Salary Negotiations and Spaghetti Westerns

I love Spaghetti Westerns and the gun fight scene in them sum up the salary negotiation process. In a gun fight, the first one to flinch loses the fight. The same holds true for salary negotiations. Don't offer up your base salary to the HR recruiter. Remember, he wants to hire you for the lowest salary. You want higher, right?

So, when asked, turn the question around. Instead of offering up your base salary, you can say this, "As part of my severance package, I'm not permitted to discuss the specifics of my job or its salary history." Remember, employers are very protective of this information. They don't want people knowing who is getting paid what for doing a particular job. If they keep pushing, you look at the person and say, "Let me ask you this. A person with a resume like mine and the experience that I have should receive appropriate compensation. Shouldn't he? Since you are looking at my resume, what would offer a person with this much experience and the skills and talents to help make your company more profitable?"

If you come across as sincere rather than arrogant, you got this one in the bag and the only thing left is to stuff and mount the HR representative. The HR person will usually cave first especially the junior ones. Also, ask about other things as well. You can negotiate your vacation days, working from home, sign-on bonuses, etc. Just be confident. If the HR person pushes you for a figure, you can sidestep the question by looking at the other benefits. Once he goes down that path rather than staying with his original salary question, you are now leading the conversation. Stay in the driver's seat. Lead him around a bit to see how far you can go and then go back to the salary question. This time you ask him about the salary, "What would the company be willing to pay a person like yourself for the experience I have?"

If you see him sweat, you got him! BANG! One less HR cowboy!