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Salary requirements - finally figured it out (lock please)
whuppins
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi H/A; long time no see.
I am interviewing with a company next week and I'm pretty sure they'll make me an offer. No salary was advertised, but I did research on the company, the area, and the skills and responsibilities of the job, and determined that $60-70k would be a good range for someone with my credentials. In the initial interview, I mentioned this and thought I picked up on some surprise in the interviewer, as though they were expecting me to ask for more. The response was a friendly "OK, that's very reasonable" and I didn't really think much of it at the time.
Today I got a call/e-mail from a corporate recruiter about a similar position. I quickly realized that he was contacting me about the same position in a different branch of the company (I know that the company is looking to fill the same job throughout multiple sites). The job description and everything else was identical to the job I'm interviewing for, with one key difference: He referenced a salary range of $90-115k. This branch is in the same area, so cost-of-living differences would be minimal.
So, for the sake of argument, assume I just severely underpriced myself between the initial phone interview and the on-site visit. Is there any graceful way to adjust my requirement based on this new knowledge? What would you say/do?
I am interviewing with a company next week and I'm pretty sure they'll make me an offer. No salary was advertised, but I did research on the company, the area, and the skills and responsibilities of the job, and determined that $60-70k would be a good range for someone with my credentials. In the initial interview, I mentioned this and thought I picked up on some surprise in the interviewer, as though they were expecting me to ask for more. The response was a friendly "OK, that's very reasonable" and I didn't really think much of it at the time.
Today I got a call/e-mail from a corporate recruiter about a similar position. I quickly realized that he was contacting me about the same position in a different branch of the company (I know that the company is looking to fill the same job throughout multiple sites). The job description and everything else was identical to the job I'm interviewing for, with one key difference: He referenced a salary range of $90-115k. This branch is in the same area, so cost-of-living differences would be minimal.
So, for the sake of argument, assume I just severely underpriced myself between the initial phone interview and the on-site visit. Is there any graceful way to adjust my requirement based on this new knowledge? What would you say/do?
whuppins on
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You have clear leverage here. If they say yes, good. If they say no, you get the position at the other branch.
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if not, be prepared to walk away
You're going to come across as a douche, but when it's that large they should've hinted at it and they were looking for someone to undersell themselves.
A fair, good employer is not going to vastly underpay you, because if you're a good employee you're just going to receive an offer to be paid more fairly somewhere else. (And they wouldn't want to pay a bad employee at all!) Feel free to mention the competing offer, but emphasize that you want to work for this company, and you just want to make sure you've done the best you can for yourself.
This sounds reasonable to me.
EDIT: OK, I just realized that you haven't been hired. In that case, I'm not sure what you should do. You could tell the person you've already been talking to that someone else in the company has given you a competing offer and you'd like to hear what the salary options for your position are. Basically what Darkewolfe said.
I agree though that if you undersold yourself by $30K and the recruiter said nothing that's pretty ridiculous.
This is why in salary negotiations for a job you don't already have I would make them give me a ballpark figure first.
If it's a large company, I doubt company protocols would even allow them to pay you less than what their HR department has determined the salary for that position, so you might not be screwed. Still I recommend that you mention it.
AOL me-too'd!
Is $65k a decent salery for the work? Keep in mind, companies can also offer bonus programs and comps other than salery.
Maybe ask for an extra week of vacation. It costs the company very little, the hiring manager can say they came in under-budget, and you get more days off.
There are other reasons why I would rather take the original job (location, personnel, etc.), even at reduced pay, so I'm not really thinking of the recruiter contact as leverage. I'm just seeing it as an insight into how much they were probably prepared to pay me. So even if it was a little bird who told me this info, I'm trying to figure out how to broach the subject with them -- not in the context of leverage, just in the context of new information that I didn't have before.
Part of the uncertainty is if I give them all the info, they might be soured by the fact that a recruiter (one that they are paying to hire for them) lost them $30k annually by not having his shit together. Not my fault, of course, but I sometimes wonder if that would leave a bad taste in their mouth in general.
Yes, you can't really use it as leverage.
But you can say something like "another recruiter from your company called to tell me about basically the same job in a different area of the company, and they said the salary range was $XXX. I'm wondering what the salary range for this job usually is because I feel like I've undersold myself."
