TSR #023: Tips For Negotiating Salary With Your Candidate

Read time: 2 minutes

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Ok, let’s dive in for today. What’s Cooking?

Offer came. How to not let it slip away?

Contrary to what you may be thinking, the arrival of an offer from the hiring company brings more worry than joy.

Here’s the why.

You are not sure the candidate will accept it.

This leads us down the rabbit hole. Another Why?

Handling an offer requires skill to ensure its success.

When you receive an offer from your client, it does not mean your job is done. In fact, the most critical part of your job has just began.

It is only successfully accomplished when the candidate accepts the offer.

I am going to teach you how to do that with a high degree of success and this comes from years of heart wrenching missed offers.

  1. The right thing to do is to have an open discussion with your candidate at the beginning.

  2. Do NOT test the waters feebly by shyly asking about their expected salary.

  3. If you are ambiguous about this step, the end result is a likely fail because ambiguity never works well.

  4. Instead, understand the current package in detail, and ask for an expected salary. An exact figure is great. If not, at least a narrow range so that you can manage with more control.

  5. At this stage, invest more time to understand why the candidate comes to this figure and if necessary, offer your advice on the market benchmark. The goal is to achieve at an “agreeable” figure or narrow range so that this can be communicated clearly to the hiring company.

! Step 5 is paramount ! If you handle this part well, you are set!

(3 weeks later and after all the interviews are done)

The offer came!

This is where you re-engage with the candidate to share the details of the offer. The most defining factor is usually the nominal value of the offer.

If you have done your earlier 5-Step ground work, this step is straightforward and 99%, you should close the deal successfully.

The BIGGEST mistake is to start negotiating only at the offer stage. You have no grasp of the candidate’s likelihood of acceptance and everything seems out of your control and it is.

p.s. Follow me on LinkedIn and DM “The Solo Recruiter” if you want to hone your skills at salary negotiation. I provide training that can turn your costly mistakes into bountiful rewards.

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