How to negotiate your next job offer

After the interview, securing the job you want at a salary you deserve can be a delicate process. One negotiation could translate your qualifications and experience into a dream package if you avoid the common pitfalls.

One mistake is to solely focus on salary, says Niro Sivanathan, London Business School Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour and co-academic director on the Decision Making Strategies for Leaders open programme. Reducing, arguably one of your most important negotiations to a single number is not an effective way of securing the role or an accurate reflection of what you stand for. Critically, this approach can also damage a relationship right at the start.

“It is short-sighted to focus simply on salary,” he says. “Haggling over a price like this can quickly diminish an integrative negotiation to a contentious one. The counterparty does not know why you are asking for a given salary level – is it just ego or could it be childcare costs to make the job work?”

The second pitfall is to negotiate issues sequentially. “Once you’ve agreed a salary you might then move onto other aspects of the role, like holiday and location, which can further build resentment, especially if the other party feels they have overstretched to make the salary work,” Dr Sivanathan says.

Dr Sivanathan recommends Multiple Equivalent Simultaneous Offers (MESOs) that neatly deal with a range of negotiation pitfalls.

“You need to package elements of your negotiation position into choices that take into account all factors that make up your offer,” he says. “This puts the conversation on a collaborative path, while ensuring you achieve outcomes on issues that matter to you.”

MESOs are powerful ways to methodically express what is really important to you without looking too assertive, says Dr Sivanathan. Making a MESO involves creating a scoring system that allows you to compare qualitatively different issues. These may include location, holiday allowance, medical coverage, executive training, childcare and flexible working.

Points of Negotiation	Weight	Points	Score	Package 1	Package 2	Package 3
Salary
£70k	0.3	60	18
£90k	0.3	80	24	24
£110k	0.3	100	30		30	30
Location
London	0.3	100	30	30
Paris	0.3	90	27			27
New York	0.3	80	24		24
Group to join
Strategy	0.4	100	40	40	40
HR	0.4	90	36			36
Finance	0.4	70	28
Package Value				94	94	93

 

You must next weigh each factor against the other and give them a score. Once you have ordered your priorities around your overall happiness, you then build a series of different job packages, each with an equivalent total value. You could aim to offer three packages to avoid overloading the negotiation (see table). This provides the other side options and flexibility to help meet your expectations, while ensuring you steer the conversation around what really matters to you. You are signalling cooperation and your potential commitment to the organisation by considering long-term issues in the prospective role.