Salary negotiation

I get the question about salary negotiation from some of my friends and juniors. I have done it couple of times, some of them were good where as others were mediocre. I am putting an extract of whatever we discussed in a presentable form.

Before putting my ideas, let me clarify I am not an expert in this area and not going to write any brand new idea about it. I will rephrase or reuse the ideas provided by job sites or career advice portals. I am going to add a new dimension of my own.

When negotiation starts: When both employer and job seeker are interested for each other.

Objective: Get an agreeable salary where job seeker can join the employer.

Goal:
Employer: Pay him the lowest salary at which the job seeker is going to join and continue working for reasonable period of time.

Job Seeker: Get the best salary that employer is ready to pay her.

Process:
Employer and job seeker negotiate about salary. Employer mostly ask job seeker to quote a salary she wants. Most experts ask not to throw any figure rather ask the recruiter or hiring manager to put her figure first. Job seekers find it difficult to ask the figure. Or if they ask for a figure, they get an answer saying we would give you 10 percent hike from your current CTC. Many job seekers, mostly those who are paid lower find it difficult to ask for a higher hike. It does not sound good to say I want a 50 percent hike. It sounds stupid illogical. So the dilemma is how to ask for salary of your choice with being logical.

Negotiation is not a fair:
Let us look at the goal of an employer and job seeker. Employer wants to get the job seeker on board with minimum salary. Minimum salary may be 10 percent hike on what a job seeker is getting (even may be to a salary lower than what she is getting in case she was laid off or want to move because of personal reasons etc). To start with the negotiation, recruiter has the full information she needs, including her current salary, experience, any other offers in hand, her resume, interview feedback etc. So she has an idea what would be the lowest salary job seeker is ready to join. Where as job seeker need to know what is the best salary company can provide. It is rarely advertised with job so job seekers has no direct information about it. So recruiters have an edge over job seeker when negotiation starts.

No Pain No Gain:
But job seeker can make it fair by having the knowledge on the salary offered by company for similar position. She should do some research on figuring out what is the salary being paid for similar position in similar companies. Payscale provides some information about the salary. And she can use contacts to figure out what the company is paying. For example, job seeker got a job at Google. While applying for Google, it asks if the job seeker has experience in working in companies like Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, Amazon etc. If the job seeker does not know anybody from Google but knows people from yahoo, she can reasonable assume Google will pay as per or better than yahoo to the person who best fits for the job.

If she still has no clue of what the best company give her, she can ask it to the negotiator. Now let us look at the goal of the employer and job seeker. Recruiter starts with a x percent hike straight away with her goal. Job seeker should not expect the recruiter to do her job. She should start her job to fulfilling the goal: Getting th maximum salary the employer is ready to pay. How about asking a question what is the best salary you pay for this position. One of my friend got around 5 percent more hike than a salary he was ready to join, by asking, you should pay me fairly, so I should not feel that I am being unfair in my salary, so that we can have a good long term relationship.

Some external links on salary negotiation:

ace the interview tips

The Negotiation Dance

Tips for employer