Salary negotiation: ask for what you WANT

Yes, negotiate!

You’ll likely get more than what’s originally offered

Wow: 93% of those who negotiate get more than originally offered – half of this group won way more, the other half won less than they counter offered but more than in the original offer (CultivatedCulture.com, 2025).

Who couldn’t use those added funds?!

Start Here: Your Value

First: what is YOUR value? What do you do so well that people want to pay you to do it?

Your value to an employer is stated in terms of

• Money made or saved, and/or
• Time “made” or saved (really: $), and/or
• Problems solved (really: $)

Q. How can you prove your value? 

A.   Have sample successes at the ready: these success stories are your evidence you can do the job. Here’s a format to use:

C = Challenge, problem, pain that the company/organization is facing

A = Action you took by yourself or with others, to alleviate that problem

R = Result of that action…does it save or make money, save or make time, or solve a problem? 

T = “Tie it back” – Tie your story to a need they’ve brought up or problem they’ve brought up

Practice telling your stories! Practice, practice, practice

Practice your stories out loud until they are down to no more than 20 seconds. This takes time – don’t cheat yourself by winging it or skipping the practice. You want to be able to tell the stories and tell them with confidence. 

Next:  Do Your Research

Research companies and make sure you don’t skip this step: What are salaries today in your field? And for what levels of performance and responsibility? 

Some sources are O*Net (http://onetonline.org), Salary.com, randstad.com, Glassdoor.com, Indeed.com, Payscale.com, rhi.com (accounting and IT). AI tools will help a lot: ChatGPT, Perplexity.ai, Gemini and good places to start. See the sample prompt you can use in the short article below left.

Best source of salary info about your target companies: people IN the job you want AT the companies that interest you.

Job Offer Evaluation

Things to consider (not only salary): 

·   Responsibilities – What will you actually be expected to do?

·   Resources – Will you have a budget? Staff? Technology?

·   Authority – What decisions can you make, $-wise? Staff decisions? Which initiatives, goals?

·   Performance – How will you be measured, and in what time frames? What are the goals? 

·   Culture – Is this a fit for you? 

Be flexible about getting 100% of what you want so that if the company has granted you more than they originally did, there is a positive feeling all around – it will pay you back in good will while you’re ON the job.