Episode 47 – How to negotiate your salary, with Josh Doody

July 26, 2016 Podcast

In episode 47 of the Graduate Job Podcast, I am joined by salary negotiation coach and bestselling author of the excellent Fearless Salary Negotiation, Josh Doody, as we discuss how to successfully negotiate your salary. In this half-hour Josh shares some brilliant insights into how to increase your pay, whether you’re going for your first graduate job, or simply looking for a raise at your existing workplace. We delve into why people can be scared to try to negotiate their salary, and why you need to understand your current market rate of pay before you do so. We examine how to answer the dreaded salary questions of ‘how much do you currently earn?’, and ‘how much are you looking for?’, and also explore why should always make a counteroffer to every salary that is proposed. No matter where you are on your job search, this is an episode which will put money in your pocket. As always, all links to everything we discuss and a full transcript are available in the show notes at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/salary.  Before we start a quick request from me, your feedback helps me to create the episodes you want to hear, so I’ve set up a super simple and very quick survey, as I want the show to best serve your needs. It’s got 5 questions and will take you a minute, so please check it out at http://www.graduatejobpodcast.com/survey/ . I look forward to hearing your thoughts. But in the meantime, let’s crack on with the show.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • How to get over your fear of negotiating your salary
  • Why you should always negotiate your salary?
  • The importance of understanding your current market rate of pay
  • Why you should always make a counteroffer to every salary you are offered
  • How to avoid the dreaded salary question of ‘how much do you currently earn?’
  • Why you should be thinking about the minimum salary that you would accept
  • Brilliant answers to the question about your desired rate of pay

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE SHOW

Transcript – Episode 47 – How to negotiate your salary, with Josh Doody

Announcer: Welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, your home for weekly information and inspiration to help you get the graduate job of your dreams.

James: Welcome everyone to the Graduate Job Podcast, with your host James Curran. The Graduate Job Podcast is your weekly home for all things related to helping you on your journey to finding that amazing job. Each week I bring together the best minds in the industry, speaking to leading authors, entrepreneurs, coaches and bloggers who bring decades of experience into a byte size weekly 30 minute show. Put simply, this is the show I wish I had a decade ago when I graduated.

Now in episode 47 of the Graduate Job Podcast, I am joined by salary negotiation coach and best selling author of the excellent Fearless Salary Negotiation, Josh Doody, as we discuss how to successfully negotiate your salary. In this half hour Josh shares some brilliant insights into how to increase your pay, whether you’re going for your first graduate job, or simply looking for a raise at your existing work place. We delve into why people can be scared to try to negotiate their salary, and why you need to understand your current market rate of pay before you do so. We examine how to answer the dreaded salary questions of how much do you currently earn, and how much are you looking for, and also explore why should always make a counteroffer to every salary that is proposed. No matter where you are on your job search, this is an episode which will put money in your pocket. As always, all links to everything we discuss and a full transcript are available in the show notes at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/salary.  Before we start a quick request from me, your feedback helps me to create the episodes you want to hear, so I’ve set up a super simple and very quick survey, as I want the show to best serve your needs. It’s got 5 questions and will take you just a minute to do, so please check it out at http://www.graduatejobpodcast.com/survey/ . Many thanks to those of you who have completed it over the last week, such as Caroline, Michael and Steph to name check a few. Thanks for your feedback, and I’ll get working on those episodes that you asked for. Right, without further ado, let’s crack on with the show.

James: A very warm welcome today to Josh Doody, author of the excellent book Fearless Salary Negotiation, a step by step guide to getting paid what you’re worth. Josh, great to have you on the Graduate Job Podcast.

Josh: Thanks for having me on James, I’m glad to be here.

James: And before we delve into the topic of salary negotiation today, would you like to share with us how you came to write the book and be an expert on salaries?

Josh: Sure. I have about 10 years of experience, almost, in an industry called the, “Talent Management Industry,” which focuses on, you know, software to help companies to do performance reviews and set goals, and most importantly manage compensation and compensation structures, so, you know, how they pay employees.  So, I spent a number of years consulting in that industry, helping people implement that software, and specifically helping them plan their compensation structures and how they pay their employees. And then, at some point, I kind of realized that I was leaving money on the table when I took new jobs, I wasn’t negotiating. And once I realized that I started doing research, became better at negotiating my own salary, and then quickly saw really big jumps in salary between jobs over just a few years. And once I did that, I noticed that people started asking me how they could negotiate their salary and questions about their job. So, after a number of those questions I thought, “Maybe I should write about this instead of just kind of taking each question as it comes.” And so, that caused me to kind of sit down, and start really thinking about what it was that I knew and how I could help people and that’s when I wrote Fearless Salary Negotiation and here we are today.

