How Hiring Managers Can Enter a Salary Negotiation without Giving Away too Much

Hiring Managers and Salary Negotiation: How to Not Give Away too Much

You’ve spent time posting the open position to job boards, you’ve sifted through resumes of numerous applicants, and you’ve narrowed down your candidates to just a handful and finally, you’ve found the right person for the job. The hard part is over, or at least you think it is. Sometimes the hardest part of the hiring process can come after you’ve offered the job to a candidate, and they come back to you with a salary counteroffer and the salary negotiations have begun.

Negotiating a salary can be uncomfortable and far from fun, but this doesn’t mean that they don’t occur. It’s important for logistics companies and hiring managers to be prepared to enter a salary negotiation when offering a job to a candidate, and today CS Recruiting explores how to do just that.

Expect a Negotiation

When candidates ask themselves “should I negotiate my salary?” the research shows that most of them will. Salary.com estimates that 37 percent of Americans always negotiate their salary while another 44 percent sometimes negotiating. Due to this whopping majority of American job candidates who are looking to counteroffer, hiring managers should expect a salary negotiation coming their way soon after a job offer has been made. When hiring managers are unexpectedly hit with a salary counteroffer from a candidate, they may get flustered and give away too much. However, when hiring managers are trained to expect a negotiation, they will no longer be inclined to accept it at face value.

Research the Norms

Carefully considering how salaries and salary distributions vary by job title, industry and location is a valuable asset to have when counteroffering your job candidate in their salary request. For example, an entry-level employee shouldn’t make more than a managerial position in that same company. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has a tool that clearly outlines occupational employment statistics. Browsing this tool can help hiring managers to stay up-to-date with current salary trends within the broader logistics industry. When looking for specific breakdowns in the industry, hiring managers can also utilize Logistics Management’s Annual Logistics Salary Survey that breaks down into more detailed numbers. Understanding the norms in the broader logistics industry and more specific sub-industry can help you understand if a candidate’s counteroffer is reasonable or outrageous. Hiring managers who wish to seek out additional expert opinion can always turn toward their logistics staffing firm to provide proven advice.

Know Your Limit

Not providing a great candidate with the salary they are asking for can directly translate to them taking another offer, but sometimes a candidate's demands are just too high, and hiring managers need to know when to walk away. Calculating what your company can afford to award a candidate along with setting a “final offer salary” is crucial. Hiring managers should remember that these conversations don’t only involve money, but sometimes also involve discussing time off, work schedule among other negotiable items. If the negotiation comes down to offering the final offer and the candidate turns it down, then as a last resort a hiring manager can try to be more flexible with non-monetary measures. However, this measure should be used sparingly because although these are intangibles, they do have a price-tag on them.

Before even giving a candidate a job offer, expert logistics recruiters at CS Recruiting advise hiring managers to prepare for a salary negotiation by following the three steps outlined above. Salary negotiations are uncomfortable for both participating parties, but when both the candidate and the hiring manager go into the process prepared, it can be a seamless and painless process.