Are you being anchored?
Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash
When the tweet over the Ateneo graduate who refused P37,000 for a marketing position starting pay broke out, I can imagine my CPA colleagues doing a face-palm over the audacity.
To my colleagues, you’ll know that our starting pay was even lower despite our CPA license. How many of you ever thought of bringing up your salary when you were applying for your first job?
I never thought of it until later on when I was more experienced and more aware of the reality. Since then, I’ve been practicing negotiating with vendors when I think that prices are not reasonable, negotiating with my landlord for lower rent, and yes, even negotiating salary when I applied for my last job.
I succeeded in some, failed in others. It was not a futile exercise.
Are you being anchored?
Not knowing to negotiate means that you let one of the unconscious biases of “anchoring” take over.
An article on the 16 unconscious biases in the workplace cites an “anchor bias” example like this:
“A recruiter may see one aspect of a candidate and then cannot “unsee” that characteristic while considering other applicants. For example, the first applicant a recruiter considers may request a significantly lower salary than the following candidates. This can create an expectation that the latter candidates are asking for too much.”
Recruiters or hiring managers or even other people make “anchor bias” more evident when they try to compare the other person’s worth to a perceived lower level in that field/industry and judge the other person for being too ambitious.
If you’re in that situation, the chance to prove yourself worthy is already lost before you even bag that job. How do you deal with it?
Let me share with you some practical tips when negotiating your salary if you ever find yourself in a position to do so.
Bombard the hiring manager with your unique skills, experience, and other factors.
- Your school is not your only competitive advantage. Mention the unique skills and experiences which differentiate you from other candidates. If you have no leverage at all, don’t even bother negotiating.
- Do your research. A matrix showing the comparative salaries for a similar industry and position would have done the trick.
- If the salary in cash is fixed, negotiate for non-monetary benefits, such as extra vacation days or education sponsorships.
- Keep practicing until you are confident at delivering your value.
- Be prepared to walk away and say no. For you to be able to do this, you must have already lined up some equally viable options.
If earning capacity is your only concern, know that there’s always a cap to how much you can negotiate in a corporate job. Decide whether you’d rather do freelance work instead of being an employee if the salary package that you’ll get is not convincing enough.
As a freelancer, you’re the only one who defines the limits.
But still, you’ll need to learn some value-based pricing, too. Your negotiation skill will factor in when discussing fees with clients. How much value can you deliver?
"If you'll never try, you'll never know…just what you're worth."
Negotiation is a tricky skill to master. It’s not something you learn at school. Not many people or cultures would appreciate you exercising this skill over them. The Twitter backlash also spoke of an underlying socio-economic problem that plagues developing countries.
But from a career perspective, you’ve got to learn and practice negotiation especially if you plan to play in an international scene now or in the future.
As Coldplay sang, “If you never try, you’ll never know. Just what you’re worth.”
What are your practical experience/tips for negotiating? Drop a comment below.
P.S. Want more of this stuff? Grab your free e-book The CPA’s Guide to Winning Resumes and Getting Hired.
“If you never try, you’ll never know…just what you’re worth.” – Fix you by Coldplay
