How I Prepared to Negotiate my Salary
As everyone already knows, job searching can be such a painful experience. However, I'd like to argue that the moments/days/weeks/months of waiting that occur after you interview with an employer, and are expecting an offer, can be crippling. You know you fit the job description requirements perfectly, you knocked the interview(s) out of the ballpark, and you've received favorable feedback from the recruiting team and/or hiring manager. So what do you do now? How do you kill time?
Well, for me, I binged-watched salary negotiation videos, and searched for podcasts that would prepare me for when I got the offer. Maybe it made me a little more anxious. Maybe it made me more confident. Who knows? But...I was prepared.
The key takeaways I got from the research I did:
- After getting the verbal offer, thank the recruiter for their offer, and ask for it in writing before accepting.
- Ask for at least 24 hours to review the entire offer.
- Never accept the first offer. Most times, the employer is expecting you to negotiate.
- Do your research!
- Be reasonable.
Here are some of the videos I watched
This one was the most informative.
This video is a bit monotone (friendly way of saying, "boring"), but what she says makes total sense. Her "boringness" speaks to how chill and laid back you should be during the negotiation period.
I learned about "bracketing" from this guy. It's a great method to gage how much you can squeeze out of an offer.
One of my fellow Hamptonians (Hampton University alumni), Ben Carter of Manage your Damn Money, touched on this topic in one of his podcast episodes, so I took a listen...