How to Negotiate Your Pay at a New Job

One of the scariest things you have to face when it comes to getting a new job negotiating your salary; at least, for those who negotiate.

With the current economy instability as well as high unemployment rates, you’d be lucky to have your job so why bother risking it by negotiating, right? Wrong!

There are many benefits to negotiating your salary right before you start your job and here are some of the most common ones:

• It makes you appear confident; organizations value confident employees and nothing speaks better about your confidence than negotiating your salary right before you start working
• You’re respected more
• You make more money and enjoy more benefits on the long term

In fact, a recent study has revealed that negotiating just $5,000 more for a starting salary is worth over $600,000 over the course of a career.

While negotiating $5,000 more or even $2,000 more on your salary might seem negligible on the surface, what this can amount to on the long run can be significant. This is why it’s critical to consider negotiating your salary at that new job. Here are some tips:

1. Come Prepared

The first step to effectively negotiate a better pay at your new job is to come prepared.

Of course, the economy is tight and it’s natural to be thankful that you have a job. However, it’s equally important to realize that most employers will expect you to negotiate and as a result will usually offer less than they’re prepared to pay. You’ll miss out on getting paid what you’re worth, probably due to fear of not getting the job, because you failed to negotiate.

The best way to negotiate without risking losing the job is to do your research first; take note of the average pay of similar companies as well as salary trends. You should also take a look at the salary of firms comparable in size to the one you got a job at or even research salary information for the company that hires you before you try to negotiate.

If possible, try to get salary information for a few people working at the firm that will be willing to share; you can also leverage the power of the internet by visiting sites like Glassdoor, Salary.com and Payscale for average industry pay as well as salary trends.

As long as you have all necessary salary information at hand, it’s easier to confidently ask for a raise without sounding aggressive.

2. Establish the Fact that it’s a Win-Win

Most businesses don’t really care if you’re getting an additional $10,000 salary if that means hundreds of thousands or even millions more for the business.

Ultimately, every business is created to drive profits; this is why one of the most powerful weapons you can have when trying to negotiate your salary is the ability to make your employer realize that the deal is a win-win for the both of you.

To effectively do this, you’ll sometimes need to draw on past experience, industry data and some other facts that you can use to convincingly prove that having you on board will indeed be of significant impact on the long run.

3. Be Natural

According to a recent study, 57% of men entering the workforce negotiate their salaries while just 7% of women do the same.

Due to several factors, men are usually more inclined to negotiate their salaries than women and most women lose out because of this; for example, for the purpose of avoiding hostility and fights women are more likely to avoid negotiating. Likewise, most women who decide to negotiate believe it’s best to take a masculine stand when it comes to negotiating. Unfortunately, this won’t be very effective.

Being natural is one of the advantages you can have when it comes to negotiating; as long as you can effectively convince your employer that it’ll be worth it to have you on board, you don’t have to be someone you’re not to get a better pay.

The last thing you want to do before you start working at that job is to build the wrong reputation for yourself due to a momentary stand you took while negotiating.

4. Ask for More than You Expect

Just as most employers will offer to pay less than they can pay, you can take advantage of this to get paid more.

In marketing, there’s something called the “Anchoring Effect”; the idea behind this is that when people want to determine the worth of anything, what they’ve heard about the value of that thing will most likely influence their judgment of it. In other words, if you list a product for $1,000 and ask someone to negotiate, the person is more likely to pay $800; without listing a price, the person might pay significantly less.

If you want to get a salary of $80,000 then you might easily get this salary by asking for $100,000 or $120,000; compared to $120,000, most employers will be happy to pay $80,000. Also, your employer will be very happy that they got a good deal without knowing that your initial intention was to get $80,000.

This article was written by Joseph. If you’re looking for a quality ACH payment provider, you should check out ACH-Payments.com

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Tags: negotiate pay, salary

Category: Personal Branding