James:  Excellent.  And listeners, I really really recommend the book. And I’ll link to it in the show notes. So, for everything we discuss today and the full transcript, check out graduatejobpodcast.com/salary. So, Josh, starting at the beginning, salary negotiations is a topic which strikes fear into people’s hearts, but listeners don’t worry, we’re going to deconstruct the steps you need to get that raise or higher salary. But, starting at the beginning Josh, why do you think it’s the case that it’s something that people worry so much about and are sometimes scared to broach the subject?

Josh: That’s a really good question, and the, “Why people are scared?” is a really good question. And I think that the real root cause for why people are kind of afraid of it is that, in general, people are afraid of things that they don’t understand or they don’t know. And I think salary negotiation, especially when changing jobs, but even asking for promotions and raises at your current job, is something that we just don’t get very many opportunities to do. And so, because we don’t do it very often, it’s something we don’t know much about, and so it seems intimidating, it seems kind of scary. So that’s one reason that, you know, I call my book Fearless Salary Negotiation is, I’m trying to let people know, I know that you’re probably afraid of doing this, but let me tell you why you shouldn’t be afraid. So yeah, I think it’s just a lack of familiarity with it, just like, you know, anything else that we don’t know a lot about, we’re intimidated by it at first, and I think salary negotiation is no different.

James: Yeah, that’s a brilliant point and, as you said it’s something that you don’t tend to do very often. I think in my career, I’ve only actually sat down and properly negotiated terms like twice, and of those two times I didn’t do it very well, you know, and you walk away and you think, “I’ve definitely left money on the table there.” So, starting then with, trying to get some more of that understanding, let’s think about the companies and how they view salaries. So, how are salaries defined from the other side of the fence, from the company side of view?

Josh: So, typically what companies do, and this will vary based on the size of the company, but once they get to a size where, you know, they have a workforce there, they have people managing their payroll, what they typically do is that they create what are called ‘pay bands’ or ‘pay grades’ that make up a salary structure. So, it’s a lot of jargon. Let me break it down. So, basically what they do is they say, “Let’s create ranges of salaries that we can use to describe what we’ll pay different jobs that people want to do.” And so that allows them to streamline how they have those discussions. By saying, you know, “This, this is ‘salary band one’ or ‘pay grade one’ and it goes from $25,000 up to $35,000 dollars US, and we’ll put, you know, these five jobs will be assigned to that pay grade.” And they do that for pretty much every job in the company. So, they create a whole bunch of pay bands, and then they assign jobs to each pay band so that they can and then, kind of, have a nice little rubric that they can use to figure out, for any given job, “What’s the pay range available for that job?” And so that’s how they use that as a basis for giving raises and promotions and for negotiating salaries. And all that good stuff all starts with the pay bands and the salary structure that they build around them.

James: And I guess within that salary structure companies will place a job at what the minimum they think they need to place it at to get the required candidate.

Josh: Right, so they’ll usually adjust them over time based on, they do market research just like I encourage people to do in our, in my book, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that later, but they do market research to see, you know, where jobs should be. So, the pay bands will often be pretty static because they’re just kind of placeholders. The pay bands themselves don’t mean much. It’s the marriage of a job and a pay band that tells you, you know ,what the pay range is for the job. And so they might move jobs up or down to different pay bands depending on, you know, what the market is telling them in terms of how highly demanded that job is and what the average salaries are and all that good stuff.

James: See you mention there about doing the market research, how important is it, from the job applicants point of view, to understand what the market rates are for the job that they’re applying for?

Josh: I think it’s extremely important for several reasons. The first reason is that it helps to know what your market value is before you go into a negotiation or an interview or any kind of situation, so that you have, you’re able to set your own baseline for your own expectations. So, you know, later way down the road in the negotiation process, once you have a job offer, part of the task of the applicant is to negotiate that offer, but also to decide if this job, at this salary, is a good fit for them. And the first thing that you need to do to make that decision as an applicant, is to know what the market value is for your skillset and experience so you can set a reasonable baseline for yourself. But, I also think a secondary reason goes back to what we talked about earlier, about how people are afraid to negotiate salaries. A lot of times there’s a lot of fear there. I think that knowing what your market value is will help give you a lot more confidence when it comes to negotiating, because you’ll then have objective data that’s not your own opinion or your own feelings. It’s objective data that you can find online or by talking to people that says, “I think the market value for my skillset and experience in this industry is some amount,” and then you can feel better about negotiating to try and pursue something around that amount. So it gives you something that you can be confident about that’s an outside, you know, objectively determined number that you could use.

James: And we talked earlier about people being scared of negotiating higher wages, another thing people are often reluctant to do is to talk about the actual wages that they’re on. What would you recommend as ways for people to begin to do that market research and to find out the market rates?

