We previously described how to show appreciation and enthusiasm for the offer. Today we will explore two parts of negotiating a job offer: writing your ideal employer description (or What I Want) and negotiating a win-win solution. Negotiating a win-win solution begins with both parties establishing what they want, not in terms of money alone, but in terms of the overall package.
Many job seekers find and start a new job only to discover they hate it. Usually they failed to consider what they really wanted other than a salary, job title, and geographic location. Too many tell us they will “take anything”—and further probing proves them right. Others worry about finding a job in this tough economy. They cannot comprehend establishing expectations for responsibilities, corporate culture, workplace environment, or benefits. As a result, they land jobs they detest rather then landing jobs they love.
Write your Ideal Employer Description
The first step to landing the job you love and negotiating a win-win solution involves determining and writing what I call your ideal employer description or What I Want (see illustration). The following questions (and others you will determine) help you draft your ideal employer description
- What 5 skills do you want to use 70% of the time?
- What responsibilities or tasks do you want to spend 70% of your time performing?
- What values, management styles, work and social interactions do you prefer?
- What attitudes, habits, support, & personalities do you want from team members?
- Describe how you want your workstation to feel (office, cubicle, outdoor, other)?
- What do you want in terms of working hours, days, travel, routine, or variety?
- What training, skill development, memberships, or subscriptions do you want?
- What is the lowest salary you will accept? What do you really want? What perks?
- How often do you expect a raise, bonus, or commission payment? How much?
- What do you want in health benefits, life insurance, retirement, and premiums?
- What other elements of the job have you not described that you should outline?
Prepare to Negotiate Your Win-Win Solution
We encouraged you to ask key questions during your due diligence, the interview, and when they offered you the job. Hopefully, you kept good notes of the information you discovered. Now you transfer the information into the chart illustrated at the top of this post. You will list:
- What they offer you: salary, benefits, responsibilities, and the answers to the questions you listed under what you want. Recognize that you will not have all the information you want. Write some questions to use in the negotiation meeting to gather the rest of the information you want.
- What they want from you: skills, work experiences, return on investment, job expectations, results, budgetary and personnel responsibilities (in estimated dollars and numbers) and more. List the most important elements they want at the top of the cell with the least important at the bottom.
- What you offer them: use home run statements to describe your skills, work experience, return on investment, job performance, results, budgetary and personnel successes, and more. List your home run statements to mirror what they want from you, so that your statements satisfy each of their requirements. Be prepared to either show compensating strengths to offset anything you do not offer that they want, or be ready to drop parts of the salary package.
Become very familiar with the information in your worksheet. Find the prevailing salary for the job at one of the web sites listed on Dick Bolles’ JobHuntersBible.com. Highlight those elements of what you want that if not met would require you to reject the offer (often called “deal breakers”). You will not share these in the negotiation meeting. They remain for you to anchor yourself to avoid accepting an offer that would make you miserable.
In the Negotiation Meeting
Take a copy of your form to the negotiation meeting. Ask permission to take notes on it. Begin the negotiation with the following:
- Restate your sincere gratitude and enthusiasm for the offer and hope to work with them
- Ask permission to verify what they want from you and restate what you offer them. Read the information your recorded in the bottom two squares. Verify that your understanding matches theirs. Write any corrections offer on your sheet
- Ask permission to verify your understanding of what they offer you. Ask the questions you highlighted on your form. Write the answers you receive. As you discuss the salary, premiums, and payments made by both you and the company; you may wish to write how much more or less you will have to pay than the prevailing standard in your community.
- After verifying you understand what they offer you, express appreciation for the offer.
- Compare what you want to what they offer. Look for any elements you highlighted before to verify that no “deal breakers” remain unresolved. If so, try to resolve them.
- Always refer to the salary offer as “low”, “mid”, or“high” 20's, 30s, or 100s.
- Raise any questions you have about how much more or less than prevailing standards you will have to pay. State how much more you may have to pay and ask “Is there anything we can do to raise the salary or decrease the other payments to bring this closer to prevailing standards?”
- Use some of the negotiation tips found in the following web sites to improve the offer: Getting to Yes, 101 Salary Secrets: How to Negotiate Like a Pro, Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute, and 10 Best Tips to Win Salary Negotiations .
- Either accept or reject the offer based on your worksheet and feelings (subject of my next post).
We’ve outlined some basic moves in salary negotiation. I encourage you to review the other web sites linked from number 3. They provide other secrets to salary negotiation.
Come back Monday to learn more details on accepting or rejecting a job offer
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