Have you ever settled for a certain offer just to get the job or just to have experience?
Or not confident enough to negotiate?
In my Expert Interview Series with Denise Liebetrau, CEO of Prosper Consulting, where she helps employers’ to design the HR and compensation programs, as well as advises career-driven professionals to know their worth and negotiate their salaries in order to be happy at their careers, we tackled one of the most important conversations that we all face when we are starting a new job or when we are having a performance review in our current career, as well as when we are going back to work after a long leave, like in parental leave.
One of the biggest mistake anyone can make is to settle for a low offer when starting career.
Often times we have this “Imposter Syndrome”, we doubt ourselves and believing that we are not as competent as others perceive us to be, that is why we opt to not have the conversation of negotiating an offer. Sometimes, there are people who will plan for that conversation but chicken out at the end, and they won’t do it. Why?
Because of lack of confidence and afraid that the employer might get mad or offended and then they withdraw the offer.
Denise shared that, oftentimes employers prefer candidates that speak up and know what they want. It will leave them an impression that you are confident and is good at what you do. You just have to be willing to start the conversation and be confident.
Let me share my story, when I just was starting my job, I switched from software Engineering to Data science, I said, “Okay, I just want the job now and the money (salary) is not important”. And I realized that the salary that we get at first really impacts our whole future salaries because they might ask you what’s your current/previous salary and use it as a basis. So when we are settling for a lower offer, we are basically downsizing ourselves.
So, know your worth and be confident! Stop downsizing yourself.
There are free data online, on the internet, where you can go see what are your worth. Do the research, find out what is the job worth in your local market, wherever you live. And if you figure most companies target pays somewhere in the middle, then you need to think about in this role where I know people are being paid from x to y, what should I be paid?
Now that you got the job and you are performing well and you think that it is time for a salary raise.
So how to make the conversation easy?
The first thing to remember is timing matters, you have to pick the right time. So timing matters as it relates to how is the organization doing whether you work for a for-profit organization, or nonprofit? Is the organization doing well? Do they have the budget to increase your pay? How do you know if the company is doing well? If they’ve stopped hiring people, if they have cut the copy service, and they are no longer providing some of the kind of nice to have in the office, or revenue or sale are down then they probably aren’t doing so well.
Second, what’s your performance like? Have you been getting positive feedback from your boss, from peers, from your clients, both internal or external people that you interact with? Are people pleased with what you’re doing? Tell them your story, tell them about your success or good performance, and when you’ve gotten feedback.
Note: Always keep those recognitions or feedbacks. You can do that by printing out emails or writing a note (if it is was verbally told). Keep track throughout the year of all the good work that you’ve done, because many times you’ll get to the end of the year, and maybe your boss is asking you to write up what did you accomplish this year. And we usually remember the recent stuff, but we don’t remember stuff 12 months ago.
So if you ask for a pay increase, you need to be able to justify why that additional expense is worth it for the company. Talk about your deliverables, how you can impact in business’s goals and revenue. Because if you go in and you just ask for a pay increase and you aren’t connecting the value and the results for the company, if you don’t make that connection, then it’s not going to be easy for them to say yes.
And for the moms who are returning for work, you still have incredibly valuable skills, be confident and don’t downsize yourself.
No one is going to believe you if you don’t believe in yourself!
Finally, we would like to thank Denise for the interview.
PS: Denise is offering a free 15 minutes strategy call and is happy to talk to you about your salary concerns: Click to book or you can connect with Denise through her linkedin profile.
For a maximum value we recommend that you watch the full interview 🙂