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"What are your salary expectations?"
JobQuestion
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So, long story short, I've been contracting at this company for awhile now and I'm being offered a permanent position. I have to go through the whole application and background check process and all that but HR has also asked me for my salary expectations.
Now, this surprised me a little bit. I expected them to just throw a number my way. My manager did too. Before HR contacted me, my manager had asked me what my take home pay was (they only had visibility to what they were paying my agency). So they have all that info. I thought they were going to construct an offer based on that number, but now they are asking me for my salary expectations.
What I honestly expected was a decrease in annual salary. For one thing, isn't that the norm when going from a Contractor to an FTE/"permanent" position? They usually weigh in the cost of benefits, I though. For another thing, I worked a LOT of overtime and that factors heavily into my take home. So should my salary expectations include that?
So I asked my manager for some advice on this, because I don't know how this company works. I mentioned that they do know what my gross take home is. The manager said "well, it shouldn't be less than THAT, just keep in mind that a certain percentage increase over that will require additional approvals."
That answer kind of threw me for a loop.
So, any advice? Do I give a number? Do I give a range? Do I give the number I made in 2012 including OT? Or a little more? Or a little less? Or exclude OT? Not really sure what to expect.
So, long story short, I've been contracting at this company for awhile now and I'm being offered a permanent position. I have to go through the whole application and background check process and all that but HR has also asked me for my salary expectations.
Now, this surprised me a little bit. I expected them to just throw a number my way. My manager did too. Before HR contacted me, my manager had asked me what my take home pay was (they only had visibility to what they were paying my agency). So they have all that info. I thought they were going to construct an offer based on that number, but now they are asking me for my salary expectations.
What I honestly expected was a decrease in annual salary. For one thing, isn't that the norm when going from a Contractor to an FTE/"permanent" position? They usually weigh in the cost of benefits, I though. For another thing, I worked a LOT of overtime and that factors heavily into my take home. So should my salary expectations include that?
So I asked my manager for some advice on this, because I don't know how this company works. I mentioned that they do know what my gross take home is. The manager said "well, it shouldn't be less than THAT, just keep in mind that a certain percentage increase over that will require additional approvals."
That answer kind of threw me for a loop.
So, any advice? Do I give a number? Do I give a range? Do I give the number I made in 2012 including OT? Or a little more? Or a little less? Or exclude OT? Not really sure what to expect.
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So if you made $150 an hour, you'd probably end up with $50 an hour. If you were making less than $50 an hour, you were getting had as a contractor.
And then if it comes out lower, ignore everything you did and ask for a 5% bump.
Compensation should be viewed as a whole package and benefits should be included in the calculus. I would ask for more than 5% over previous year. Maybe 20% over previous year. This is a negotiation.
Also give a range. Giving a number is limiting. If I were you and I was making $60k for the year and i get the job offer I'll say something like "$63,000 to $72,000 depending on benefits and other compensation." The wider you can get away with and still have it be considered serious the better. Don't box yourself in. You can also counter with, how much do you have budgeted to that position, but sometimes that can piss off the HR person, a range generally won't.
Because if you come back at me with "HSA, no dental, and 3 days of vacation," well you'd probably get laughed if you come at me with the lowest salary number I put out.
Ask for that +5%
Chances are your hiring manager has minimal discretion anyway.
Negotiations are not as simple as doing one thing will give you the best result. However knowing what you should be making, is a good place to start, and setting the initial bounds can be advantageous. It also depends on the person you are negotiating with.
"Previous employer pay is actually private, I can't disclose an exact number but roughly between (industry average range for your exp)"
Repeat industry with exp + 5% (they already have a diminished number from the industry average)
"Lowest salary I can accept is negotiable depending on benefits."
If you keep deflecting, they'll eventually have to state a finite number from their budget. If they come in low, chances are they don't value you to begin with. But they may just be offering the best benefits you've ever seen, too.
Large firms are generally fairly inflexible with allowing mid-level managers to negotiate things like that in my experience. I'm assuming this is not a mom and pop firm we are talking about here.
I agree with chrishallett, just tack 5% on your current take home and see what they say. They will recognize it as reasonable and if they want to pay you less they will say so.
Nope. I will never have to state a number from my budget, and I just won't hire you if you pull that stuff. And previous employer pay is not private.
