By Ladies Finance Club
Ladies Finance Club’s Founder Molly Benjamin spoke with Bella Zaneco from Fully Expressed Australia’s leading Career Acceleration Strategist on the ‘must-dos’ when going into negotiating your salary.
Bella is passionate about helping women to love Mondays and get paid their worth and receive the recognition they deserve!
Let’s jump in!
1. Know and have confidence in your worth
In advance of any salary negotiation, know your market rate. Recruiters publish benchmarking rates, as does GlassDoor and https://www.whatsthesalary.com/. If you’re negotiating a new salary in a new role employers typically work in salary bands. Often they have 10-15% in reserve for negotiation so hold your nerve and never accept the first offer.
2. Know the outcomes you want and prioritise them
Write down the negotiation outcomes you’re looking for e.g. salary, flexible working conditions, job role, accountability etc. Consider what softer outcomes are also worth to you, e.g. flexibility etc and prioritise your requests based on your lifestyle goals and needs.
3. Know your deal breakers
In advance of a negotiation write down your deal breakers / break points. For those in salaried employment, this might mean that if your conditions are not met (or not on the path to be met) you begin looking elsewhere. For those of you securing a role, you may turn it down if your conditions are not met or renegotiate.
4. Set up a negotiation well
For example, if you’re negotiating your annual salary increase, focus on your results and performance versus the dollar value per-se. Your goal is to get the highest performance rating possible as this is the primary driver of what you can control in your salary increase versus the company / department performance per se. To achieve the highest rating possible you need to have specific and quantitative evidence to assert your case so documenting your results at the end of each week is a great thing to do.
5. Timing is power
Ask for a salary increase with clear evidence and a narrative you’ve developed over time, e.g. if you’ve been acting in a role for six months and not being paid that role’s value after that period you have grounds to ask to be appointed and negotiate an appropriate salary for that or what you need to do to be offered that role. If you stun your manager with an out of cycle salary increase request it may not go as planned so be strategic about your timing.
6. Meeting dates / times matter
Studies show you’re more likely to get a raise at the back end of the week. Also use your emotional intelligence to gauge where your manager, department, company is at. If they’re in the middle of a personal or professional crisis or if the business isn’t going so well they will be less likely for you to negotiate the outcome you want.
7. You are always negotiating
How you manage your performance, share your achievements and outcomes throughout the year will determine your leverage at salary review time. Be confident in sharing your worth regularly and also celebrating others! An example of this is sharing 3 wins and 2 challenges at your weekly 1to1 with your manager and asking for support in your development areas.