Josh: My recommendation is to start big and then sort of narrow down. So, by big I mean, you know, an industry-wide research, and you can usually get this data online.  There are lots of sites, but I recommend sites like glassdoor.com or salary.com and you can look on those sites and usually just punch in, you know, your job title. Sometimes they’ll let you punch in the industry that you’re in and maybe your geographic region, and it’ll give you back information about what the common salary range is for that job. So, you start really high level, you know, “What’s a really broad industry-wide average for the work that I do? What are people being paid to do that?” And then you can kind of narrow it down. So you say, “Okay, well that’s the industry wide. What about the region that I live in geographically, you know, people around me in, within driving distance or within a short plane ride? What are they being paid to do this job that I’m looking at?” And then the last step, if you can, is to look at, if you’re interested in a specific company or a specific job at a company, then you can look and see if you can learn about what that particular company pays people like you to do the job that you’re looking at.  And so you start really broad in the industry-wide, get that number, and then you try and refine that number down until you figure out, you know, pretty, pretty closely to the real market value for your skillset and experience at the specific job that you’re looking at.

James: Excellent. So let’s make it nice and, nice and practical then for listeners. So many of the listeners will be recent graduates or current students, and thinking about getting that first proper job in inverted commas. So, you talk in the book about the seven steps of negotiating a salary, could you run through what these are?

Josh: Sure. So, there are lots of steps, and the so the negotiation process, really the first step to negotiating is before what I kind of formally call, “the negotiation process,” and that is usually when you’re in the interview process, you’ll be asked what your current or desired salary is. And I call that the dreaded salary question because it is kind of a sneaky question that will surprise you. And so the first step in salary negotiation is to not disclose those numbers if you can, if you’re able to avoid disclosing your current salary or desired salary, I recommend that you do that. You usually can get away with it, although sometimes you’ll bump into a company that simply refuses to continue talking if you don’t tell them, but that’s very rare. I see it happen occasionally, but it’s, you know, maybe five percent or less of the time that that will happen. So, the first step is to not disclose those numbers, and the reason that you don’t want to disclose your current salary or desired salary is that you want to focus on the opportunity in front of you, and you want to give yourself and the company that you’re interviewing with an opportunity to get to know each other, and to determine what your value is to that company. And so there’s a lot of learning to be done after that part of the interview process, and I think it’s better to postpone salary discussions until both of you have more information about the value that you’ll bring to that specific company. So, that’s the first step is don’t disclose your current or desired salary when you’re asked for it in the interview process.

James: Just jumping in there Josh, is there any, what way would you recommend stonewalling that question? Because it can be, as you said, if you’re put on the spot with, you know, “So, what your expectations?” It’s easy to get rabbit in headlights and a bit flummoxed. Is there any way that you’d recommend to divert it without just blocking it straightaway?

Josh: Yes. So, there are there are two parts to that question. The first part is, “What’s your current salary?” and I think a good way to approach that is just the to be honest and to say, “I’m not comfortable discussing that. I’d rather focus on this opportunity that’s in front of me and not on what I’m currently making or what I made at my previous job.” And so, you know, I think some people are inclined to, you know, maybe lie or inflate their current salary, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think instead –

James: I think I’ve done that one a few times, Josh.

Josh: It’ll, it can get you in trouble, right?

James: Yeah.

Josh: So, I think lying is not, not wise. Instead, just be honest and say, “I’m not comfortable. I’d rather not discuss it.” If they keep pushing, one answer I’ve been coaching people lately to say is, you know, “I work for that company. I have information about how they pay people, and out of respect for the company that I work for I’d rather not tell you what their salary structures look like, in the same way that you probably wouldn’t want your employees to tell other companies what your salary structures look like in your company.

James: I like that one.

Josh: So, it’s a good one. You know, I like the first one to say, “I’m not comfortable with that let’s move on and talk about the opportunity in front of me,” but you can also, you know I think that’s a good answer, because I think it’s very honest and it tells them, you know, “Look I’m a loyal employee to my current company, and I’ll be a loyal employee for your company, and so let’s, let’s just move on right,” is the idea.

James: Yeah, that’s a really good point. And yeah, as you said, it makes you look, loyal and that’s something that they’re going to looking for in their candidates.

Josh: That’s right. And then the second part of the question is, “What’s your desired salary? So if you get through the interview process, if we make you an offer, you know what, what salary do you want to be paid?” And for that one, I recommend that you say something like, “I’d rather focus on the value that I can add to this company. I’m excited for this opportunity and I want it to be a big step forward for me in terms of responsibility and compensation.” So again you’re telling them, “I’m interested in talking to you about the opportunity that’s in front of me,” but you’re also signaling to them that what you want to do is take on more work than you’re doing now and you want your compensation to increase, so without telling them your desired salary, you’re indicating to them that you want to be paid more than you’re currently paid and you want to do more for their company than you’re currently doing for your, at current job. And that’s just a subtle signal to let them know that when they make you an offer that you’re hoping for a strong offer and that you’re indicating to them, “I’m expecting a strong offer,” and so you aren’t disclosing that information, but you’re also giving them an opportunity to know that you’re serious about the opportunity and that you think you’re a viable candidate and you hope their offer eventually reflects that.

