How much did you earn at your previous job? How much do you want now?
How much did you earn at your previous job?
A conversation about salary at an interview usually begins with a question about how much you received at your previous job. You may be asked how your work was or is being paid, whether you receive a fixed salary or whether your income depends on performance results.
How to answer such a question? In an effort to increase your value in the eyes of a recruiter, you should not give too high figures that do not correspond to reality. An experienced HR manager monitors the level of salaries on the labor market and has an approximate idea of how much you earn. Therefore, a clearly inadequate answer will alert the recruiter: is everything okay with the applicant’s self-esteem? Is he overestimating his talents?
Moreover, the recruiter will be wary if the figure is too low. If an applicant talks about the high level of his responsibility at his previous place of work, about the serious tasks that he solved, then why was he paid so little?
The best answer is to report the real figure of your income, or at least something close to reality. In this case, you can comment on the answer based on the level of salaries in the labor market in your specialty. “This is somewhat less than what a specialist in my profile and with my experience earns, but everything was compensated by a free schedule and the opportunity to sometimes work from home”; “This amount is not only my salary, but also a percentage of sales”; “I almost always received both a salary and a bonus based on my work results, so my income was noticeably higher than that of many colleagues,” such comments will demonstrate to the HR manager your adequate self-esteem and ability to achieve high results.
Not ready to answer? Does your agreement with your employer prohibit you from disclosing your income? Refuse to answer the question as diplomatically as possible, while emphasizing that you are following the terms of your contract. “I signed a special document on non-disclosure of trade secrets, which my former employer included the salary level. I'm sorry, but I can't tell you the exact amount. However, the figure indicated in your vacancy suits me quite well, with some adjustment for irregular working hours,” such an answer, for example, will show that you are a person who knows how to keep secrets, but at the same time you are constructive.
How much do you want now?
After discussing the salary at your old job, you will move on to discussing your expectations in the new place. What amount should I name? Think about your answer in advance! Take everything into account - the region in which you work, your experience in your specialty, management experience, level of education, knowledge of foreign languages, scientific degrees or MBA degrees, etc. Salary studies regularly published in the Zarplatomer magazine can help you.
Young professionals should not inflate their salary expectations; often it is the inadequacy of requests that alarms recruiters. Assess what is more important to you at this stage: a higher salary than your peers, or experience working in a successful company, albeit for slightly less money?
It’s up to you to immediately report the final figure of your salary claims or name a little more than you expect to receive in order to be able to bargain. Most often, the right decision will be to demonstrate loyalty and accommodating behavior by indicating an amount 5-10% more.
In any case, the result of the interview, like any other business negotiation, depends on both parties having a common goal and their ability to come to a common denominator. We wish you successful employment and high income!
What are your financial expectations? Discussion of salary at interview
“Please tell me what your salary expectations are?” This question will definitely be asked at one of the stages of the interview, and most likely even several times: during preliminary communication with the recruiter and at the interview with the hiring manager. This means that when preparing for an interview, you need to work out the answer to this question in detail in advance. What to start from when determining the salary level? How to build an argument for your expectations? What should you definitely not say to your interviewer when discussing finances? Let's deal with these and other questions in order.
1. There is no need to say that you don’t care what the salary will be.
Oddly enough, this is a fairly common situation when a candidate says something like this during an interview. Typically this happens if:
- This is the candidate’s first job and at the moment it is important for him to gain experience.
- The candidate changes his profile and moves from one specialization to another, to where he does not yet have experience.
- The candidate has already closed all financial issues for himself and is now looking for a job only based on his professional interests.
But even in all these cases, the answer that money is not important is a kind of deceit. Of course, salary in such situations may not be the first priority, but in general it is important: for yesterday’s students looking for their first job and valuable experience, this is a personal living wage, for experienced financially independent candidates who have exclusively professional interests, money is a certain “score in the game” and a measure for assessing their achievements.
2. Formulate your expectations as clearly as possible.
No one will hire an employee with zero salary. The issue of cash payments for an employee is a mandatory question that the future employer expects to cover for himself during the interview. Therefore, by avoiding a specific answer about your salary expectations (“I haven’t decided yet”, “I don’t know the market”, “what can you offer?”), you shift your task to the interviewer, forcing him to decide for you. Until the salary issue is cleared up, the interview process cannot be considered complete, so there is no need to torment the interviewer with uncertainty! He can somehow comment on your expectations, help clarify them with his answers, but he will not make a decision for you.
3. Conduct a market analysis in advance, determine the salary range for the expected position.
Information on vacancies and salary ranges can be found both on various job search sites and on the corresponding forums (but the information on them is usually distorted and the ranges are underestimated). hh.ru services even allow you to receive a special regular report on salary ranges for a particular role and vacancy.
Open sources on the Internet will allow you to fairly accurately determine the lower limit of the salary range for a specific position. With the upper limit, everything is a little more complicated, it is more blurred and it depends more on both the applicant himself (his level of expertise, value) and the employer (the general level of offered salaries relative to the market). To clarify, you can try to communicate with someone who already works or until recently worked in the company in question.
4. When negotiating your salary, base it on your value, not your needs.
Of course, when determining the acceptable salary level for yourself, you will be guided by your financial needs and plans, taking into account all possible restrictions and inputs. For example, to start a new job you need to move to another city, which means there will be additional costs for rent, transportation, etc. However, this information is more for your thoughts. It is important here for the employer/interviewer to make it clear that you have, in principle, taken all this into account and the same renting of housing will not come as a surprise to you and will be a reason for revising your salary.
As many people know they pay not to those who need it, but to those who are worth it. Therefore, if you give any arguments to justify your financial expectations, then first of all they must be based on the benefits for the employer:
- A new employee is hired into a company to solve a problem. Show that you understand the problem and know how to solve it
- Share your ideas/experience on how you can organize this or that process, do the work more efficiently, faster, and with better quality
- Give an example of how your previous employer benefited from your work: an increase in some indicators, a reduction in costs, etc.
5. Discuss the salary level for the near future and possible growth in the future.
So, you have already determined the approximate salary range for the position in question, compared it with your needs and level of expertise. Then you can proceed as follows:
If you are a beginner
- Feel free to indicate that you have little or no experience in this area.
- Say that your main focus right now is experience and professional development. In this regard, you are now considering the lower salary threshold for yourself and according to your data it is such and such<нижняя граница вилки>.
- Further, when you gain the necessary experience and knowledge, achieve your development goals (ask a question about the goals and criteria for assessing their achievement), you expect an increase in salary and, again, according to your information in this area, you can count on such and such an amount<верхняя граница вилки>.
If you are an experienced specialist and expert
- Indicate that as an expert you expect an appropriate amount of compensation, which is currently the following amount on the market<верхняя граница вилки>.
- Since you are a new person to the company, it would be logical for the employer to want to check your value “in action.” For this purpose, you can offer to start with a lower salary for a pre-agreed period, after which you will be paid the target amount (<верхняя граница вилки>).
- You discuss with the interviewer the starting salary level (for example, the average or lower value of the fork), determine the tasks for reaching the stated level of compensation, the criteria for assessing their achievement, as well as the timing of possible changes in salary.
- Also, in your case, compensation for the delta between the lower and upper limits of the fork can be tied to the fulfillment of KPIs, the payment of which will be in addition to the salary.
A candidate's salary expectations are a closely guarded secret. We'll tell you how to determine the level of requests of a potential employee at the first meeting. In the article you will find a table with practical tips on organizing an interview and a sample questionnaire about preferences for a social package.
From the article you will learn:
Money is one of the determining factors when changing jobs. It is not surprising that salary issues are discussed already during the first interview or telephone interview. Unfortunately, the salary expectations formulated by the applicant for a new job may not coincide with the financial capabilities of the employer.
More useful information in the electronic magazine " »:
How to Negotiate Salary in an Interview
You should not immediately ask the candidate the question “What are your salary expectations?” or “What salary did you receive at your previous job?”: it’s better to first discuss the specifics of the vacancy, get an idea of the specialist, and only then move on to the financial side of the matter. Experienced recruiters know how to negotiate salary: they test the waters to get an idea of what expenses the applicant is currently incurring, how many non-working family members are supported, and what salary among colleagues they consider worthy.
Download documents on the topic:
The answer was prepared jointly with the editors of the electronic magazine “ HR Director»
Dmitry LITSENTOV answers,
General Director of TH "Gallery"
To do this, I ask questions about everyday life. As if casually, I ask where and when the applicant last took a vacation. I’m interested in what his hobbies are, in what area he lives, in a rented apartment or in his own. Perhaps the applicant collects rare coins or has a car loan. I find out if the candidate is married, if he has children, what age they are. It becomes clear how much his life “costs”, what is his minimum cost of living...
The full answer is available after free
Try to find out what the applicant himself expects from a new job. Including from a salary point of view. Ask him to describe main career goals and requests, even in writing:
Include questions about salary and career goals in the standard questionnaire
Perhaps already at this stage the potential employee will tell you the desired amount. True, applicants who really need a job tend to underestimate their monetary claims. On the contrary, they inflate their requests by at least 15-20% if their life plans do not collapse due to a negative outcome of the interview. Therefore, it would be useful to ask about the reasons that prompted you to name this particular amount. Ask why the employee wants to receive such a salary, whether he considers it justified. Ask him to justify his requests, to convince you that his business and personal qualities really deserve increased pay. It is possible that as discussions progress, the initial amount will be adjusted.
To ensure a successful interview, use proven techniques
How to correctly answer a question about salary
It is better to move on to discussing salary in the final part of the conversation, when all other information has already been announced and taken into account. As a rule, the employer's representative is the first to raise the financial topic. But how to correctly answer a question about salary if the applicant voiced it first?
The main thing is not to turn the discussion into bargaining. Any financial proposal coming from the company must be justified. If in the first minutes of communication an employee asks awkward questions Regarding wages, there is no need to rush into answers. You can reduce the conversation to a discussion of the applicant’s strengths and weaknesses, and clarify that you will discuss the final salary with him at the end of the meeting or at the second interview.
How to answer a question about salary if we are talking about a position with a salary lower than the market average? Try diplomacy by positioning the proposal as vacancy for growth. If you simply state the amount, there is a high probability of refusal: the applicant will consider the job unpromising and low-paid, so he will begin to look for other options. And if you focus on changing the candidate’s status, outline prospects for rapid career growth, talk about training opportunities or advanced training at the expense of the company, the reaction will most likely be different.
How to build a dialogue if the job description contains a range of salaries
Many companies publish job advertisements, indicating not exact salaries, but so-called salary brackets (“from 90,000 to 120,000 rubles”). The employer is ready to accept specialists with different qualifications; accordingly, it determines the salary based on the results of the interview, when an idea of the candidate’s skills, capabilities and work experience has already been drawn up.
When the offered salary is lower than the desired salary...
...you can still try to retain a valuable specialist by discussing with him additional preferences provided by the company: social package, bonuses and bonuses, convenient work schedule. When reading a job description, applicants tend to think linearly and take into account only direct cash income - in other words, the amount that will be credited to the card or issued in cash.
Upon reflection, a candidate may well agree to a lower salary if the new job offers him monthly or quarterly bonuses, good health insurance, the opportunity to use a company apartment or car, free lunches or flexible working hours.
Another effective way is a sign-in bonus for signing an employment contract. If a company cannot afford to pay a valuable employee a high monthly salary, an alternative may be compensation that is paid only once. And the employee will be pleased that he was appreciated, and the employer’s budget will not suffer much.
HR managers of large Moscow companies give advice to applicants on whether to indicate the desired salary in their resume.
The question of whether to indicate the desired salary in the resume is resolved by itself if at the end of the vacancy announcement it is written: “Please indicate salary expectations in the resume.” Everything is simple and clear here. There are a lot of such vacancies now.
What if this is not in the ad? This topic greatly excited our visitors, and Rabota.Ru decided to ask HR managers of large companies what they thought about this.
Alexey Romanovsky, head of the company's personnel service :
— Whether or not to state the level of your salary claims in your resume—this choice depends on the level of the specialist and the position for which he is applying. If the vacancy and specializations are massive, then it is better to indicate expectations. If the vacancy is at the top manager level, then the final salary is the result of negotiations and, as a rule, candidates do not indicate expectations.
From our practice over the past couple of years, I can say that candidates have begun to more often indicate their monetary expectations in their resumes. This is largely due to the abundance of various job banks on the Internet, for which the standard field when filling out a candidate’s application form is the “desired salary” field.
If a candidate has decided to indicate their compensation wishes, the only recommendation is to rely on what the market offers for the position. Naturally, in a number of specialties, knowledge of a foreign language is assessed separately; in some areas, mastery of specific programs is important, but in general, the range of salaries for each position is formed by the market. The exception is, perhaps, rare top positions.
Maria Zhukova, HR manager of the company " » :
— There are two important aspects to the advisability of indicating the expected level of pay in your resume. First of all, in this way you cut off companies that need a specialist who is paid more or less. That is, your expectations simply do not match the company’s budget for this position. On the other hand, the salary level, as a rule, directly depends on the professional level of the candidate. Thus, you attract the interest of companies who are ready to make you an adequate offer.
