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Take 5: Salary Negotiation Tips

Take 5: Salary Negotiation Tips

by | Apr 16, 2012 | Job Search, Negotiation, Take 5

Take5-150x150Salary negotiation is a common part of the hiring process, so don’t let it intimidate you.  Talking about money is sticky and uncomfortable, but to ensure that you get the salary you deserve to match your skills and experience, it’s a topic that you absolutely have to bring up with a future employer. The more you do it, the better you’ll be at it and the more comfortable you’ll be doing it. The more job experience you have, the more negotiating leverage you’ll have. But, new professionals can negotiate too!

Below are 5 sites that offer a few tips and reminders about how to successfully negotiate your new salary and benefits:

36 Negotiable Items in an Academic Position – Jane Tucker and Barbara Butterfield

The Womanly Art of Negotiation – Catherine Conrad in the Chronicle of Higher Education

Top 10 Salary Negotiation Tips – Negotiation Board

The New Salary Negotiation –  Johanna Schlegel, Salary.com

Salary Negotiation Tips – University of Minnesota, College of Liberal Arts Career Services

Take 5 is a regular feature where we present links to some good articles and resources on job search topics. If you have ideas for future topics, send them to Melissa Judy, Content Development Intern at melissa@higheredcareercoach.com.

Risks and rewards: Playing your own game

by | Jun 16, 2011 | Career Skills, life purpose, Negotiation

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Games are played when you take calculated risks, in anticipation of potential rewards. So let’s finish out this week’s discussion of game theory, careers and business by examining the risk-to-reward ratio, and how you should figure it out.

If you work with me, you do have some level of risk, because I will tell you outright that I can’t get you a job, and I won’t guarantee that you end up with one. Nothing takes that responsibility off of your shoulders. I can only offer my personal commitment to my clients, and I don’t work with every client who comes to me. I only work with those I feel I can help. To do otherwise just amounts to taking people’s money. And like I said earlier, I’m not motivated by money. I do fear not having it, but in reputational businesses like coaching, you are only as good as two things…your coaching skills and your honest commitment that if you can’t help someone, you’ll return their money. I will.

I’ve been blogging for two years and coaching professionally for year and a half, and so far (knock on wood!) no one has ever asked me for their money back. I’ve offered to return payment to a couple of clients who had a hard time getting jobs, and even offered one client more than once, but so far, I’ve never had to return a client’s payment. I don’t even have a time period on asking for it back. I may some day, but for now, I’m the Land’s End of the coaching world. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Period.

For me, what are the risks and what are the potential rewards?

Well, here is where I’m going to be brutally honest with you about what I’ve risked to get my business and my websites to this point, and what the rewards have been.

Risks:

  • Left a standing position at a great university that I could have retired from.
  • Left all the benefits that came with it, except for COBRA, which expired at the end of last month. Probably the most risky thing I did, because I knew that leaving a group plan might mean that I would lose my health benefits and not be able to get them back, because I have a neurological condition. We have insurance for Sarah and the kids, but I’m having to go through some hoops and am currently uninsured, though I’m hoping that will be done soon, too.
  • I now have to self-fund my salary, pay all my expenses for my home, my life and my business out of savings and income, and now I have a lawyer, more insurance and an accountant. I’m not going to go into numbers here, but let’s just cut to the chase…I’ve spent way more than I’ve made, and I’ve given away at least ten times what I’ve sold. It hasn’t been easy, but I have no regrets. Not one.

Rewards

  • A sense of personal satisfaction when I help people get jobs they want, or into the graduate programs they hoped for.
  • Less stress in my daily life, and almost complete control over my projects and my schedule.
  • More time with my wife, kids, and extended family.
  • More time for community activities, like Athfest, the Athens Half Marathon, and talking with people who interest me, like artists, musicians, writers, small business owners and even the homeless people who hang out on College Avenue in downtown Athens across from Holmes/Hunter Building and the Arch.
  • More time to write, create, philosophize, and stir the pot, to come up with new ideas, crash old ones together, and see where the conversation goes.

Taking a look at all the above, and factoring in what I have spent, versus what I have made, you might be tempted to say I’m not winning. But you’d be thinking about the battle, while I’m thinking about the war, so you’d be wrong. I know what I am fighting to do, and why I am doing it. If you don’t understand that, then maybe you’re not playing the same game.