What point are you at in the process here? Have they offered you the job yet?
Unless the second recruiter is actually an independent headhunter, in which case he could be feeding you bullshit about the salary to get you to bite so that he gets paid.
If the interviewer does offer you $60-70K, let them know that since the first interview that you've looked at other similar jobs in the area, which would suggest that a higher salary range would be more appropriate. From this point, it largely comes down to your ability to negotiate. For instance, you might be better off trying to get an extra $15K a year now and an additional $15K dependent on a year of good performance written into your contract.
Let them make an initial offer, but don't be afraid to ask for more.
That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach to take. I guess I'm just trying to figure out if I'll be asked where I got the information, and if so, whether it's a wise choice to divulge the full details.
And I am in the last round of interviews; in fact, I have a feeling that I'm the only one they're seriously considering at this point. That probably sounds cocky or ignorant but there are some very legitimate reasons for me expecting to receive an offer after my visit next week... nothing that I really need to go into here though.
Someone expecting $60k is not worth $90k. This is regardless of position.
I could not imagine possibly applying for a profession position and being that far off the mark without some misunderstanding about the position.
Unless you work in some sort of highly specialized field.
Barring that... yeah, just say that you've been getting competitive offers from other companies... and hope.
But basically you did fuck yourself. It'll take some pretty good luck to bring down a whole 50% more bank after giving a salary requirement.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Something like, "I just received an offer from another division of the company, and they're offering to pay me x dollars. Because of the significant salary difference, it is a very tempting position. Would you be willing to meet sometime and discuss the offer you extended?"
We don't know how old the OP is, maybe this is one of his/her first forays into the job market?
It'll take some luck, but if the company actually wants you working for them they don't want to be paying you 2/3 of what you could be getting - because that just means you'll be jumping ship when you get a better offer.
There is an incentive for them to offer you a fair salary for the market.
OP, I would wait until they make you an offer, see what that offer entails, and then negotiate. Since you're in the job market they have to assume that you are looking at other jobs as well and may have received other offers.
I turn 29 on Monday
...and I have 7+ years' experience in a highly specialized field. Highly specialized, as in I could probably name about half of the 50 or so people in the country that have this level of experience with this particular system. We all keep in touch. So the whole interview/salary negotiation thing isn't really new to me, and I'm quite confident that I'll get an offer of some sort, but this is definitely the first time I've (apparently) undersold myself by such a wide margin.
The small pool of applicants means I'm at a great advantage when it comes to getting an offer, but the small pool of jobs means I may not have as much leverage when it comes to looking for similar offers. It could be a while before another opening comes up that matches my skill set so perfectly. It's kind of a double-edged sword.
Anyway, I think your logic is pretty reasonable. I don't think there's anything wrong with bringing up the solicitation from the recruiter as context for adjusting my requirements. I just have to make sure I do it tactfully...
One last thing, maybe some of you know about this. I was talking about this problem with someone who wondered if maybe the recruiter's figures were inflated because they make commission on salaries. That doesn't sound far-fetched, but if it's true, it still seems weird that a recruiter would put 90k minimum in writing if there was a chance they'd have to go back on that later. I just don't know enough about how third-party recruiting firms work. If anyone has any insight into that process, feel free to contribute.
Recruiters are payed about 33% of the salary.
There are two types of recruiters:
Retainer recruiters, who are payed 33% regardless of finding an applicant or not -- these guys usually only do work for jobs in the $200k+ range.
Contingency recruiters, who are payed 33% when an applicant they recommended are hired. These guys often do sneaky things such as flood the market with your resume on the hopes that either:
1. SOMEONE bites; or
2. You apply somewhere else on your own, and then if you're hired, they get paid because they 'sent' you in first.
Recruiters also WANT their clients (the firm is the client, NOT you) to be happy so they can get repeat business. Recruiters don't like it when their recommendations 'don't work out'.
No.
If anyone's wondering, my trip up to the company went really well; I think they'll make me an offer in the next week or so. And with the above knowledge in hand, I was able to avoid making a fool of myself by asking for a ridiculous amount and then having to explain that I hadn't actually done enough research on the different areas. Always a good thing.
Thanks for everyone's help!