In an era of uncertainty, with some employers still slashing jobs while others offer remote-work flexibility in exchange for lower pay, knowing what salary to ask for has become more complicated.
Massive layoffs at some of the nation’s biggest tech companies has unleashed a flood of tech talent looking for work, softening the value of many tech employees. This trend also allows industries outside of tech to access high-level talent without as much competition, noted Michael Solomon, co-founder of 10x Ascend, a salary negotiation management practice focused primarily on technology talent. (If you’re looking for a tech job, it pays to explore industries outside of tech.)
As you hunt, keep this in mind: the pay premiums that workers enjoy when switching jobs has been falling, partially because many people do not negotiate effectively or at all.
Given the current market conditions, how can you estimate the salary you should be asking for based on your job title, years of experience, skills and location? Here are three ways to figure that out, along with some tips for getting the salary you deserve.
Synthesize Data from Several Sources
Our advice begins with a warning: Do not rely solely on the salary ranges in job postings to determine your market value.
Some employers try to get around pay transparency laws by posting extremely wide salary ranges (spanning $100,000 or more) that cover several job grades or levels, explained Brandon Bramley, founder and lead negotiator for coaching firm The Salary Negotiator.
Plus, the pay scale in a job posting or advertisement may only include base wages, not other forms of cash compensation such as signing or annual bonuses, so they have limited value, he added.
Your best bet is to consult several online tools and sources that allow users to input information about their job title, level and responsibilities, years of experience and location, which happen to be the same “tangible” factors that employers primarily use to set salary ranges or bands.
Refine your initial range by researching the typical compensation for companies in a particular industry, the supply and demand for talent in a geographic area, as well as a company’s size, financial and public or private status and its maturity level. Again, employers consider these things when setting salaries.
Keep in mind that well-established companies typically want to bring people in near the low or mid-level of the salary range for a specific pay grade, and it may be difficult to ascertain that information unless you consult a source like Levels.fyi.
For employers, the core question is essentially a pricing algorithm: how much do they need to pay to attract the right candidate, Solomon says. That’s the sweet spot for candidates, too: the salary target you want to hit or exceed.
Talk to Insiders
In addition to the publicly available data, Solomon says the best intel is available through back-channeling: speaking with friends, colleagues and industry connections to get insights on compensation. While discussing salary used to be taboo, those norms have shifted in recent years, making your network a viable source of information… especially when it comes to intangibles such as company culture, compensation philosophy and turnover rates that should impact compensation.
For instance, you should receive a higher salary at a company that expects 70-hour work weeks versus a company with a 40-hour-week culture, he says. Other intangible factors that may also come into play include the criticality and complexity of the role and the hiring manager’s urgency to fill the position.
As a reminder, don’t disclose your desired salary until you get to the offer stage or commit other mistakes that can limit your negotiating power. The first rule of negotiation is: never negotiate against yourself.
Calculate Salary and Total Compensation
You absolutely need to calculate a minimum base salary or a set amount of cash that is acceptable to you and competitive for someone performing similar tasks and responsibilities in a specific location before you negotiate or accept an offer.
However, compensation packages for technology pros often consist of several components, including bonuses, equity, retirement account contributions, and so on. It’s important to calculate the full value of the package the company is offering in case you need to ask for a higher salary to make up the difference.
Finally, take a good hard look at what’s most important to you. You can’t ask for what you want if you don’t know exactly what that is. Understanding your lifestyle and personal preferences can help you determine how much salary to ask for. In the process, you may discover that a flexible schedule or unlimited vacation is more important to you than a higher salary.
Getting the Salary You Deserve
Knowing what salary to ask for and getting it are two very different things. The good news is that even though there are more applicants competing for each opening and fewer offers are going out, once the hiring manager has chosen you, they still want to seal the deal.
“Nothing else has changed,” Bramley says. “My experience shows that 90 percent of companies are still willing to negotiate once they extend an offer… And those efforts are generating average increases of 7.4 percent in base pay and 11.8 percent in total compensation.” Slightly lower than in recent years, but still worth the effort.
Best practices still apply, too, such as assessing your assets and liabilities before a negotiation, and reiterating your value proposition and the results of your market-based research to support your salary requirements.
Hands down, the best-case scenario is having multiple offers which you can play against each other. Even with this pressure, some companies won't increase their offer, but the overall success rate for negotiations hasn’t changed.
Don’t let the sentiment that market conditions are bad discourage you from negotiating salary. Getting to the offer stage takes more effort, so once you get there, be sure to get paid what you're worth.