What rules are you playing by?

The Game I’m Playing: Putting Your Purpose to Work

by | Jun 15, 2011 | Career Skills, Coaching, life purpose, Negotiation, Site News

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In my last post, I talked about game theory and how it informs my view of careers and business, and concluded that I need to do a better job explaining what game I am playing.

Let’s get to it!

If I have a game, it’s called Putting Your Purpose to Work. The point of the game is lifting people up to live according to their purpose, and creating conversations that help organizations change in ways that allow them to do so. Specifically, I am doing this because I know it is needed, and that people like me need it.

I work primarily with educators because we (and society) routinely undervalue what we do, and we normalize it by accepting conventional wisdom and ways of doing things that are just plain wrong. The rules, as we are taught to accept them, limit the potential of those participating in the system, by strictly defining who can or cannot play, who is allowed on certain turf, and what rules apply, whether they make sense or not. Kind of reminds you of the times in elementary school when no one picked you for kickball, right? Well, that happened to me a lot, so I stopped playing kickball.

I played by the accepted rules for a long time, and it was killing me. So I changed the game, I bought my own turf, and I’ve been giving away tickets to the game for the last two years. Attendance has been low (only about 20,000 visits over the last two years), but for most of that time, I was playing it safe (or being overly cautious and driven by fear of bankrupting my family.) I have not been jumping the gate into anyone else’s stadium, I’m not playing their game nor accepting their rules. I’m not borrowing their field, and I’ve brought my own ball. This is a different game, I’m playing to a different audience, and I intend to win. I hope you win, too.

Who has an unfair advantage in this kind of scenario? Some might argue that it’s the established system, the old guard, and those people they accept and embrace as the next era of visionaries. Me, I say “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” That’s business. That’s institutions. That’s closed-system thinking, which assumes that the only people who can get into the game are those with a ticket, or those who jump the gate.

I don’t need to jump the gate. I have my own stadium. It’s got great loudspeakers, a few loyal fans who get me (you know who you are, and thanks!), some others who seem at least mildly intrigued by what I am doing (even those who are annoyed by it or don’t completely understand it), and the beer’s pretty good over here. (No point in owning a stadium if you aren’t going to serve good beer, I say.)

What’s your game?

Whose rules are you playing by?

Do you intend to win?

If you do intend to win, will it be at someone else’s expense?

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Game Theory 101: Don’t Play Games. Win Them!

by | Jun 14, 2011 | Career Skills, Negotiation, Site News

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Games are always a part of business, and many times a part of life. Whether you enjoy a game or not depends on a couple of factors:

  • Whether you want to play a game
  • Whether you are playing the same game others are playing
  • Whether you agree with the other players about how the game should be played
  • Whether one side or the other has an unfair advantage (or is cheating)
  • How big the risk is, in comparison to the reward

I’m not a hard-core gamer. I appreciate those who are, and can identify with where they are coming from. I used to play video games quite a bit, but I wasn’t very good at them. Not terrible, just easily bored. I only have a certain amount of energy to put into playing a game, and when I get bored, I usually stop playing and don’t go back to the game for a long, long time–and then more to figure out why I liked it, or to intentionally waste time. So, in most cases, I don’t want to play games (at least not the ones other people are playing.) Tactical exchange bores me easily, because I’m less worried about objectives, and more worried about winning the war.

This is different for me if the game is strategic, but most video games aren’t. They are tactical, and have clear objectives, definite results, and limited rewards. I like that stuff for a little while, but overall, I am a strategic, long-haul thinker, and as a result, people don’t get what I’m doing, because I am often playing another game altogether (a game within the game, or a game I am making up outside of the game.) So it’s about understanding game theory, more than winning a particular game

I also don’t believe that life is a zero-sum game, like poker, where someone has to lose for others to win. I actually think that cooperative games, played over the long haul, can result in unexpected outcomes for all players. The point of playing the game is still to win. But more than one person can win, and it doesn’t have to be at the expense of others.

This doesn’t remove the need to be self-interested and protect your goals. It just means that you don’t have to take something away from others to win. It does reinforce the inherent need to keep others from causing you harm. Like I said before, I generally prefer not to play games. But if forced to play, I do my best to win. And if people go for my throat, I don’t hesitate to fight back, and to do so on my own terms.

