What Recruiters Won’t Tell You About The Salary Negotiation Process

As an HR professional and recruiter here are just a few tidbits about what recruiters won’t tell you About The Salary Negotiation Process.

1. Recruiters know the salary range before a role is posted to a job board.

Yes, recruiters know the salary range before the role is posted to Indeed, Career Builder, LinkedIn or any other job board. If a recruiter or hiring manager calls you to discuss a role, then they know how much money they can afford to spend on a candidate.

Before a role is posted to Indeed, LinkedIn, etc. for you and I to apply, it has to go through an internal process within the company. Usually, it consists of the department head (due to business strategy), finance (to determine how much money the department has and to benchmark against others in similar roles for internal equity), HR (as part of the recruiting and business strategy process) and of course the hiring manager, of course this varies depending on the size and organizational structure of the company.

Thus, if a recruiter calls you concerning a role, please don’t fall for the trick of, we aren’t sure just yet what the salary range is going to be etc. Not true. Recruiters ask for your compensation to see 2 things: 1. If you fall within the budget for the role, aka can we afford them? 2. To determine if you do fall within the range, can they potentially offer a bit less should they want to extend an offer.

2. Recruiters cross their fingers hoping you won’t counter offer.

Yep, recruiters cross their fingers, toes and eyes that you don’t counter the offer. You see recruiters have goals to hit too. It makes their lives easier to close one role and move on to the next and if you counter, you’re only slowing them down from hitting their KPI’s, and a lot of recruiters are under a ton of pressure to keep things moving!

The other reason recruiters hope you don’t counter is because their goal is to help save the company money and if you counter, they may not be able to save the money they were hoping for.

That’s why it’s very important to make the recruiter your “friend”. Being quick with follow-up and turn around for the recruiter, being consistently pleasant and probing appropriately increases their desire to potentially help, because you’ve been easy to work with throughout the interview process.

If they send you an email, respond in 20 minutes or less of you can, no need to play hardball this isn’t the dating apps. You make their lives easier today, you get help from them during the negotiation process tomorrow.

3. Recruiters figure the number you give in a counter offer is higher than what you really would be happy with.

Recruiters now understand that most people have a general knowledge of the negotiation process, so if they present you with an offer and you counter, whatever your counter is, the recruiter is thinking more or less that you would be satisfied with something less (unless you explicitly express otherwise).

For example, you were offered 65K for a marketing role. You counter offered with 70K; the recruiter comes back with 67.5K. Why did they offer 67.5K and not 70K? The 70K is the high end and most times recruiters believe that people ask for more than what they would be happy with, thus the 67.5K.

Now this rule doesn’t apply, if you specifically stated to the recruiter that in order for you to consider moving companies, you would need 70K. In this case, it’s a bit different. Why? Because they know at the very bare minimum you require 70K and if they couldn’t afford it, they wouldn’t engage you.

4. They leverage your enthusiasm (or lack thereof) to help determine what they should offer you.

If you come across extremely excited and almost a little too eager for a role, you can set yourself up to get low balled. In my past recruitment life, when I spoke to managers and we got to the offer stage, we would take into consideration the candidate’s “options”.

For example, is the candidate currently employed? Is the candidate satisfied at their current job? Did the candidate actively apply or did we reach out to them in a passive search? Is the candidate “eager” for the role? These are things we discuss and if we know a candidate is in a pickle for some reason that was disclosed during the interview process, or on their resume the hiring manager would use it to their advantage. They would offer a bit less, because they know the candidate would be likely to take the offer due to their circumstances or zealousness.

The key thing to note here is to show genuine enthusiasm, but don’t allow the employer to feel that they are your only option. Remember it’s just as much about you as it is about them.

5. If you’re up against another candidate in the final round, you may not get their best offer.

If you’re in the final rounds of interviewing and you know there is one additional candidate that you’re up against you may not get the best offer because the employer has a backup plan. You may be preferred, but they could possibly be completely satisfied with candidate #2. If this is the case, the recruiter and hiring manager are going to leverage this and offer what they feel is fair compensation for the role and the qualifications of the individual.

That’s why it’s important during the interview phase to ask questions like, “How many other candidates are you considering?” These golden nuggets give you knowledge on how you should approach salary negotiations should you receive an offer, and what salary is realistic considering all of the information that you’ve gained.

6. If you are their “best” candidate or “only” candidate, you have more leveraging power.

Being the “best”, “top” or only candidate for a role gives you so much leveraging power. When you’re the last man standing, you can pretty much leverage a ton. Listen for things like, “you’re the best candidate we’ve seen” or “you’re our top choice”. Sometimes recruiters and hiring managers drop these golden nuggets to keep you engaged in the interview process and let you know that you’re a serious contender. This information should then be used by you during the negotiation process, to ask for a bit more than you normally would. Why not? The odds aren’t against you.

7. Recruiters will always extend a lower offer, then go higher if you counter.

Yep, it’s true. Recruiters will go low on the numbers and then go high. Unless a manager or company is immense urgent need with a tight deadline, they will do whatever they can to save the company money and that includes on your offer.

Be sure to ask questions during the initial phone screen such as, “how did this position come about?” and “how urgent are you looking to hire someone for this role?”. Asking these types of questions gives you additional insights on what type of offer you may receive and how you should probably respond.

In the event that a company is not in urgent need, they will come in with a lower offer. Depending on how much you made at your previous company, this could mean a pay increase for you, but you still could be leaving money on the table because you didn’t counter.

So, in essence always counter, the only thing they can say is no and then it’s your call to decide what you would like to do.

Success and blessings always,

Lexi

P.S. Share your thoughts and comments below.