I want to pay a fair wage to everyone on my team, because if I hire them I want to keep them. Paying them too little to keep them is no good, because they'll leave. Paying them any more than necessary means everyone will have to work harder, because we'll have less budget to bring in new folks or bring on 1099's for tasks.
I will absolutely deflect until you tell me your range first. Because I've gone through an entire interview and they legitimately thought I'd accept their $10/hr salary offer. But this is because I have a job, so I don't need to work for you.
Be weary, the people who will blurt out a salary are probably the ones desperate for a job and will leave as soon as something better comes around.
This may be generally true for assholes running small businesses, but it is absolutely not the case in corporate. Darkwolfe is right.
If you pull that endless deflecting shit, my take away is not "What a shrewd negotiator" it's "This dude is a hassle to work with"
I guess the takeaway is "If a small business, deflect the fuck out of the question" and "If a large corp or big business, come up with a big number."
So, basically, my company has job grades. Each grade has a specific min and max salary range. I know my job grade, I don't know the salary ranges.
Also, I do not have a college degree which was a big issue. I have a lot of experience. HR really wants to fill the position with someone who has a bachelor's degree but my manager managed to negotiate that requirement away.
So I don't want to get too crazy here and even though it may be to my benefit, I don't really want to deal with much negotiation. I just want a somewhat smooth transition to "permanency."
That's not to suggest I'm planning on prostrating myself for anyone - I still want to be fair to myself. I just want to be careful and not rock the boat too much.
I guess 5% above my current pay is appropriate. I assume that would be 5% above gross, not net? Some people mentioned "take home" so I want to be clear if you are suggesting net, or are you suggesting my gross? I'm not sure how much my agency gets on top of my gross.
Example: If you make $20 an hour, ask for $21 an hour.
If you make $100,000 a year, ask for $105,000 a year.
OK, so since I have an hourly wage but also worked so much OT, would this be fair?
Average of FY 2012 and FY 2013 (annualized estimate) gross (including OT) as a baseline + 5%?
Meaning, let's say I made 100k last year including regular pay and OT pay and have an annualized estimate of 80k this year (those are just random figures), I would use 90k as a baseline and then add 5% to that for my "expectation."
That one gets tricky. Sometimes part of the reason they put you on the new salary is because they actually want to SAVE money by not paying you OT, but (in theory) you work fewer hours.
But then again, I'm not in HR so that's why I'm here - trying to assess what I should expect.
When I was asked to provide my take home salary, I was asked to provide it WITH OT. I wasn't asked how much of the number I gave was actually OT. So I doubt that taking away the OT pay is a reason here.
3 days of vacation?
You folks ought to move to Australia.
4 weeks (20 days) paid leave, 10 days paid sick leave...
Nah, standard is minimum 2 weeks. I get 28 at this point.
The corp I work for has something similar - does yours have an HR website you can visit? Where I work all the salary ranges are published internally on the HR website.
Island Name: Felinefine
Emigrating the US is difficult because everyone assumes we are leaving for the benefits. Plus my s/o has a chronic condition which makes it even more difficult.
Also, amazing beaches, friendly people, laid-back lifestyle, ridiculously beautiful landscapes...
That's part of the problem unfortunately. Anyone who's sick emigrating is taking advantage of.
Also, resume. I have to update to include my duties at this assignment. Problem is, I've worked on so many projects. Should I split it into the various projects I have/am still working on?
My resume is going to be huge at this rate.
But the first page is my work experience, all my projects. The half a page is education and certifications.
It needs to look concise well thought out and without waste. Having 60 projects listed can sound impressive, but honestly they are going to skim through it. So condense. Unless all of your projects are amazing.
For example. I removed some of my lesser remodels and work order type work from my resume even though I do that stuff every day, when I finished work on our new 88 million dollar building. I dropped off some minor 3k acquisitions when I did a large scale asbestos remediation, but if I was putting down large buildings that could be easily varied with google, I would probably go larger on my resume.
I just don't want to screw this up. Despite my experience, my lack of a Bachelor's Degree puts me in a weak position for negotiation. I have been working my ass off toward conversion and it's finally happened; I just don't want to put them off.
It really doesn't. Any schmuck can get a bachelor's; you've got 10 goddamn years.
Half of negotiation is being confident. It doesn't matter that their HR dept is kind of stupid and would write you off for not having a degree, you're past that hump now. That requirement has been waived. Think of it this way: You're such a baller that had to break their own rules to accommodate you.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies