Re: negotiating salary for gov't job with posted pay range
But to get to the absolute top - an amount they are supposedly willing to spend for the right candidate - is
there any unspoken criteria?
If there is, how can you expect to know it? Worrying about it will only be a distraction, because it's nothing that you can do anything about. Focus on your negotiation, instead.
Is it
too ballsy to ask for top dollar - will that turn off an employer?
Why? You've made about the same amount before, and presumably can prove it. Government job or not, it's not presumptuous or greedy to ask for what you're worth. After all, employers never worry if they're being cheap and domineering when offering you a low rate.
I think you need to be more concerned about the opposite side to this question. That is, if you settle for a lower rate when you've earned more, how much is your employer going to respect you? There's at least some chance that you'll be perceived as being easily imposed upon, and that's not an image that will make your working life easier.
Obviously, you don't want to be too hard-nosed about it, but it never hurts to ask for as high a salary as sounds reasonable. If nothing else, it's a negotiating tactic. Just make sure that you know your fallback position. If you don't get the top rate, how low are you willing to go? You need to decide now, not when you're actually talking salary, or you may find yourself agreeing to a rate that you haven't thought about, just because you want to be socially agreeable.
It helps, too, if you delay talking salary until as long into the hiring process as possible. If you're asked, saying something like "Why don't we see if there's a good fit here, first. I find that more important - don't you?" almost always works. It establishes you as someone who's not just interested in money, and it's a rarely confident person who will respond to the last question with anything except agreement, because they don't want to sound primarily interested in money, either. By the time money is discussed, they'll already have decided to hire you, so you'll be in a better position to negotiate.
It may not be 1999 any more, but the basic realities of salary negotiation haven't changed. The bottom line of the bottom line: You are never in a better position to negotiate salary than when you are hiring. Don't settle for less just to be pleasant. Your employer won't do the opposite for you.
--
Bruce Byfield
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ROBOHELP X5 - SEE THE ALL NEW ROBOHELP X5 IN ACTION!
RoboHelp X5 is a giant leap forward in Help authoring technology, featuring all new Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author support, PDF and XML support and much more! View an online demo: http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrldemo
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
Previous by Author:
Re: Going wildly OT (Re: This year's salary survey-same old same old.. HERE WE GO!)
Next by Author:
Re: The state of State
Previous by Thread:
negotiating salary for gov't job with posted pay range
Next by Thread:
Re: negotiating salary for gov't job with posted pay range
Search our Technical Writing Archives & Magazine
Visit TechWhirl's Other Sites
Sponsored Ads