Discussing Compensation in Interviews

Hey there. Today we are talking about how to discuss compensation in the interview process. This is absolutely crucial because the conversation of compensation can change the trajectory of your career. It materially impacts your life. And this conversation becomes even more high stakes the higher up in your career you go. I have a lot of experience negotiating executive compensation, senior level compensation. There's all these different elements and understanding every piece is so important. But it's also the aspect of now we're seeing salary ranges on job descriptions and how does that play into it? What if the salary range you see isn't what you actually want, but you still want an at-bat to the job? And can you negotiate that later? We're going to talk about that. So go ahead and say hi in the chat, say where you are joining us from. And let me just give you a quick overview of some of the things we'll discuss as well as this is a live session. So I am here with you to answer your questions. It's so good to be here with you. So go ahead and keep putting your questions in the chat as we go through. And we'll, we'll get rolling. So we're going to talk about, okay, first of all, in the first interview, when you're asked, you know, what are your compensation requirements? What do you say? And what if you see the salary range and how do you discuss that? Now, what about later in the process? Once you actually get the offer, how do you optimize that offer for the best possible thing? We can talk about that as well, as well as any other edge cases, right? Maybe you set a low number and then you don't mean it later. Maybe you told them what you earned in your last salary, but you actually want to make sure you're not going to get that in your next salary, all that kind of stuff. So I'm here to help you with that. All right, so we have a lot of people joining us here. I see Noel from Colorado. I see Jeffrey from Kansas City. I see Elaine from Calgary. Um, I see Straights, Straits, uh, from Boston. Uh, I— yes, Jay Malinowski from Illinois, a marketing manager looking to move to Oklahoma to transition to an agency. Perfect. I love that we're seeing your, your job title as well. Okay, we have lots of other people. Thomas Kennedy in from Katy, Texas. Queen Dallin from the UK. Very cool. And David from Maryland. Okay, perfect. So let's talk about this. So when we're thinking about how we're going to approach the job interview question, what are your compensation requirements? I want you to know something really important, and that is you have the most negotiation power once they already know what you're like, what value you can add, all that. If you are trying to negotiate and set your standard at the very beginning, that is when they have the least amount of information and the least amount of investment in who you are. Because trust me, I have worked in HR. I have led these hiring panels through thousands and thousands of hiring. And what I've seen is that companies will fall in love with certain candidates and they will be so desperate to end that interview process. And so when they fall in love with you, they think, oh my gosh, okay, let's just be done. Let's, let's just stop. And they're like, okay, just give that person the extra $10,000 if it'll just make them accept it, because I really love them. No one else is good as them and all that. Now, on the other hand, I've also been told when I'm reviewing applications by the hiring manager to say, if anyone on their application says that their compensation requirements are above what we're paying, you need to eliminate them. They will no longer be in the running, which is really disappointing because, you know, maybe you are worth more and it would have taken them time to understand that, but they, they're kind of weeding you out in the beginning. So it's that balance of not putting something too high in the beginning while also not underselling yourself. Cool. All right, I'm Carl says, trying to see how to delay until they see what I'm worth, but I want to see how high their ceiling is. Yes, exactly. Yeah, you want— I, and I know this comes up a lot where people are saying, okay, but I don't want to waste my time with a company that's not going to pay enough. Absolutely. If that is your number one concern is that you don't have enough time, I just want to just give you a few things to gnaw on first. First of all, I think any interview process is a networking experience. So when you are talking to this company, even if this role, which is potentially lower compensation and maybe not the right fit for you, even if that's not the right fit, you're networking, you're still building relationships where you could further, like, potentially land a different role there. Second, every interview is like free practice, right? So even if you don't specifically want this role, you can test things in the interview. You can kind of play with some of your answers. You can see how they react. And that is actually an amazing training ground for when you actually get to the role that you're really excited about and you've already practiced, you've already gone through the motions. So I will say I do find value in going through a process, even if maybe the compensation isn't exactly what you want. Now, if you're like, Madeline, I have plenty of interview practice, I'm really