 James: Yeah, and again that’s brilliant advice and a really good way just to subtly plant in their mind about the type of forward thrusting candidate who wants to take on things and do things and get things done. So, that’s a really good way of putting it.

Josh: Right, and I think, you know, so I know that a lot of your listeners are maybe going for their first job, like you said, right? And so another reason not to disclose that desired salary is that early in your career, you really don’t know what you want to make or what the value of your skill set and experience are, especially not at a new company that you’re talking to. And so you’re basically guessing. You’re just taking a guess if you say, “My desired salary is $50,000.” What you’re really saying is, “I guess you might pay me $50,000?” with a question mark at the end of it. And it’s just not wise to make guesses like that when it could cost you a lot of money, and so, you know, especially for people earlier in their careers with less experience and sort of fewer data points to work from, you really are just taking a guess. And so, rather than taking that guess, just let them know that you’d rather not discuss it, you want to add value to their company and, you know, let’s move on, let me continue impressing me, impressing you in the interview process rather than talking about salaries.

James: That’s a brilliant point. You talk in the book about knowing what the minimum salary you would require to do the job is. Why is this important to have this figure in your mind?

Josh: That’s a great question and it’s an excellent segway as we move, you know, into the real, kind of, the real salary negotiation process. Which is, you know, I got a job offer and now I’m going to negotiate the job. Before you get the job offer, I do think it’s a good idea to set what I call your, ‘minimum acceptable salary,’ and the reason is that it allows you to do a few things. One is it allows you to negotiate affectively, because you’ve now decided, before you even get a job offer, “This is the salary that I want to do the job as I understand it, and if I get that salary, I’m happy to do the job and if I can’t get that salary from this company then it’s not a good fit for me.” And so deciding that early is really wise because it helps you avoid caving to stress or caving to pressure when you’re actually negotiating later on. So, I think, you know, setting that minimal salary early is helpful because it gives you a baseline, so that you can have a definite success in your negotiation. Either you succeed by getting the salary you set or you succeed by avoiding taking a job that would have been paying less than you required to do it. So, I think it’s very early to set that number early on and stick to it as you get into the negotiation.

James: I guess the problem though, I know my first job after university, and you talk in the book about when you’re coming up with this figure, there’s different, different categories to think about.  So how badly do you need the job? How badly do they need you? And a few other different, different categories. I know from the, “How badly do I need the job?” After university I would’ve taken, I would have taken any salary really that was offered to me by the company I wanted to work for. So, I would have even taken a really low-ball offer just because I wanted to work there. And you haven’t really, as that first step out of university, often got the buying power, so to say, you know, of being able to pick and choose. Thinking then from that point of view, how much will that weigh into your ability to negotiate?

Josh: Yeah, I think it’s a really good point. And you know, to your point, I think maybe for your very first job out of university, you’re minimum acceptable salary might be on the lower end. Maybe you recognize, “This is my first job.” Maybe you’ve got to pay rent next month. You might have a lot of reasons for setting that number low, but even if you do that I think it’s important to do it consciously instead of unconsciously. So, if you intentionally say, “You know what my market value,” because you should account for your market value when you’re setting that minimum number, you say, “My market value is $50,000, but I need this job really badly, I have to make rent next month. I may not get any other job offers, I’m not getting a whole lot of responses when I’m sending out applications. So, my minimum for this job is $40,000, understanding that I’m probably underpaid a little bit at that point, but I have other reasons for doing that consciously.” So I think it’s, I think it’s fine as long as that’s a conscious decision and not an unconscious decision where you just get a job offer and you take it without really thinking about what it means and what the salary means that you are offered.

James: Flipping that around, would you recommend that people almost portray that they don’t need the job? Or that they have other offers on the table? So it’s just one of many to, to give them the extra walk away ability to make up a word. You know that they’re not desperate for it, so they’ve got to give them more, more leverage?

Josh: So I think this is something that I have an opinion on, but there are probably other opinions that people could back up pretty well. So, I do have an opinion on this, but I just want to, you know, kind of preface it by saying this is what I would call a, ‘strong opinion weakly held’. I could be convinced otherwise and there may be reasons to not do this. I don’t recommend telling a job that you’re talking to about other opportunities that you have and using that as a negotiation tactic, at least not upfront. I think it’s better to negotiate everything in isolation and sort of implicitly account for those things. So for example, if you really do have other job offers that are pending or that you expect to get, then that should enable you to set your minimum acceptable salary a little bit higher for this job. And so you’re implicitly accounting for the fact that you’ve got other opportunities or you don’t need the job very badly by setting that minimum number higher, but you don’t necessarily explicitly say it to them. Your job in an interview and with, before the negotiation is to demonstrate how valuable you are to the company, and I think you can do a really good job of that without mentioning other job opportunities that you have. And instead focusing on the specific company. My interview method is very focused on the specific company that you’re talking to, understanding how they do business, and how you specifically can help them do business better. And so I think keeping that momentum going and focusing on the one company is better. A little caveat to that is if you if you have multiple job opportunities that would adjust not only your minimum salary for the job, you know, the hypothetical job that we’re talking about, but for those other opportunities you might have different minimum salaries, right? Which are based on things like you mentioned. Like, how interested I am in doing the job? How long is the commute? How much potential is there for my career long term if I stay there? All that good stuff. So, you know, if you have three job opportunities that you’re pursuing, you might have three different minimum acceptable salaries. And you might adjust one or more of them based on the other offers that you get. So you implicitly account for it, but I don’t recommend explicitly saying to the company, “By the way, I have another job offer. So you better make me a good offer.” Right? I don’t think that’s a good strategy. But, like I said, I think there are there are probably people who disagree with me and I might be convinced otherwise, but that’s kind of where I am on it today.

