Many employees find interviews and employee reviews to be daunting prospects. Not knowing how to negotiate a salary and how to advocate for yourself can leave you feeling helpless at the table. Here are some helpful hints when you are in a job interview, or a review meeting with a superior, to help you get what you want during salary negotiations.

1. Be Prepared: As an employee, or prospective employee, you usually will have some advance notice of when you might have the opportunity to discuss salary and promotion, or when you will be interviewing for a new position. This gives you the opportunity to go into the negotiation prepared. Before you suggest any numbers or agree to any amounts, you should research comparable rates among your peers, and have an idea of a target number or range you would like to fall within. Knowing what you are worth, what the going rate is, and what you would like to achieve in the meeting will help you respond appropriately to any offers.

2. Highlight the Positive: When you get the chance to advocate for yourself, view yourself as a product that your company needs, and highlight the ways that you make the company money, save the company money, or help the company reach its goals. It can be difficult to talk about yourself in this way, so if you need to, practice beforehand with a friend or family member. It is crucial to be able to sell yourself.

3. Consider Non-Monetary Options: When you are discussing salary with an employer, you may reach an impasse, where the amount isn’t what you were hoping for, but it is all the employer has available at the time. Don’t be afraid to negotiate for non-monetary benefits, such as vacation time, or flexible working hours.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask: The worst mistake you can make is to not try. If you don’t ask for a raise in a review, it is a surefire way to not get one. If you don’t try to negotiate for a higher starting salary than the first number offered to you in an interview, you will never know what could have been available. Even though it may seem difficult, you will be glad you took the extra step to negotiate and advocate for yourself, even if it doesn’t turn out the way you had hoped.

5. Hone Your Skills: If salary negotiation still seems scary, don’t fret. At Stitt Feld Handy Group, we offer negotiation training that can give you the skills necessary to tackle any type of employment discussions.

To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To make better decisions, we need to understand how our mind takes shortcuts and how those shortcuts trick us into making bad decisions. If you understand how your mind works and when it fails you, you will make better decisions. To improve your decision-making skills, please visit our Effective Decision Making Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.