good at this. I have plenty of opportunities coming my way. I don't want to waste time. Then absolutely have that. Compensation conversation early, right? I still think, again, that is only if you, you have a lot of opportunity and you, you feel, you know, you can very easily pass things up, then that's totally fine to have that, that conversation early. But you can still move the needle and move the compensation up quite a bit higher if you wait to have the conversation. So I, and I have seen with a lot of my clients, they're getting offers that are well above the top of the salary range. And I mean this in this job market. Of course, that happened before this job market, but also in this job market, they're still getting offers at the top or even above the salary range. And that really only happens once the company is in love with you. Okay. I'm seeing still lots more people come in. I'm seeing Diane, Tanya, John from New York. Vasim from India. Yes. Oh my gosh, Carol. Yes, I mispronounced your, your name. Thank you so much. I called you Carl. Sorry, I meant Carol. Thank you. Uh, okay, so, and, and so that's exactly it, is I'm seeing, uh, Natalie asking, should it be discussed in the beginning? And that's kind of what I'm saying is let's, let's actually talk about how this should be discussed in the beginning. So they're going to ask you, likely not always, but a lot of the time, what are your salary requirements? Okay. Now, if there is already a salary range on the job description, you can say, oh, I saw that there was a range on the job description. Is that accurate? Boom, done. Right. A lot of states right now have the salary ranges. Go ahead and put in the chat. I'm very curious to know. Put like most, some, or few in the chat. When you look at job descriptions, do most of them have salary ranges already on them? Do some of them have salary ranges on them, or few, like very little? Let me know in the chat, because what I'm seeing is that a lot more companies are putting salary ranges on there. So that's going to now be your default response. So, and also like screenshot it, PDF the job description anytime you apply to something, because I have seen with my clients a lot that they will see the range and then the range the recruiter says, like, don't say the range out loud. See what the recruiter says is the range. And sometimes their response will be, oh yeah, the range. And they'll say a range that's either higher or lower than what you saw. And if they say a range that's higher, just say, okay, yes, right. And I would write that range down. And then if they say range lower, say, oh, but I saw the range was this higher range, right? So just know, just have that, have that documented. Okay, so let me actually put up, uh, folks' responses here. So I'm seeing that a lot of people are saying most, um, that, uh, let's see, some, some, some. Okay, so I'm seeing some people say some. Diana says some. Javier says most. Rose says most. Brianna says few. And then, um, um, Herman says, uh, all because he's in, he's in, uh, New York City. Okay, so yeah, it definitely depends on where you are, you know, if you're in New York, California, a lot of other states, Colorado, you know, you'll definitely be seeing them. Um, so it's, it's very interesting. Yeah, it's like for some people are saying few, some people are— a lot of people are saying most. Um, but it totally depends on what is your situation, where are you living? Okay. So for everyone who said most, that was your answer. For those of you who said some or few, I would say I would try to push this question off. So I say something like, you know, I'm just looking for the best overall package and fit. Okay. Sometimes they let you be the same. Okay, sure. So you're flexible. You say, yeah, I'm flexible. I'm kind of looking for the whole thing, right? Is the commute good? Are the projects great? You know, what will I be working on? That kind of stuff, right? Benefits. Are the benefits looking good? Is there equity? All those things are really important components to me, right? You can kind of push it off that way. Now, sometimes they'll say, yeah, but what is the actual salary number? Everyone has a number. And you can say, totally understand. Do you have a budget that you're working within? And a lot of times they'll give it to you. Yeah, the range we're working with is X to Y. If they still do not give you a range when you say that, they say, no, we don't have a specific range. And this can often happen, especially if it's kind of like an individual contributor role where they're dramatically looking at people of a lot of different skill levels, or even sometimes leadership roles where they're looking for a head of operations. But, you know, the head of operations could have been a manager in the past, they could have been a C-level. Like, they, they're kind of just like all over the board. And so there's like Just give us a number. And at this point, here's what you say. Okay, write this down. You say, well, given the opportunities I've been looking at, it seems like the market is paying between X and Y. Does that match what you're seeing? Notice the way I framed that. I did not frame it in a way of I need this, this is what I'm targeting. Because when we frame it in this way of this is what I'm seeing in the market, we can walk it back if they're like, no, that's not what we're seeing in the