Chapter 13: Negotiating Salary and Offers
Know your position before you enter the conversation
Research the genuine market rate for the role, your sector and your region before any offer conversation begins, using multiple sources rather than a single salary survey. Know your walk away point clearly, and understand that a negotiation is not only about base salary. Start date, benefits, bonus structure, flexible working and professional development budget are all legitimately part of the conversation.
How to handle it
Let the employer name a figure first wherever possible. Respond to an offer with a clear, specific and justified counter rather than a vague request for more. Silence after stating your position is a legitimate and effective tool. Most employers expect a counter and have built room for one into their initial offer. Negotiate with warmth rather than confrontation. You are not trying to defeat the employer, you are trying to reach a figure that reflects your value while keeping the relationship strong before your first day.
In practice: Grace's justified counter
Given an initial offer eight per cent below her target, Grace responded with a specific figure supported by her research into comparable roles and a summary of the additional value she would bring in her first six months. The employer returned within four per cent of her original target, alongside an improved holiday allowance.
In practice: Patrick's start date
Patrick received an offer that met his salary expectations but with a start date sooner than he could reasonably manage against his notice period. Rather than accepting the pressure, he proposed a specific alternative start date with a brief, clear explanation, and asked whether a modest signing arrangement might bridge any gap the employer was concerned about. The employer agreed to the later date without any further negotiation, having assumed, incorrectly, that pushing on timing was more contentious than it turned out to be.
- Naming a figure first, before understanding what the employer has budgeted.
- Accepting the first offer out of relief or fear of losing the role.
- Focusing only on base salary and overlooking benefits, bonus and flexibility.
- Negotiating in a way that feels adversarial rather than collaborative.
A note of supportAfter a period of redundancy, it is natural to feel a strong pull towards accepting the first reasonable offer simply out of relief, or out of a fear that negotiating might cost you the role entirely. In practice, a calm, well reasoned negotiation very rarely costs a candidate an offer, and employers generally expect it as a normal part of the process. Your value did not disappear when your previous role ended, and it is worth negotiating from that position, not from a position of gratitude alone.
- Research market rate for your target role from at least two independent sources.
- Decide your walk away point before any offer is made.
- Prepare a specific, justified response for both a strong offer and a disappointing one.
- List the non salary elements of an offer that matter most to you, before you are in the conversation.
This programme gives you frameworks and actions. Your coach is where they become genuinely yours. Rather than arriving with answers, consider bringing these open questions into your next session and exploring them together:
- What is your relationship with asking for more than you are offered?
- Where does the fear of losing an offer by negotiating actually come from?