In a couple of recent conversations, I’ve tried explaining to people what exactly I am trying to do with my coaching business, programs and websites. They didn’t get it. I had a conversation with another person about these conversations. It was a social setting and this was a friend, so our talk was free-flowing as we had beers with a few others involved in a community organization (Athfest) that I am involved in.

These are the conclusions we arrived at:

  1. I need to do a better job explaining myself and what I do.
  2. Other people probably still won’t get it, because they think I am playing a different game. And…
  3. People will understand what I am talking about in five years, when it’s an established way of doing things, and accepted as common wisdom and common practice.

What game are you playing?

Whose rules are you playing by?

How committed are you to winning?

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Salary Negotiation and Poker: Start With the Hand You’re Dealt: Unique Value Propositions

Salary Negotiation and Poker: Start With the Hand You’re Dealt: Unique Value Propositions

by | Jun 13, 2011 | Interview Tips, Job Search, Negotiation

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Salary negotiation is a really hard process, and one of the top concerns of job-seekers in any industry. It’s the “poker round” of the hiring process, where both sides try to set aside their enthusiasm for working together and think in their own best interest, cards closely held to their vest, and wait for the other to either show their hand or fold. It can be gut-wrenching and nerve-wracking, because nobody ever wants to leave money on a poker table.

Before I go any further with this analogy, I want to say a couple of things. First, I am a lousy poker player and in many ways, a lousy negotiator, because I’m not motivated by money. I’m usually motivated by fear of losing money, and a desire to win. And I struggle with both, and can be frustrating to play poker with, as a result. I am usually the one to fold early, and I have a lousy poker face. Other players can usually tell when I have a winning hand, and they will fold early rather than fork over a lot of money. So take my advice about poker and about negotiation at your own risk! I usually end up leaving money on the table, or having others walk away out of sheer frustration.

But come along for a moment, and let’s break this down, using the poker game analogy, because I think many people can relate to it.

When you are dealt a hand in poker, you know what it is, and depending on whether you are playing stud, or draw, you either know your hand outright, or you can make a couple of trade-outs for fresh cards, to see if you can find a hand worth playing.

If you are playing stud poker, you know your hand from the get-go, and can make your bets based on that hand and your perceptions of the moves others around the table are playing, and whether they are betting, calling or holding.

If you are playing draw poker, you may place an initial bet, based on your gut feeling about being able to cobble something together worth doing, and then raise, call or fold, again based on the moves that other players make in response.

In the salary negotiation process, you also have to start with the hand you are dealt. It starts with your Unique Value Proposition. This is the where you describe your knowledge, skills and experience in ways that show your potential fit into a position. The keys to putting together this UVP (also referred to in the business world as a Unique Selling Proposition or USP) is that you have to explain who you are, what you can bring to the table, and why you are the best person to do so.

Let’s put a formula to negotiation, using your Unique Value Proposition:

  • First, describe who you are, in terms of current education, skills and experience.
  • Second, differentiate your education, skills and experience from other candidates.
  • Third, describe, in terms as concrete as possible, the value that you will add to the employer’s bottom line, that others cannot. (i.e., how you will solve their problems.)
  • Fourth, be ready to fold and walk away when the stakes get too high.

As I mentioned before, I am a lousy negotiator and this does affect my bottom line. I’m going to be spending more time in the near term explaining the Unique Value Proposition for this site and for my coaching programs, trainings and consulting services.

In the process, you’ll see content on this site, and the nature of the free and paid programs that go with it, change. I’m doing this for two reasons: so you can clearly see the value offered, and so that I can tweak the business model so that it results in sustainable business. In short, because being a good coach and a lousy businessman isn’t sustainable, and I really want to win, for the sake of my family and all they’ve sacrificed over the last couple of years to help me build my sites and my business.

It’s basic economics in action. Let’s return to what I learned in ECON 201 when I was actually listening to Dr. Benjamin’s lectures in Sirrine Hall my sophomore year at Clemson, when I wasn’t sleeping off the night before, or checking out the cute sorority girls who wouldn’t really even tell me the time of day.

Transactional business is driven by the concept of marginal utility. The success of any business model hinges on the perceptions of price in relation to utility of the product or service. In business transactions, people (including employers) don’t pay for experience. They don’t pay for history or content. They pay for value.