James: I completely understand the logic, it certainly makes sense. So moving forward through the process. Imagine we’ve had the first interview, we’ve managed to play bat and dead ball the first question about what we’re after a salary wise. We get to the second interview, and the salary question is going to come up again. You talk about making sure that you don’t make the first offer of what the salary you are expecting is. How can you do this again effectively?

Josh: Right, so this is the continuation of the dreaded salary question and really what you’re trying to do, usually once you get past that dreaded salary question, that question will often be asked by like a recruiter or somebody that you won’t even be interviewing with later as sort of a formality. And so, once you get through it, usually you’re coasting through the interview and all you have to do is just continue interviewing well and eventually you’ll get to the stage where they say, “Okay, it’s been great talking to you. We’d like to make you an offer,” and they’ll make you a verbal offer. Right. And so up to this stage where we come as we’ve avoided the dreaded salary question, or dead balled it, as you said, which is a new phrase to me but I like it, and got into, they’re making me an offer, and I’ve already set my minimum acceptable salary, and so, once they make you that offer, the next thing you want to do is ask for time to consider the offer. Your next action will be to the counter-offer, but just saying, “Thank you for the offer I really appreciate it. I’d like to take a couple of days and think about it,” can be a great way to take some time and kind of collect your thoughts and decide how you want to counter-offer. So that’s what you would do next, is wait for them to make an offer. So, they name the first number and then take some time to think about and plan for your counter-offer and also the final negotiation that’ll happen later on.

James: So, first of all, a couple of questions on the counter-offer. So, one is would you always make a counter-offer? And the second one is, thinking about graduates and joining specific companies, is there say, joining larger graduate schemes, is there always scope for the salary negotiation? Or is it, “This is our salary for the graduate scheme and take it or leave it?”

Josh: Right, so I will acknowledge, before I give you my answer to this, that it’s possible that there are, you know, regional differences here. So, my answer is based on my experience in the US, but it’s been, I’ve seen it also be accurate in Europe. So, I’ll say that as sort of a caveat, it’s possible that there are just regional differences where companies simply have different processes than most of the people I work with. So, most of the time, all the time, you should counter-offer. And the reason is that, I recommend by the way that you counter-offer somewhere between ten and twenty percent above their offer, and so the reason is that you simply don’t know, without explicitly countering, whether it’s the case that they’ve made you the best possible offer, whether, like you said, there’s a graduate scheme so they already know there’s a number that we pay incoming candidates that have recently graduated and this is that number. You don’t know that until you counter-offer. So, it’s possible that you counter, let’s say ten percent above their offer and they say, “Oh no, there’s no room to negotiate here, our offer is the only offer that you’re going to get,” and then you can just fall back on your minimum number and say, either, “Okay, I understand that’s good. Let’s go,” or, “You didn’t meet my minimum, and I can’t accept a job for less than my minimum,” and tell them what that is and see how they respond. So by countering, what you do is you give them an opportunity to basically to let you know if they made you the best possible offer up front, and so if I flip that on its head, by not countering you’re not giving yourself an opportunity to find out if they’ve made you the best possible offer that they’re willing to make or not. So, I recommend that you always counter, and I know that a fear people have is that they’ll counter and then the job offer will be retracted, but that simply just doesn’t happen. You know, I don’t know, maybe you can speak to this from your experience, too but in my experience it just doesn’t happen. The company, worst case, they’ll say, “Oh no, we’re not negotiating here. The offer stands as is, are you interested?” But they’re not going to retract the offer, and a big reason for that is you’re only countering ten to up to twenty percent above their offer, which is in a range that isn’t, you know, you’re not asking for double the salary, you’re asking for a little bit more. And so there’s no reason for them to pull the offer. Their best response, if they’re not willing to negotiate, is just say, “We’re not willing to negotiate. We made you our best offer.”

