Your research checklist for salary negotiation
Your research checklist for salary negotiation
Negotiating your new salary can be challenging as both you and your new employer look for a win-win outcome. Enter into your negotiation feeling confident and informed by using this checklist to research how your skills are valued in the market. This will ensure you ‘price’ yourself accordingly and open your negotiation at an appropriate level.
Research checklist
Review the top skills in demand for your specialisation to help you identify where your skills fit. If candidates with your skills are in short supply, your value to an employer increases. You may be able to leverage this in your negotiation.
Explore industry specific trends so that you can determine what skills are in demand and whether your industry is growing or contracting. These changes will impact your market worth. Your value, and room to negotiate, boils down to supply and demand.
Identify role specific salary ranges to understand what the market is paying for people similar to you and where you sit within the applicable range. If you are at the top end of the pay scale, there will be less room to negotiate as opposed to if you are being paid comparatively less.
Research who is hiring to help you gauge the demand for your skills set.
Understand the recruitment process so you don’t enter into the negotiation process too early. You should ensure the hiring company truly understands your value proposition and can evaluate this properly at the offer stage.
Source the information you need:
- Job boards
- Recruitment agencies or internal recruiters
- Salary calculators for current salary comparisons
- Blogs by thought leaders, industry experts and career coaches
- News sources to keep up with industry challenges and advancements
- Peers, colleagues and professional contacts
- Government websites to inform on budget allocation and employment statistics