that in your mind, firms A and B are superior in all ways to firms C and D. The question is: Should you remove yourself from consideration at firms C and D or continue to show interest so as to potentially improve your power position when negotiating with firms A and B? Bottom line: Don’t falsely show interest if you have no intention of accepting their offer. Instead, politely inform firms C and D that you will not be accepting their offers at this time. You still have a wonderful BATNA, and it saves everyone a lot of time.

Exploding offers are offers that have a “time bomb” element to them (e.g., “The offer is only good for 24 hours”). The question is how to respond to them. In our experience, companies usually do not rescind exploding offers once they have made them (unless as a matter of courtesy, it is for family, medical, or emergency reasons). Generally, we advise that job candidates who receive an exploding offer above their BATNA to seriously consider the offer. It certainly cannot hurt to inform other companies that you have an exploding offer and move up the time of the interview if at all possible.

Bidding wars occur regularly on Wall Street, in professional athletics, and in the business world. We do not advise however, that job candidates attempt to create bidding wars between companies. Rather, we advise job candidates to signal to potential employers that they have attractive BATNAs, that they do not want to start a bidding war, and that they tell their top-rated company what it would take to get them to work at the company.

It is important to know when to stop negotiating. The United States is not a bargaining culture, and many employers only tolerate three or possibly four rounds of negotiations.²² Negotiators should stop when they see one or more of the following signals:²³

• The other side is not responsive.

• Reciprocal concessions are becoming miniscule.

• After some back and forth the employer says, “Enough!”

If you find yourself in the lucky position of having multiple offers, you are then faced with a choice. First, you should recognize this enviable position as an approach-approach conflict. How should you weigh the choices? The simplest way is to use MAUT by constructing a grid listing the choices along a row (e.g., company A, company B) and the relevant attributes along a column underneath (e.g., salary, fringe benefits, travel, vacation, bonus). Then, fill in the grid with the details of the offer and how they “stack up” compared to the others (on a scale of 1–5 or 1–10 in your mind). Next, you can simply add the columns to find a “winner.” A more sophisticated version of this strategy is to multiply each grid value by its importance before adding columns (with importance defined on a scale of 1–5). For example, for most people salary is highly important (maybe a 5), whereas moving expenses are less important (maybe a 1 or 2). This distinction gives a more fine-grained assessment. (See Appendix 1 for a step-by-step approach to MAUT.)