 James: Yeah, and going back to something we talked about in the very beginning, of why people have this fear in the first place, is they’re doing something that they’re not used to doing. But you’ve got to put yourself in the position of the recruiting manager, or whoever is recruiting you, is this is something that they’re dealing with on a, on a day-to-day basis. So for you, asking for the additional salary is something that, is going to really push yourself to the edge of your comfort zone, but for them, they’re used to it, so they’re not going to be taking it personally.

Josh: Right, and that’s exactly right. I mean, you know, not to at all take away from what they do day-to-day, recruiters and hiring managers, right. But that’s literally their job, is to get more people on their team, and one component of that job is to make job offers, and another component is to do job interviews, and another component is to find more candidates, and another component is to figure out what salary they’re going to pay a candidate that they want to bring on board. So it’s just a small component of many components that they interact with every day. It’s just a, it’s a process to them. Whereas, you know, for you or me, like it, like we said earlier, I’m only going to negotiate, you know, a small number of salaries throughout my entire career. It’s just not going to be a very big number. And so it feels weighty and important, and like a big big deal to me, but from their perspective, they’re just following whatever their internal processes is, and so usually that process accommodates the fact that some people will counter-offer, not enough people in my opinion, but some people will so they’ve got a part of the process that allows for people to counter-offer and give them some room to work with people who are going to counter-offer.

 James: And how would you recommend making the counter-offer?  Face-to-face? Or via an intermediary?  Or email?

Josh: I prefer to make a counter-offer through email if possible, and the reason is that when you do that you can counter-offer in email, you can state your counter-offer but then you can also state your reasons for counter-offering and write a really solid case. And so, you know, if you say a counter-offer verbally, you can make your case in that counter-offer, but there are two issues. One is that most people, and myself included, are just going to get nervous and you’re going to counter-offer and you’re going to have this speech planned that you’re going to make and everything, and then you’ll get halfway through it and just totally forget what you were talking about. And even if you make just a wonderful, you know, just a beautiful case for your counter-offer and why it’s such a good counter-offer and why they should pay you more, you’re only making that case verbally to one person who’s a manager, who probably cannot say yay or nay on your counter-offer and will have to go talk to other people in finance or recruiting or some other part of the company to get approval for giving you more money. So by counter-offering in email, you’re able to state your counter-offer, you can take your time at home on a weekend or take a day or two and really craft your message to explain why your counter-offering, why you’re valuable to the company, how you’re going to add value to them, and then send them that email with a counter-offer and when they get it, you’ve made your best case, you took time to edit it and craft it, and when they say yeah that’s a pretty good case we should pay Josh more money, then they can take your email as part of the process of getting approval for more money and say, “Here’s Josh’s case for why he deserves more money,” as opposed to, you know, playing telephone and trying to verbally summarize what you told them on a phone call previously. So, I think there’s a lot of benefit, if you can, to delivering a counter-offer in email. And I’ve found that you can frequently do this. Almost always, they’ll give you the initial offer verbally on a phone call or they’ll email it to you, but this is something that you kind of a build in for yourself by asking for that additional time to consider it, is that you’ve also now ended the phone call, if you were on a phone call, or you’ve given yourself time and probably allowed yourself to go back into the email medium to deliver that counter later.

James: And listeners if you’re thinking that, “That sounds great, but you wouldn’t know what to say,” Check out Josh’s book. He’s got a brilliant email script of suggestions of how you can phrase it and word it and it’s spot on. So, check out Fearless Salary Negotiation, it’s highly recommended.

Josh: You know, that so I’m glad you said that because I’ll also add that I have a page, that we’ll talk about later, that I‘ve set up for your listeners to download some goodies, some free goodies, and I’ll add a link on that page to that salary negotiation script that you mentioned, because it’s also on my site, so that they can they can go there and click that link and they’ll be able to get it online as well.

James: See listeners, Josh is bringing the good stuff today. You are very lucky people. So, Josh, we’ve given them a counter-offer, maybe they come back and they turn down the cash. Are there any other levers that you recommend people try and pull to get some more additional bonuses?

Josh: Yes. And I think that you positioned this perfectly, which is the first thing that I recommend you do is maximize your base salary. So, you know, if we pause for a moment and think back on a conversation, I think this is the first time in our conversation that any of these other leavers have been mentioned and that, for me, is very important because I think most people value base salary more than other things, like vacation or signing bonuses or being able to work from home once a week or something. So, my strategy is first maximize your base salary through negotiation, and then once you’ve maximized your base salary and you’ve come to some agreement, if there’s still room to work then you can look for maybe getting an extra week of paid vacation or a signing bonus. And the way that usually works is, my kind of general rule of thumb is, if the company doesn’t accept your last request, if they compromise on your last request, then there’s still room for you to work. So let me give you a concrete example. So let’s say I counter-offered at $56,000 and the company came back and said, “We can’t come up to 56, we can come up to 53.” Then I might say, “Okay, you did come up to 53, I appreciate that. I wanted to get to 56, we didn’t get there. Can you come up to 53 and also give me an extra week of paid vacation every year?” And if they say, “No,” then you could say, “Okay. I also am going to have to incur some expenses as I make this transition. So if you can’t give me an extra week of vacation, can you throw in $53,000 plus a $2,500 signing bonus?” or something like that. So if they say, “No,” or they compromise on the last thing you ask for, there’s still room for you to go back and try and get more. And so that’s how that works. They countered or I countered at 56, they came back and said, “We can’t quite get there,” and I said, “Okay, I understand. Can you give me what you said, but plus this other thing?” And before you have that conversation, you want to just prioritize what those things are. I mentioned paid vacation because that’s the most common that people ask for, but some people really want a signing bonus, maybe they’ve got some bills they need to pay, some people ask to work from home one or two days a week, or they’ll ask for reimbursement for office expenses or their cell phone or their mobile if they use that for work and that sort of thing.

