Negotiation Articles

30 Salary Negotiation Mistakes to Avoid!

If you're planning to negotiate a salary or ask for a salary raise, make sure you don't make any of these 30 mistakes:

1. Avoid facing the salary issue until the question about "your salary requirements" is raised by the employer.
2. Fail to deal intelligently with salary questions and issues by not doing research on salary comparables and employers.
3. Don't know how much you're really worth.
4. Specify a single salary figure when asked "What are your salary requirements?"
5. Assume your "qualifications" and "performance" will automatically determine your salary level.
6. Think salaries are predetermined by employers.
7. Believe you are indispensable to an employer who will give you substantial raises rather than risk losing you to the competition.
8. Under-value your worth.
9. Over-value your worth-may even think you are irreplaceable to the employer.
10. Think the employer is in the driver's seat when it comes to negotiating salary.
11. Approach salary negotiations from a perspective of need or greed rather than as a process of assigning value to your qualifications and promises of performance.
12. Personalize salary issues by believing a salary is assigned to you rather than to your position. Focus primarily on yourself rather than on the position to which salary is normally assigned.
13. Fail to compile supports for a negotiating position.
14. Prematurely discuss salary before acquiring information on the job or before communicating your qualifications to employers.
15. Don't know how to close and follow-up the salary negotiation interview.
16. Forget to calculate benefits as part of the compensation package.
17. Put too much emphasis on benefits rather than concentrate on the gross salary figure.
18. Project an image that is not commensurate with the salary being negotiated.
19. Put too high a price tag on themselves without providing supports to justify the salary figure, such as previous salary history or indicators of performance.
20. State a specific salary expectation figure on either their resume or in their cover letter.
21. Negotiate salary and benefits over the telephone.
22. Too quick to accept employers' first or second offers.
23. Don't know how to use timing as part of establishing your value in the eyes of employers.
24. Fail to adequately assess the employer's needs and develop a strategy to meet those needs as well as relate this strategy to your salary requirements.
25. Fail to raise intelligent salary questions about the job and the employer.
26. Don't know how to handle employers' salary questions or say the wrong things.
27. Don't give themselves much room to negotiate.
28. Don't know when to leave a job or company for opportunities elsewhere that will pay better.
29. Try to play "hard to get" when you have little or nothing to leverage.
30. Lie about your past salary history or alternative salary offers.

By Caryl and Ronald L. Krannich Ph.D.