By Elaine Bellio, Senior Sales Recruiter
Making a good salary is something that most people set as one of their career goals, yet most don’t negotiate due to fear and because they lack the necessary skills. Only 37% of people say they always negotiate salary, but approximately 18% never negotiate. The perplexing thing about these stats is that most companies expect a job candidate to negotiate. It’s part of the hiring process, and if you don’t speak up and make a case for your worth to the company, who will?
The following will take a look at how failure to negotiate your salary could cost you and effective ways to successfully negotiate a higher salary with a prospective employer.
Not Negotiating Salary Will Cost You in the Short and Long Term
Failure to negotiate is a mistake that can cost you a lot more money than you think. As outlined on Fastcompany.com:
“Not negotiating can be more costly than you think. In their paper “Who Asks and Who Receives in Salary Negotiation,” researchers Michelle Marks and Crystal Harold found that employees who negotiated their salary boosted their annual pay on average of $5,000. According to the researchers, assuming a 5% average annual pay increase over a 40-year career, a 25-year-old who negotiated a starting salary of $55,000 will earn $634,000 more than a non-negotiator who accepted an initial offer of $50,000.” That is a lot of money to leave on the table because you failed to negotiate your salary.
3 Effective Ways to Negotiate Your Salary
1. Know how much you are worth: If you plan to negotiate, you need to have to do your homework and know how you compare to other professionals with similar skills and experience, internally within the company, and within your industry as a whole. Know compensation ranges, perks, and benefits of people in similar roles to the one you are negotiating.
2. Be willing to negotiate on other things: To get the salary you want, you may have to be willing to make sacrifices in other areas. Remember that things like vacation time, benefits, expense accounts, responsibilities, access to resources, and other things could play a role in the negotiation. Have a stance and be willing to negotiate on these items, as well.
3. Leverage your headhunter: One of the many benefits of working with a headhunter is that they will assist with salary negotiations. “The benefit of working with a recruiter is that we do all the negotiating on your behalf, and it is in our best interests to get you what you’re worth. We are trained to best negotiate with a client, remind them of your skills and how you will address their need, and keep the process streamlined,” says one of our Toronto recruiters.
At the end of the day, the goal is to find an agreeable happy medium that satisfies the needs of both parties. Creating a win-win situation for you and your employer is the best result in a salary negotiation.
Learn more about salary negotiation and how our Toronto headhunters can help by reading:
Talking Salary with Your Headhunter
Can I Lie Myself Into a Higher Salary
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IQ PARTNERS is an Executive Search & Recruitment firm with offices in Toronto and Vancouver. We help companies hire better, hire less & retain more. We have specialist teams of recruiters in Financial Services & Insurance, Marketing Communications & Media, Emerging Tech & Telecom, Consumer Goods & Retail, B2B & Industrial, Technology, Accounting & Finance, HR & Operations and Mining & Engineering. IQ PARTNERS has its head office in Toronto and operates internationally via Aravati Global Search Network. Click here to view current job openings and to register with us.
