How to answer "What salary are you looking for?"

Salary negotiation. This is the million-dollar question. 

Here is a practical approach to handling the interview question, what salary are you looking for? 

Your research and self-awareness will help you glide through this part of the job interview.

What is The Job Board?

A fresh and practical approach to job interviews and the workplace. This podcast is for job seekers, workers and managers. Your job is important – Daryl Dagenais and guests endeavor to assist you to keep your career and workplace on track.

This is the job board. Today we are talking with Antonella Nizzola, a career advisor from Concordia University in Montreal, and I'm Daryl Dagenais with Vertex RH. I'm an expert in human resources, coaching, and conflict mediation.

We are here to share the soft skills so you will get the job, your ideal job, and a great career. We thank the team of Charles and Stratsi at Alchemist Studio in Montreal. This podcast is on salary negotiation.

How do I deal with the salary question and can I negotiate the salary when they do give me the salary? I think there's a few steps. Okay, so our question, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna narrow it down. I always have this idea that we have a realistic salary that we'd be happy with.

We have a dream salary. So I think it's important to recognize in yourself what's your realistic salary expectation and what's your dream salary. Sometimes people get carried away with the dream salary, and if I don't say I want a million dollars for a salary, I've left money, we call it on the table, right? If I only said I wanted half a million, then maybe there's a half a million I didn't get.

I find that notion a little bit interesting. You'll find your job, you kind of know the salary, you have an inkling of what it might be. There's no surprise closet that if you look in door number C, that million dollar job offer will pop out.

So I would say know yourself and what salary you want and you would be happy with. And that would be your realistic salary expectations. And then you also know what your dream salary is.

And every time the salary question comes along, you'll get asked the salary, sometimes in the first phone interview to find out if you're in the range. So you could say, may I ask the salary range for this position? You could say, I will be happy with the salary range that you propose to me, right? Or you can say, I was thinking this job would pay between this much and this much. And that would be acceptable to me.

Sometimes as soon as you mentioned the low end and high end, I'm going to go really, really low just for purposes of our demonstration. I want between a dollar and $5. As soon as you've mentioned the dollar, you've kind of showed your low range.

So I'd be tempted to say around $5 an hour. So it demonstrates that I'm flexible, but I'm also tipping towards the higher end of my realistic range. So I would handle it like that.

And sometimes when you ask the range question, they'll answer it. This pays between this and this. And you can say, great, that's acceptable to me.

And then some folks will just give themselves a 20, 30, 40, $50,000 increase. I find that gets a little bit tenuous because now you're treading on thin ice. It's not because you're changing jobs that maybe you merit a $50,000 increase.

So I'd be a little bit careful. So you're not pigeonholing yourself if you give like a number and you say around that number. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that would be realistic. Do your homework.

So you're not way out of range. Some companies will totally surprise you. And I find employers are happy to bring you on.

They want to bring you on in a realistic salary. They want to bring you on in a range that matches the other people doing the job that you do. Otherwise disputes will occur.

So you'll find that most employers do try to pay you as much as they can. And that as you perform on that first year on the job, you're going to learn more and more and more, and you're going to know what salary to aim for. So interesting when they give you the range and they say this job plays between this and this, and it comes time for the job offer and they give you a number and maybe it's not on the higher end and you're hoping for the higher end.

How do you navigate that? So you and I talked a lot about being authentic and really saying, oh, when we talked, you mentioned between X number and Y number. Why am I being offered this? Why am I being offered a little bit more? And they might be able to explain it. Or you might be able to say, would it be possible to add 5,000 to this number? Would it be possible to add 10,000 to this number and maybe express the fact that you're super happy with the offer? I'm super happy with the offer.

Could we possibly get it up 5,000? Could we possibly get it up 10,000? And I really want this job. That's right. And I'm really excited about the opportunity.

And I know we're going to just, you know, crush this account or we're going to create this program, whatever it is. And I call that using flexible language. Would it be at all possible to consider another 5,000 or another 10,000? And you want it to be a win-win.

It's not all about how much, as much money can I get from the employer? It's like you said, do the research, be fair and aim, like win-win. It's not just- You should be happy, right? Like you don't, you want to make sure that if whatever offer you take, you are happy with this offer. Otherwise you're not really doing yourself a service.

Make sure you're realistic. Make sure you're doing your research and that the number that you're targeting is in fact representative. But yeah, you need to be okay with the offer.

And would like studies show that most people or most women don't negotiate salaries when it comes time to a job offer? Would you like be encouraging of candidates to negotiate a salary when it comes time? Many factors will affect your salary and yes, you should always negotiate, but make sure that you are taking as many courses as you can. Make sure you're getting your certifications complete, right? Move your file along so that you can, with more and more confidence, ask the money that you're asking for. We talk about stability in the job.

Anytime you can keep a job three to five years, you get value just for stability. When you speak both languages well enough, you get value for speaking both languages. So there's many things that you can do to make sure your file is strong and that you can negotiate.

I was referring to more, not once you're in the job, but once you're actually being offered the job, that first offer. All those factors, stability, job skills, certifications, keep allowing you to request more money. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does.

Certainly. For sure. Because you want to back up why you deserve that extra $5,000.

Exactly. By showing these things, it gives you credibility and I think convinces the employer that you're worth every cent. And yeah, that it's reasonable what you're asking.

Great. Well, thanks so much, Daryl, for being here today. It was fun chatting with you.

And we'll keep going. We have a lot more questions to answer. Absolutely.

We hope that you've enjoyed this podcast on salary negotiation. We'd like to thank the team of Charles and Stratsy at Alchemist Studio in Montreal for their knowledgeable assistance. This was The Job Board.

I'm Daryl Dagenais and you can reach us at info at vertexrh.com. Thank you.