Handling salary questions during an interview - Sterling Career Concepts

Handling salary questions during an interview Handling salary questions during an interview To start, try to deflect the question. Explain that salary is not your top concern and that you are focusing your search on identifying the right opportunity. If pushed further, it’s critical at this point to provide a range: “The positions for which I’m interviewing are in the $70-80,000 range.” By addressing the topic this way, you are not locking yourself in to a dollar figure. I’ll explain why this is important. If the maximum of the salary range for a given position is, for example, $80,000, and you answer with a firm dollar figure of, say, $85,000, you’ve just potentially priced yourself out of the job. On the flipside, for that same position that pays a maximum of $80,000, if you answer that you’re looking for $72,000, you’ve potentially just left $8,000 on the table, because Human Resources or the hiring manager may note your answer of $72,000. At that point, you or the recruiter working on your behalf may have an uphill battle to push any forthcoming offer higher. I speak from experience. I encountered this scenario numerous times as an executive recruiter. It can be quite damaging if a recruiter is trying to negotiate an offer for X, but the hiring manager heard the candidate personally say he or she would take, for example, $5,000 less than X. The problem could’ve been avoided if the candidate had answered the question using a roughly $10,000 range. One last piece of advice: if you are working with an executive recruiter and slip during an interview, forgetting to answer a salary question with a range, tell your recruiter. Don’t try to hide or gloss over your mistake. He or she needs to know what you said in order to effectively negotiate any forthcoming offer. We coach our clients to ace the interview. Call or email for details.