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Negotiating a Job Offer and Closing the Deal

How do I ask for more money when negotiating a job offer?

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Karen Chopra
Licensed Professional Counselor
www.ChopraCareers.com  
 

Karen James Chopra, LPC, MCC, NCC, has been counseling career clients since 1999 and has helped hundreds of clients change careers, find new jobs and deal more effectively with workplace challenges.

In addition to her private practice, she has worked for two national corporate outplacement firms: Lee Hecht Harrison and Resource Careers. These are the organizations that help people who have experienced a layoff or downsizing to find new jobs, and their programs are usually considered the gold-standard of job search technique.

Ms Chopra is a regular presenter on career issues, having taught career theory at the graduate level, designed and delivered numerous workshops, and served as a regular guest commentator on WMAL’s career radio show “Your Career Life.”

She is a career-changer herself. Before entering the counseling field, she worked for nearly a decade as a trade negotiator for the United States Government, first at the Department of Commerce and then at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Ms. Chopra holds a number of relevant licenses and certifications: licensed professional counselor (LPC) in the District of Columbia; Master Career Counselor (MCC), a designation of the National Career Development Association (NCDA); and National Certified Counselor (NCC), a designation of the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC).  She belongs to all of the relevant national and local associations involved in career counseling, including the American Counseling Association (ACA),  the National Employment Counselors Association (NECA), the National Career Development Association (NCDA) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Career-Life Planning Network (MAC-LPN).

Her B.A. is from the University of Virginia, and she received a masters of science in foreign service from Georgetown University, and a masters in community counseling from George Washington University.

How do I ask for more money when negotiating a job offer?

 

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Host: How do I ask for more money when negotiating a job offer?

Karen Chopra: You can ask for more money in two ways. One is the gentle way, if you just want to see if there is more money on the table. So you call the employer back and say, I am very excited about your offer and I just like to talk to you little bit about the offer itself and I was wondering if you have any flexibility on the salary or you could say, I was wondering if you could do a bit better on the salary. That's a fairly gentle push and you are not going to get a huge bump off of that one but often they will say, oh we could give you another three or another five and hey, that's more money than you got, so it's worth taking.

If the offer is really low and you are really hoping for a much different number then you are going to need to go for a slightly more aggressive approach and this is when all of the research on what the salary range is for this position will come in handy. So if you need a lot more money, you go back to the employer and say, based on my research about what this position pays, the market is between 60,000 and 75,000. Given my ten years of experience and the fact that I am bilingual, I was hoping to come in at the top of that range. Can you get me there? And now you are telling them I want 75,000 and there is a number you are shooting for and that could be 10,000 more than you are making now. They may or may not get there but at least you will know the maximum that they can offer for that particular position.

The final way to do this, if you really can't take the offer as it's written, you can say, I am so excited about this position but I have to tell you, I really needed a position that got me to 75 or 85. It's hard for me to work for less than that. Is there any chance you could get me there? And now you have been very upfront with them that you need to clear certain amount of money to take the offer and if they can get you there, they likely will. Only use the tactic however, if you are prepared to walk away if they don't get there. This is not a pull, this have to be the truth. I really can't work for that and so I am going to have to signed out of the job if you can't get me to 80, but if that's your case, then you might ask for it that way.

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