When utility (perceived value) outweighs price (i.e., risk), people will pay more (by upping their ante.) When price (risk) outweighs utility (perceived value), it’s easy to fold and walk away.

Key questions to consider in preparing for negotiation:

  • How are you presenting your value?
  • How are you contrasting your unique value against other options (other candidates, or starting over with a search.) This might also be seen as overcoming objections to price.
  • How comfortable are you in protecting your unique value, by folding (walking away)?

Once you get these points down, you’ll be ready to not only play, but to win.

So are you going to up the ante, call, or fold?

Hate my analogy? Love it? Tell me in the comments!

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Salary Matters: 5 Ways to Find Out About Pay Without Asking

by | May 9, 2011 | Job Search, Negotiation

bigstockphoto_freephoto-brass_bank_1495393-150x150-copyDiscussing salary is easily the one part of the job search process that causes candidates universal anxiety. One of the search terms that job-seekers look  up, before arriving at this site, is “tactfully asking about salary.”

Since asking about salary is such a nerve-wracking experience, here are five ways to find out about salary without asking (or at least asking outright).

  1. Refer back to the job posting and see if a “salary range” is indicated. Anticipate that most hiring agents will make an offer between the minimum and the mid-point of that range, with early-career candidates being offered closer to the minimum, and more experienced candidates being offered toward the mid-point. In very few cases should you expect an offer to be made above the mid-point; organizations want to hire people who can grow into the position before their salary expectations outgrow what the organization can pay. It’s a question of value: no matter how good you are in general, they have placed a maximum value on what the work at that level is worth to the organization. If you need more than that, don’t apply for the job.
  2. Visit the Human Resources website for the institution and see if there is a section with information about salary, compensation and benefits. In this section, search for the terms “pay scale,” “salary bands,” “pay grades,” “salary grades” and “salary levels.” If the institution has this sort of system, see if you can find level at which the position is classified; this may be listed in the posting. Public institutions are more likely to have this information posted, since many states require that information about employee pay scales be released to the public. If you do find these listed, refer back to the advice from #1 and figure the pay will be between the minimum and mid-point.
  3. Ask someone who works at the institution, but outside the hiring circle for the department where you are applying. If you can find such a person in the same department, or who holds (or has held) a similar position (in title or pay band), they should be able to at least give you context about what they make, and may be able to give you some context based on that experience. They may also have access to internal systems where they can see different information than the general public (like new employee manuals, benefit guides, etc.)
  4. Call someone at Human Resources and ask what the “typical” hiring range is for a position at that title and grade. Indicate that you believe you may be interested in the position but don’t want to waste anyone’s time (theirs or yours) by applying to a job you can’t afford to take. As long as you say it diplomatically and convey that you are asking for those reasons, you’ll likely be fine, in the eyes of Human Resources. It shows that you are a serious candidate if you do apply.
  5. Google it. You never really know what you might find out. Try “salary range” for “title,” and “institution,” and see what comes back. I did this for several positions and the search returned recent job listings, with salary information, a couple of perspective pieces by student affairs professionals about jobs and salaries, and one site called GlassDoor.Com, which lets you search for salaries by job title. (That would’ve been a number 6, I guess, but I didn’t want to change the title of the article.)

Whatever you choose to do, I advise against asking outright about a specific salary number, related to your candidacy, until you have been made an offer. When you are offered a job, a starting point for the salary discussion will be included in the initial offer.  Don’t react to the first number you if you can help yourself. Just ask how they came up with the number, and why they feel it would be a fair offer, given your education, skills and experience. Then take some time to think about whether the offer is fair. If it is, you can take it or maybe see if you could make a counter-offer to see if you could do a bit better. But if you are happy with the salary, there’s nothing wrong with just taking it and getting to work. If you aren’t, go back with a counter offer, but be sure to base it on the value you will create for the employer (i.e., how you will earn the higher salary through hard work and productivity.

What other ways can you think of to “ask without asking?”

Some good resources to help you explore ways to approach salary negotiation:

Negotiating a Job Offer: Do’s and Don’ts

Sealing the Deal: Questions to Ask Yourself When Faced with “The Offer”

Job Search 101 Video on YouTube from USC’s Annenberg School

Interview Tip: Leave the Salary Out of It on Newly Corporate