market. We're not saying I need this. If they're like, no, that's too high and you still want an at-bat at this job, you say, okay, got it. What range are you seeing? They're saying, I'm seeing more of this to this. You go, okay, got it. Yeah, yeah, I'm open to that. Right. So that's, that's really what you want to do. Let me jump over and make sure I'm not missing any good, any good questions. Let's see. Okay, so on the job search, I ended up with one main option. The job isn't posted, all interviews go well, I get the job description and the salary last, send an email when it's time to just— and when time to accept, now what? Okay, so I— it sounds like when you got the description, salary last, send an email when to When time to accept, now what? I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that you haven't gotten an offer yet? If you haven't gotten an offer yet, I would follow up and just see what is the status. If you have gotten an offer, then go ahead and accept if it's great. Or if not, we can follow the steps I'm teaching about negotiation. Cool. Yes. And Sarah says the application just filled has a mandatory field. Yes. So what should you do when there's a mandatory field on the application? Well, the first best thing to do is to then try to circumvent the online application process, you know, get a referral, you know, kind of just like where you don't have to actually type things in to apply, but more that you're sending your resume and they're putting it in that way. That's the best way. The second thing is to just type in the word flexible. The third thing, which I think is what Sarah is saying, is it's a mandatory field and it's probably a dropdown, right? So you do want to research the numbers and see what is appropriate and kind of go maybe on the little bit on the higher end, but not too low. At that point, you're kind of boxed in. All right. So let's see. How soon should I hear back from a recruiter once presented to the hiring manager? So I would say it's really tough because especially if the recruiter is sourcing people or just kind of, you know, picking up resumes and, and reviewing them, what you, what you have to consider is sometimes they just present the hiring manager with a bunch of candidates and it'll take a while for the hiring manager to get through, or they'll pick some of them, but they'll say, oh, these other ones are okay, but they're not totally sure about rejecting them yet. And at that point, you know, you could just never hear back, right? You kind of, they kind of ghost at that point, especially if it's an external recruiter. This happens all the time where they reach out to people and then you don't hear back. So you just follow up like every 5 days. Hey, you know, so I'll let you know I'm still interested. If there's any next steps or if you need any other materials, let me know. Right. Just keep following up. Okay. So it sounds like we have a good question up here that maybe I missed. Okay, here we go. All right. All right. Oh, and we already answered this one. Okay. How to handle the app when it requires a single number and they don't have the range listed? Okay, perfect. Okay, good. So we did review that one. I saw some people saying that's a good question. So I'm so glad. All right. So how to negotiate 4-day working week rather than a salary increase? So I would say for this one, it's all about the data and kind of presenting it as a win for the employer. Okay, I'll tell you a story. Uh, I remember, uh, one employee, he was a, he was a leader. He walked into the CEO's office and he said, you know, I demand to be able to work remotely from Spain for 2 months. This is a huge dream of mine. I've been working at this company for 4 years. I was one of your very first hires. I deserve this. Okay, And it really threw the CEO off. He was like, this sucks. This is very much like a, you know, just kind of, it felt like an ultimatum. And then, so I spoke with the CEO. I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, and I went to the employee. I was like, hey, you could have handled this completely differently. You could have positioned it as a win. He could have said, hey, it has been so amazing working here for 4 years. I will admit, I'm feeling my energy is dropping a little bit. I'm losing a bit of momentum. I'm thinking if I go work in a new environment, it can reinvigorate me. Also, if I go work somewhere else, just, just for a couple months, it's not going to be permanent. It's not going to be— it's— there's going to be 100% end date. I can really focus on building our team to be very organized, help, help them to run it a bit more independently and have processes that are a little bit more structured. Because right now with us all in the office, things are a little bit more ad hoc, right? So just notice how I'm coming up with ways that for the CEO, this is a win. And so that's what you need to do, Jillian, is how is this 4-day working week a win? And how are they going to, you know, save money, get better productivity? How is it not going to impact your coworkers in a way that leads to some sort of jealousy or anything like that? How are you going to handle that? Do not just bring them more problems. You say, well, how's the rest of your team going to feel when every Friday you're off? You need to become prepared with that. Okay, great question. All right. So what about when they