So, How Does One Negotiate Salary In The Interview?

You punch KPI Kevin in the mouth. No, just kidding. It’s more nuanced.

A very small amount of people are good at negotiating salary. (Typically it’s hard-charging males, although admittedly that’s a stereotype.) There are a couple of different reasons for this. To wit:

• Very few people truly understand what their salary represents and how it’s determined
• Similarly, many people don’t know the market factors that make up their earning potential
• Most hiring processes are an abject train wreck

At the intersection point of those three bullets, negotiating salary becomes very hard for most people. Also: there’s a general belief in most interviews / hiring processes that the company has all the power. I guess this comes from the simple fact that, uh, well, they’ll be paying you if they choose you. Since most people want to make money, they assume they have to do everything the company says along the process. This leads to some issues.

Negotiating salary: The company-side lies

Two specific things can happen here. You’ve probably lived through both of them when negotiating salary.