What Color Is Your Parachute?

glaringly wrong with how you’re “coming across.”

When all else fails, I would recommend you go to a career coach who charges by the hour, and put yourself in their tender knowledgeable hands. Role-play an interview with them, and take their advice seriously (you’ve just paid for it, after all).

CONCLUSION

I have left out the subject of salary negotiation in this chapter. It requires a chapter of its own (next!).

Hopefully, however, with these tips you will do well in your interviews. And if you do get hired, make one resolution to yourself right there on the spot: plan to keep track of your accomplishments at this new job, on a weekly basis—jotting them down, every weekend, in your own private log. Career experts recommend you do this without fail. You can then summarize these accomplishments annually on a one-page sheet, for your boss’s eyes, when the question of a raise or promotion comes up.[31]

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

ANNE FRANK

According to our faith, so is the world to each of us. I dare to give my pity to some man who seems to me to live a meagre life…. But who am I that I should give him pity? Let me know that it is not what he has but what he is that makes the poverty or richness of his life.

PHILLIPS BROOKS (1835–1893)

Chapter 9. The Six Secrets of Salary Negotiation

We have come now to the tail end of an interview for hire. We covered that in the previous chapter. Now it’s time to discuss salary. I hope you know that it must be discussed.

I remember once talking to a breathless high school graduate, who was elated at having just landed her first job. “How much are they going to pay you?” I asked. She looked startled. “I don’t know,” she said, “I never asked. I just assume they will pay me a fair wage.” Boy! did she get a rude awakening when she received her first paycheck. It was so miserably low, she couldn’t believe her eyes. And thus did she learn, painfully, what you must learn too: Before accepting a job offer, always ask about salary. Indeed, ask and then negotiate.

It’s the “negotiate” that throws fear into our hearts. We feel ill prepared to do this. Well, set your mind at ease; it’s not all that difficult. While whole books can be—and have been—written on this subject, there are basically just six secrets to keep in mind.

THE FIRST SECRET OF SALARY NEGOTIATION

NEVER DISCUSS SALARY UNTIL THE END OF THE INTERVIEWING PROCESS WHEN (AND IF) THEY HAVE DEFINITELY SAID THEY WANT YOU

“The end of the interviewing process” is difficult to define. It’s the point at which the employer says, or thinks, “We’ve got to get this person!” That may be at the end of the first (and therefore the last) interview; or it may be at the end of a whole series of interviews, often with different people within the same company or organization. But assuming things are going favorably for you, whether after the first, or second, or third, or fourth interview, if you like them and they increasingly like you, a job offer will be made. Then, and only then, is it time to deal with the question that is inevitably on any employer’s mind: how much is this person going to cost me? And the question that is on your mind: how much does this job pay?

If the employer raises the salary question earlier, say near the beginning of the interview, innocently asking, “What kind of salary are you looking for?” you should have three responses ready at your fingertips.

Response #1: If the employer seems like a kindly man or woman, your best and most tactful reply might be: “Until you’ve decided you definitely want me, and I’ve decided I definitely could help you with your tasks here, I feel any discussion of salary is premature.”

That will work, in most cases. There are instances, however, where that doesn’t work. Then you need:

Response #2: You may be face-to-face with an employer who will not be put off so easily, and demands within the first two minutes of the interview to know what salary you are looking for. At this point, you may need your second response: “I’ll gladly answer that, but could you first help me understand what this job involves?”

That is a good response, in most cases. But what if it doesn’t work? Then you need:

Response #3: The employer with rising voice says, “Come, come, don’t play games with me. I want to know what salary you’re looking for.” You have your third response ready at hand for this very eventuality. You answer in terms of a range. For example, “I’m looking for a salary in the range of $35,000 to $45,000 a year.”

If that still doesn’t satisfy them, then consider what this means. Clearly, you are being interviewed by an employer who has no range in mind. Their beginning figure is their ending figure. No negotiation is possible.[32] This happens, when it happens, because many employers in this post- Recessionary period of history are making salary their major criterion for deciding who to hire, and who not to hire. It’s an old game, now played with new determination by many employers, which runs, “among two equally qualified candidates, the one who is willing to work for the least pay, wins.”

If you run into this situation, and if you want that job badly enough, you will have no choice but to give in. Ask what salary they have in mind, and make your decision. (Of course you can always postpone announcing your decision by saying, “I need a little time, to think about this.”)

However, all the foregoing is merely the worst-case scenario. Usually, things won’t go this badly. In most interviews these days, the employer will be willing to save salary negotiation until they’ve finally decided they want you (and you’ve decided you want them). And at that point, the salary will be negotiable.

When You Should be Willing to Discuss Salary

Not until all of the following conditions have been fulfilled—

• Not until they’ve gotten to know you, at your best, so they can see how you stand out above