Natalya Matveeva, Head of the HR department of the group of companies " » :
— It’s worth indicating salary expectations, because it will be easier for both the applicant and the employer to sort through advertisements and resumes. For example, if a person suits us in all respects, but indicates a salary of 40,000 rubles, and we can only offer 25,000. Of course, we will not even call the candidate. The best option is to indicate the lower level of your expectations. There is no point in specifying an upper limit, since the more the applicant is offered, the better for him.
Evgenia Zvonova, holding HR manager :
— My opinion and the opinion of my colleagues is clear: it’s worth indicating your salary expectations. At least a fork. Of course, we also consider resumes without indicating the desired salary, but they are less attractive because we can already imagine what the candidate is expecting. And even in the case when the applicant indicates a higher amount than we can offer, our HR manager still calls him back - there is a high probability that the candidate will be interested in our offer, since in addition to money, he may be attracted by a number of bonuses that the company offers.
Boris Rezapov, HR Director of OJSC » :
— Currently, the salary market is characterized by great variability, and salaries for the same position sometimes differ significantly. I believe that if an applicant indicates a salary in his resume, then he risks either making a mistake by setting a deliberately low salary bar for himself, or significantly exceeding this bar and not getting a good job in a company that interests him. In my opinion, it makes no sense to write about your salary expectations in the resume itself, because... There are often cases when a candidate gets a job for a lower salary, and after a few months begins to receive even more than he initially expected. Therefore, there is no need to set limits for yourself that can only interfere with getting the job you want.
Many HR specialists, seeing salary expectations on a resume, tend to think that the main requirement for an applicant is only the salary level, and not the job itself. In my opinion, working conditions and payment should be discussed after we see that the candidate is suitable for us. Only in this case can the company increase the initial payment levels, meeting the wishes of the applicant. Although at the stage of receiving a resume, this candidate could be put aside due to what HR considered to be prohibitively high salary expectations.
Ekaterina Kozhevatova
Do I need to indicate the desired salary on my resume? Job seekers always have concerns about this. Our expert Marina Khadina , head of career services HeadHunter, will dispel all doubts.
Almost every applicant, when publishing his resume, argues in one of the following ways:
- If I write as much as I have, they won’t offer me more.
- If I write a lot, I won’t be in demand.
- If I write little, I will be inundated with calls with inexpensive offers, and some will underestimate me as a professional.
However, HeadHunter statistics show that if there are no salary expectations in the resume, then the number of invitations decreases. This is due to the fact that the employer is inclined to minimize the time for selection: he first of all invites those whose resume provides comprehensive information - both about their professional level and salary expectations. And only then does it begin to consider other candidates.
Based on the above, what should you do?
First, you need to decide for yourself what salary to indicate. Second, prepare thoroughly for salary negotiations.
It is most convenient to indicate in your resume the income you had at your last job. This is the best option both in terms of responses and in terms of further negotiations with future employers.
At an interview, when asked what your salary expectations are, you can confidently answer:
“No less than at the current location. In general, the ideal would be a remuneration of 10% more than the current amount of income.”
Such a conversation seems to be as logical and comfortable as possible for both parties. There may be a minimum of objections here. To the question “Why exactly 10%?” you can answer that this is within the inflation rate for the last year (6.9 - 8%).
If you know for yourself that you are a rare and expensive expert, in demand by other employers even without posting a resume, then you can safely indicate salary expectations higher than +10% of your current income, but not more than 30%.
A situation may arise in which you want to get an increase of more than 30%, arguing for something like: “My cousin, a classmate of your second cousin, was offered a salary that is twice what it is.”
You shouldn't do this. Most likely, someone misled you, or this is an exception to the rule. Therefore, it is risky to focus on such options.
Also keep in mind that if you need the job urgently and, in principle, you will be satisfied with a slightly lower salary, you need to indicate the very minimum level. If there are few invitations to your resume, then perhaps you should change the number in the “Salary Expectations” field to a slightly lower one.
If you're still debating whether to list your salary or not, consider this: an applicant who indicates their salary has a better chance of finding “their” employer. Firstly, salary may be one of the search parameters of the employer himself when he is looking for suitable candidates. Secondly, it is possible to agree on working conditions much faster when the cards are open, preferably on both sides.
You can attract attention to your resume not only by indicating the desired salary that is “convenient” or profitable for the employer. Use the “Bright Resume” service to make sure your resume stands out from others.
I wish you the right career decisions!
