Salary (& Rate) Negotiations

The approach of candidates to salary (& rate) negotiations is probably best described as chaotic. Chaotic and terrible.

Here are some of the more oft seen "strategies", and an explaination why they suck:

(1) Asking for significantly more at the end of the recruitment process. When a recruiter sends your CV, they also include your salary expectations. Companies almost have budgets to work to, and (a) they want to make sure you are in that budget, and (b) want to make sure the person they hire is great value for money. If you ratchet up your salary expectations at the end, you can completely blow their budget or totally throw out the value for money equation - you might be the best Cisco Engineer they've seen for $80K, but are you the best Cisco Engineer on the market for $90K? Probably not.

(2) Keeping things vague, and not placing a figure on what you are seeking. This is a favourite of senior candidates. Almost without fail you get to the end of the the interview process only to discover the candidate and the company are 20-40% apart on salary expectations. This is a real time waster.

(3) Asking for some massively overly inflated salary, with the expectation that you can negotiate back to what you want. It's a silly tactic, because when you get you'll fail the value for money test 10 days out of 10 - people will pass over you for more reasonably priced candidates before you ever get to negotiations. It also dents your credibility when you accept a number that's much lower than what you asked for.

My suggestion? Be honest, realistic, up front and consistant about what you want. Pretty simple really. Building a little bit of fat (say 5%) into your expectations isn't a bad thing, as companies often want to negotiate down at offer stage (in spite of our efforts the educate them otherwise).