Salary & benefit negotiations

Lostinthewoods

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To any HR folks, hiring managers, or career experts.....
I will be transitioning out of the military next year and I am road-mapping out my transition plan.

I've already got a manufacturing company very interested.
In order I: interviewed with the VP of HR, interviewed with the director of manufacturing, and interviewed with the director of manufacturing along with two program managers.
The feedback from my source in the company is that they want me for a manager position.

For the last almost 20 years, my salary was outlined by a structured pay chart, so I have zero experience with salary & benefit negotiations.

Here is where I am asking for any experience or guidance.
When dealing with negotiations do I need to "go for it all", remain humbly realistic, or find a happy medium.

Question 1:
With limited resources to pull data from, I figure this company pays approximately $85K to $110K for their managers.
One side of my brain knows I have years of leadership experience and come extremely qualified. (go for it all)
The other side of my brain knows I have leadership experience in a different field and no experience in this manufacturing world. (be realistic)
So what would you do?
Also is it fair for me to ask their manager's salary range in a discussion and then make my offer?

Question 2:
I would assume PTO for a brand new employee looks different from a seasoned employee.
That being said, are you able to negotiate PTO? Example - if a year 1 employee gets 1 day off a month but a 15 year employee gets 4 days off. Can I ask to be put somewhere in the middle?
Starting chapter two of life, an extra week of PTO looks better than an extra $XK a year in salary.

Question 3:
Is it ok to use other employment offers for negotiation or is that douchey. My entire career has been loyalty to the service.
With this company dealing with me early and working hard to possibly bring me in, I already feel a sense of loyalty.
If have other competitive offers come in, but this place seems like the place I want to work, would you let them know about the other offers in the negotiation or no?


I guess the last piece is are there any pieces of advice you can offer when dealing with hiring process, negotiations, etc.

Thank you for any advice that you might have.

- Lost
 
105k

Pto should be negotiable but can depend on the company

Absolutely



You are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. I think the key is being honest and genuine but that doesn’t mean you sell yourself short. Stick to your guns!

If the place is amazing and you want to be there you can be a lot more flexible on certain things. If it’s just ok make it worth your while. I would definitely use pay and pto as negotiations. They may be more mobile on one than the other.
 
You are providing an offer to them rather than them giving you an offer?

I perform a few interviews a year and help craft the offers we create to those perspective employees in my department. I hear about the counters but it is my boss that actually has the power to work on those negotiations.

If someone in the interview talks about other places they are interviewing with and they make it seem like we are competing to "win them" they almost always never get an offer from us. So to your question 3, I think you would be taking the risk that they will view that as a negative quality and think less of you.

For your question two, the PTO we offer as a start is the most common thing people ask for more of and I did so myself. The baseline start of 10 days of PTO I was able to negotiate up to 13 days and we in general are pretty flexible with that.
 
1.) Your compensation should reflect your years of experience & skill development. Someone with 10-20 years experience should be demanding more than someone with 1-5 years experience unless they're overly gifted. Wisdom comes from experience. So does efficiency & increased profitablity. Shoot for the top end of the salary range given your experience.

2.) You only get what you ask for. Ask for what you want and let them counter. PTO is always a better option than extra cash in your second act.

3.) yes. Use your leverage to your advantage. The job market is competitive and if other companies are sniffing around then you are an asset that should have a fair market value. Loyalty to a company is great and all, but it must be earned. It's 180 degrees different than the service. Humility is always warranted but if the option isn't right and there are other opportunities then don't sell yourself short for something that you may end up regretting later.
 
For our entry level people we have a very defined salary structure and if you ask for more than that we will politely say no.

For someone coming in with experience we would expect to have some negotiation for the salary and benefits. Ultimately we are going to want to make money so we have to factor in what we can charge that person out at in our line of work, but I would typically say something like "we are looking at XXX as your salary, is that what you are expecting?". If it is not then let them know. If it is then everyone is happy. I'm in the just be honest and it will all work out crowd. I realize that isn't always the case but I think for the most part people are wanting happy employees and are willing to pay for that. For us we calculate out a minimum of one year salary as the cost of training an employee to get where we want them to be so turnover is very costly. Again for experienced employees I would expect to negotiate for extra vacation days as well.
 
Sounds like a promising situation, @Lostinthewoods.

1. Ask them what their range is, yes. But don’t throw out a number on the first date.

2. A little abstract, but spend a few hours thinking about your BATNA (look it up if you haven’t heard before). What your alternatives are= what your leverage is.
 
I would strongly suggest finding a salary report that sets out salary ranges broken out for industry, role and YOE, then adjust it for geographic location (I like the NerdWallet COL calculator for that). You can use that as a negotiating tool more effectively than giving the impression you are stoking a bidding war. Also... culture and fit are exponentially more important than straight cash. Don't feel obligated to jump on the first offer unless you feel completely comfortable with it.
 
Typically in my industry they will make you an offer. then you can negotiate. I think it is important to read the room so to speak. I think it is okay to ask if the salary and PTO are negotiable. Their answer will sometimes surprise you. As far as using another offer as leverage, I think you can say something kinda vague that hints at other firms....then read their response.

I have no idea of PTO for manufacturing, but 48 days per year would be high in my industry even with experience in a manager role.
 
How high up of.manager? How much h below an officer are you? Bonus structure? Retirement package? Consider it all an offer package, parts can be negotiated, the higher the level in most, the more you can negotiate. PTO is actually the easiest to negotiate.

Salary range for the job level should be available via HR. They should ask your salary desires. Be honest, ask on your upper end. Go to high they turn off.
 

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