James: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So, go for the base instead of the prospect of, bonuses if you hit certain targets or whatever it is that might be at risk from somebody else’s as opposed to yourself.

 Josh: Exactly. Exactly.

James: Unfortunately, Josh, time is running away with us, we could talk all day on this. One final question before we move on to our weekly staple questions.  What advice would you give to listeners who think this is brilliant, but maybe need to pluck up a bit of courage to, you know, give it a go?

Josh: That’s a good question. What advice to help people get more courage? I think, you know, this is going to tie into one of my staple question answers, I’m afraid, so we’ll loop back to it, but I think understanding your market value is really important. I think the basis for having more confidence to negotiate, is to understand what your value is. I think especially for people who are just graduating university or they’re going to get their first job, I think we, and I’ll say ‘we’ because I did this, we tend to underestimate our value, because we’re basing it on what we were making while we were at university, which is often $0 or even negative, right? We’re borrowing money to go to school, and so instead of thinking, “What’s the value of this education that I have and these skills that I have?” We think, “What was I making before? Well it was costing me a $1000 a month out of pocket to live before, so I’ll take anything that’s positive income now.” I think instead we should think, “What’s the actual value of the education of the experience that I have and that I’m bringing into the workforce?” and you can do that through the market value research that we mentioned earlier. And I think that will give you more confidence, because then when you get a job offer you’ll be able to identify that, “That job offer doesn’t align with the market value that I figured out. And I did a really good job of that work, I did homework to figure out what my market value is, so I’m comfortable negotiating because I know that they’re not offering me the value that I bring to the market and to this job.” So that would be my big thing is, you can gain a lot of confidence by just taking time to understand what the value is of your skillset and experience and what you bring to the table.

James: Excellent I love it. And listeners, if you don’t ask you don’t get. So give it a go and you can send Josh and I a percentage of whatever raise you get.

Josh: Sounds good to me.

James: So Josh, moving on to a weekly staple questions. So, what one book would you recommend that listeners should read?

Josh: Yeah, I’m glad you gave me these questions ahead of time, so I might be spoiling something here, well and I guess, you know, I heard the same questions being asked over and over on all the episodes that I listened to of your show. But, I think the book that I recommend to people, and I’ve given this to people as a graduation present often, including just last month I gave this book to someone, is The Dip by Seth Godin. It’s a tiny little book, I mean you can read through it in, I’ll say 20 minutes, and that’s if you’re, you know, really taking time to think about it, but I think that book is one that you should read earlier in your career, because it will at least put in your mind the idea that you need to think constantly about, “Where am I in this this cycle, where I’m learning, and where I’m contributing, and gaining new skills and putting in hard work for future benefits? And do I want to continue down that road? Or should I change directions?” and I think especially for people coming out of university, people doing their first job, you know, gosh when I was 22 years old, I don’t know if I’d trust 22-year-old Josh or 21-year-old Josh to decide the next forty years of my career. And so I think it’s important to have a framework to think about. Is it time for me to try something different? Should I change careers? Should I keep going? And I think that book, The Dip is a really short, you know, 20 minute read that will give you a good way to think about those decisions, so that when you hit them later in your career, you’ll have kind of a mental framework that you can call upon to think through those hard career decisions.

James: Yeah, that’s very prescient in you mentioning that one Josh. A friend was talking to me about this book, this week and I think I need to read it. I think at some times over the running of the podcast, I think I’ve hit the dip, and yeah, I think it would be a good one for me to read.

Josh: Oh yeah absolutely. Things like podcasting and pursuits like that, they definitely have the dip, where you get into that part where you learn the basics and now, “Man it’s going to be a lot of work to really make this thing go, and how do I do that?” So yeah I think that’s a great idea.

James: Excellent, and listeners you’ll be able find a link to The Dip and everything we mentioned in the show notes. So, that’s at graduatejobcast.com/salary. Next question Josh, what one website would you direct our listeners to?

