Day 23: Negotiating the Job Offer

Today you will learn how to negotiate everything in your job offer from salary down to benefits, the best way to approach negotiation, and how to receive the top end of your salary range.

Summary

What is Negotiation?

Negotiation begins AFTER receiving a job offer or employment agreement. You and the employer enter discussions to discuss items like your compensation package, start date, benefits, policies, stock options, and other items necessary for both sides to be in agreement.

Why Bother with Negotiation?

Negotiation should be tried in most cases when you have an offer.

• Hiring someone takes months and consumes lots of management time. Once an employer has made an offer, they've invested many thousands of dollars in the hiring process. The top candidate is often significantly better than the next best.
• The single best time to negotiate salary is when you're starting a new job. You have the most leverage then, and with some preparation, you can earn five to $10,000 more in a simple 10 minute conversation.
• If you negotiate, you explicitly communicate that you value yourself more highly than the average employee.
• It's unlikely they'll retract their initial offer because you tried to negotiate. Stay polite, and the worst case is likely that they'll stick to their original offer.

Negotiation should be most strongly considered when you have more than one good offer because then you have a strong fallback position.

‍How to Prepare for Negotiation

In the activity below you will complete the follow steps:

• Salary Research
• Understanding Why You’re Skills Deserve a Higher Salary
• Determine Your Salary Range
• Determine the Non Salary Items
• Practice, Practice, Practice
• Networking for Accountability and Practicing Negotiation

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Activity

Download today's worksheet and complete the exercises inside of the worksheet.

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Skill Lesson Mastered

Demonstrate mastery of the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson by applying it to the above activity. If, and only if, you have a full understanding and have mastered the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson, select the next lesson in the navigation.