Brandon Bramley and his team have found an effective way to simplify what can oftentimes be an ... [+]
Brandon Bramley is the founder and owner of The Salary Negotiator, a company that specializes in working directly with candidates to help them negotiate the highest salary possible in a new job offer. With over ten years of experience working in procurement and supply chain, Bramley is a skilled negotiation expert committed to equipping career professionals with the confidence they need to obtain the compensation they deserve.
He joined Negotiate Anything to share his five-step strategy for negotiating the best job offer.
Understanding the Process
Before beginning any negotiations, Bramley asserts that it’s even more important to fully understand the hiring process. His biggest advice: don’t share your salary expectations with the hiring team. Instead, ask the recruiting team for the role's compensation range and focus on getting the job offer before negotiating.
“I’d never give what I want in a deal until I learn what they are willing to offer and where they are flexible,” he shared.
5 Steps to Negotiating the Best Job Offer
Bramley and his team have found an effective way to simplify what can oftentimes be an intimidating process. The five steps outlined below are designed to help candidates dig deep, think strategically and build confidence along the way.
Step 1: Understand the components of the job offer
The first step is to slow down and review the offer to understand what is actually included.
As Bramley often finds, candidates tend to focus solely on the base salary. This is not a complete compensation analysis, especially if there are other compensation components on the table to consider (yearly bonus, equity grant, relocation package, tuition stipend, etc.).
To evaluate a job offer’s value, it’s important to take everything into consideration and understand your total yearly compensation.
Step 2: Conduct due diligence and collect data
After reviewing the offer, Bramley encourages professionals to ask clear questions in response. Examples include:
● Is there a reason why PTO is limited versus unlimited?
● Why isn’t a sign-up bonus included?
● Since this is a public company, do you offer equity to new employees?
The answers to these questions will not only give you a more complete picture, but will set you up for a stronger counteroffer. Failure to offer competitive benefits could justify your request for higher compensation.
Step 3: Research compensation ranges
Bramley encourages candidates to take advantage of free resources like PayScale, Glassdoor and Salary.com.
“When it comes to salary negotiation [companies] have approved ranges on what they can pay,” he explained. “You’re going to have a lot higher success if you put a request in towards the top end of the range they can reasonably accept.”
While useful, he advises professionals to be mindful that information on these sites is publicly reported - meaning errors can occur. To balance this reality, he recommends conducting research on as many sites as possible and drawing an average.
Step 4: Present a kind and confident ask
Bramley recommends emailing a written counteroffer based on all the information you gathered and your identified salary range. While a phone (or in-person) conversation is typically preferred in negotiation, he remains realistic about the difficulty of delivering this information.
“It’s hard to handle conflict sometimes and it takes a lot of experience,” he noted. “It’s a lot easier to sit down, put everything in email, make sure the tone is kind and covers all the points.”
Should the recruiter push for a call anyway, Bramley encourages candidates to use the email as a script.
Step 5: Learn to see no’s as objections
Many candidates will hear the first “no” and automatically assume that is the end of the road. The reality is that part of the recruiter’s job is to get the best deal for the company. They are often tasked with pushing back before negotiating.
For most people, it’s fairly easy to say no once, but it becomes increasingly difficult each time after that. For this reason, Bramley advises candidates to overcome any no’s from the recruiter at least three times to confirm it is a true no.
“Your main goal is to have them take your concerns back to the hiring team,” he shared.
A simple approach is to acknowledge the recruiter’s reason, but still request that they take the offer back to their team (the decision makers) to see if there is room to close the gap. The goal is to be confident, but non-confrontational.
“[When working with a recruiter], the tone should always be that of working with a friend that is helping you feel comfortable with the move to a new company,” Bramley reminded listeners.
The Salary Negotiator is currently offering a free consultation to candidates looking to negotiate the most out of their next job offer. To learn more visit www.thesalarynegotiator.com. To listen to the full episode, click here.