Josh: I would recommend people check out Quora.com, Q, U, O, R, A, .com. I’ve answered a lot of questions there. It’s a question and answer site, so pretty much anybody can go on Quora and ask any question. And anybody else can answer the question. And so there’s actually a great podcast here in the States called, ‘Question of the Day,’ where most of the time the two hosts just go and find a question on Quora and answer it. And there is a ton of career advice and career questions that you can go get on Quora, and I think, you know, it’s a totally free resource, there’s much more information than you could ever read all of, and so any question that you have there will be somewhere to start on Quora, and I think there’s a lot of good information there especially for people that are early in their careers.

James: Excellent, and listeners, just to make sure you go straight to the good stuff, I’ll link to Josh’s answers on there so you can check out what he’s saying on there. And the final question Josh, what one tip can listeners implement today to help on their job search?

Josh: So, I can do this one pretty short because I already did it earlier when we talked about having confidence to negotiate, and that is, take some time and estimate your market value. I’m also going to include that guide, now that I think about it, in the freebies that we’ll talk about in a minute, but take some time, it really doesn’t take that long, it’s like maybe an hour and that’s probably overstating it, to get a sense of what the value of your skillset and experience is in your industry. And I think, if you do that, you’ll be able to know which jobs to look for, but you’ll also be able to evaluate job opportunities much easier. It’ll be a lot less stressful for you, and that will give you more confidence to negotiate your salary.

James: Excellent. That’s brilliant advice and I definitely echo it. So Josh, what is the best way for people to get into touch with you and the work that you do?

Josh: Right. So I think the easiest way to get in touch with me is on Twitter. I’m @JoshDoody. J, O, S, H,D as in dog, O, O, D, Y, on Twitter. And I answer questions on there all the time, and I’m very easy to get ahold of. So, if you have a question for me shoot me, you know, tweet at me. You can also find my book, as you mentioned James, at fearlesssalarynegotiation.com. And for Graduate Job Podcast listeners, I’m going to put up a page with some free guides that you can download at fearlesssalarynegotiation.com/graduatejobpodcast, and you’ll be able to get a guide on how to ace your next interview, a guide on how to estimate your market value, along with the worksheet, and I’ll have a link to the to the sample counter-offer e-mail template too. So that’s fearlesssalarynegotiation.com/graduatejobcast for a whole bunch of freebies that I’ll put up there for your listeners.

James: Thank you, on everyone that’s listening behalf, Josh for that. That’s very kind of you. And I know it would be really really useful, so listeners make sure you do check it out. Josh, it just has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for you time.

Josh: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

James: Many many thanks to Josh for his time and expertise. I really enjoyed that episode and learnt a lot myself. As I said it’s not happened many times in my career when I’ve had to try and negotiate terms, but each time I’ve done it I’ve been pretty terrible. Each time I hadn’t done the research into my actual market value, and I was scared that if I tried to negotiate properly they would be outraged and withdraw the offer from the table. After my chat with Josh and reading his book I know now that I’d be in a much stronger position. Do check out his book Fearless Salary Negotiation, its packed full of great content on how and what to say during the process, and you can find links to that, a full transcript, and also links to the special bonus listener offer at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/salary. Couple of key takeaways from me for the episodes, the first of which is, don’t be afraid to try this. The HR teams aren’t going to walk away in disgust burning the job offer as they go if you try it. As we said, this is something they deal with all of the time, it’s just a negotiation, so follow the steps that we discussed and you will be fine. Linked to this though is the need for planning before you have that conversation, make you know what the current market rate for your position is, and more importantly know what your minimum salary expectation is. For your first graduate job this could be low….mine was, there is nothing wrong this, but understand those reasons why it might be the case before you go in there. And as Josh said, if they wont budge on the salary, then you can move on to a bit more holiday, which always goes down well. So there you go, episode 47 finished. Like a slow English batsmen we’re edging closer to the half century mark, and im still thinking what to do special for the big 50.

2 final requests from me before we finish, if this episode or any of the other 46 have been useful to you, you can thank me in 2 ways, one is to do the survey at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/survey, and the other is to leave me a review on itunes. The boffins at Apple put lots of weight to itunes reviews and it keeps me high in the charts, so please fire up itunes and leave me a review I will love you forever. Now UK listeners you need to really pull your finger out as the guys over in the states are going great guns and I’ve got an amazing 88 5* reviews, so thankyou so much to all of the listeners in the states, one of which is Tifetgfgtdr, who left one a couple of weeks ago who said, ‘love the quality of guests and fantastic advice, totally dig the accent’. Oh well, what can I say, thankyou very much Tifetgfgtdr, and please do leave me a review yourself, especially if you do like the accent.  All that’s left to say is do join me next week when we go niche again, and I speak Ashley Hever from the award winning graduate scheme at Enterprise Rent A Car. It’s a goodie if I do say so myself. I hope you enjoyed today, but more importantly, I hope you use it, and apply it. See you next week.