Salary Negotiation: How to Get Paid What You're Worth

Salary negotiation for a new job is one of the few moments when a short conversation can change your pay for years, because future raises usually build on your starting point. Most candidates either accept the first offer or negotiate without a plan. Research on how negotiations work gives a better approach.

What the research shows about first offers

In a set of experiments by Adam Galinsky and Thomas Mussweiler, whichever side made the first offer, buyer or seller, generally ended up with the better outcome, and first offers were a strong predictor of the final settlement. The first number acts as an anchor that pulls the rest of the discussion towards it (Galinsky and Mussweiler, 2001).

The same study found how to resist an anchor. When the negotiator who did not make the first offer focused on their own target, on the other side's alternatives, or on the other side's limit, the first-offer advantage disappeared. The effects held in face-to-face and email negotiations alike.

In a job offer, the employer usually makes the first offer. You cannot always prevent that anchor, but you can neutralise it by arriving with your own numbers firmly in mind.

Prepare three things before any conversation

1. Your target

The pay you would be genuinely pleased with, based on research, not hope. Research the market from several sources: pay ranges in job postings, salary surveys, offers that people you trust have recently received for similar roles, and your current total pay. Use ranges, and compare like with like: role level, city, company type and total compensation, not just the base.

2. Your walk-away point

The lowest offer you would accept, given your current job, your finances and what else you could do. Decide it before the conversation, when you are calm.

3. Your alternatives

Your realistic options if this offer does not improve: staying in your current job, another process, a different role. Strong alternatives give you confidence; weak ones mean you should negotiate carefully. Never invent alternatives you do not have.

Respond to the offer

• Thank them and ask for the full details in writing: base, bonus and its conditions, equity and vesting, benefits, joining bonus, start date and notice-period expectations.
• Do not answer on the spot. Ask for a few days. Guidance for US campus recruiting describes one to two weeks as a common deadline and encourages employers to consider reasonable requests for more time (NACE: offer deadlines).
• Compare the offer with your target, not with your current pay alone.

Make your counter

When you counter, anchor with your target, supported by reasons:

"Thank you, I'm excited about the role. Based on the scope we discussed, including ownership of the pipeline work, and on what similar roles pay, I was expecting a figure closer to my target. Is there flexibility on the base?"

Keep the tone positive and specific. Give one or two reasons, not a list of grievances. Then stop and let them respond; a pause after your request is normal, so resist filling it by lowering your own number.

If they cannot move on base, negotiate other parts of the package: a joining bonus, which can offset a notice-period buyout or a bonus you are leaving behind; an earlier review date; remote days; training budget; or the level of the role, which affects future pay more than any one-off amount.

If you are asked for your expectations first

Many recruiters ask for expected pay early. You can give a researched range with your target near the bottom of it, or ask for the budgeted range first: "Could you share the range for this role? I'm sure we can find something that works if the role is the right fit." Recruiters in India may ask for current and expected pay together; answer honestly about current pay if asked, but base your expectation on the role and the market, not just on a percentage over your current salary.

Common mistakes

• Accepting immediately, before seeing the full offer in writing.
• Negotiating without a target, which leaves you reacting to their anchor.
• Bluffing about other offers; recruiters may check.
• Negotiating after accepting. Once you accept, the negotiation is over.
• Focusing only on base when level, bonus and review timing matter as much.

For written negotiation, see how to negotiate a job offer by email. For pay conversations in a job you already have, see asking for a raise, and if several offers arrive at once, handling multiple job offers.

Skills that strengthen your position in any negotiation are taught in the Data Analytics course.

Sources

• First offers as anchors: the role of perspective-taking and negotiator focus (Galinsky and Mussweiler, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001) — PubMed (US National Library of Medicine)
• Advisory Opinion: Setting Reasonable Deadlines for Job Offers (National Association of Colleges and Employers) — National Association of Colleges and Employers