say they have a blanket salary for all people in that role? Is that always a hard truth or is there flexibility in those, in those anyways? Okay, so this is a really good thing to say. When they say no flexibility, okay? And this is Carol, she told me how to pronounce her name earlier. So write this down, y'all. So if they are basically like, we have no negotiation, this— the number's the number, you get the salary, right? You get the offer. And you say, thank you so much for the offer. You always start off with gratitude. And then you say, Are there any aspects of this offer that are negotiable? You know, because I really, you know, I'm looking at some other opportunities. This one's really my favorite. But is there anything about this offer that, you know, we could— there's some wiggle room. And you ideally, you do this verbally and you can usually hear from the recruiter a very sincere tone of if it's possible. So they might go, no, Of course not. Or they might say something like, well, you know, I mean, you know, we can't really fudge with the base salary, but we have been known to do some sign-on bonuses. Like, how much were you thinking? And then I say like, we can make it up in the equity, or we actually like could probably go up another $10K, right? They start to actually tip their cards. And so this way you're not coming across as ungrateful or you're pushing past things. You're just literally asking the question, is there anything that is negotiable? And just know that typically if they're like hardcore about things, that the base salary being negotiable is the kind of usually the hardest thing because that's where the internal equity is really compared. But having things like sign-on bonuses, bonuses in general can be a little bit more flexible. Time off, you know, different types of things, remote work, that kind of stuff can be maybe a little more flexible. Also, yes, so I'm seeing some people. One thing I did last live and it was really great is for the next 24 hours, I'm going to go on a connection spree on LinkedIn. So any of you guys who are here live, I can try to put my LinkedIn link in the chat. It's, you know, I'm at linkedin.com/in/madelynmann. I'll add you. I'm going to add all the people who add me over the next 24 hours on LinkedIn. This will help you because I am connected to a lot of people. So it'll, you know, when you're trying to get sourced on LinkedIn, we're trying to get noticed on LinkedIn, you need to be at least in people's like second, third, maybe even fourth degree connections. The only way to do that is to make sure you're connected to enough people. And a fast way to do that is to be connected with people who are connected to a lot of people. So anyways, just go ahead and make sure you're connected to me on LinkedIn. I will do a spree just for the next 24 hours. So make sure you do it in 24 hours because then I'm going to cut it off. So I'm excited to connect with you all. Okay, so, um, oh, this is a— I think, I think I know what this question is going to be. I didn't fully read it, but Herman says, what should someone do if they— if you accept an offer for a Company B and Company A gives you an offer that's better that you want to accept. Okay, so this is something I do with my clients a lot where, um, uh, where I try to balance out all of the offers at the same time. So first I want to just kind of give you some hints on how to actually get all of your offers aligned at the same time before we get to this scenario, which is kind of, kind of like a a last-ditch effort to, you know, hopefully not, you know, ruin any relationships. So first of all, when you're trying to align timelines, when a company is kind of getting to the final round interviews, especially if they're now saying verbally, we're going to give you an offer, every other company you're interviewing with, you tell them, hey, I wanted to let you know, I want to give you an update. I'm in the final round, interviews with another company, or, hey, I want to give you an update. I just got a verbal offer from another company. 'But you are my top choice,' or, 'But I'm really interested in this opportunity and would love the opportunity to continue. If it's possible, could we expedite this process? If not, I totally understand.' Okay, that's what you say. Y'all write this down. So, uh, and then, so ideally you want to speed up the ones that haven't given you an offer, not slow down the one that has. Okay, and I kind of coach my clients specifically through the, the specific scenarios But that's like a general overview. Now, let's say you've already accepted an offer. In the end, you've got to look out for number one. I'm proud of you. I'm proud that you didn't let this offer slip you by. But now there's a better offer. And again, I actually did a video that went super viral where it was like, you know, it was asking hiring teams, especially HR managers, what should a candidate do in this situation? And they say decline the first offer from Company B and go with the offer from Company A. And Admittedly, this sucks for the company. It really sucks. They just— they probably even already rejected their other top candidates. Who knows if they can get them back. It is heart-wrenching. This has happened to me a couple of times in my career and it sucks and it will, it will kind of taint the relationship. I will, I will say that. But it's— you got to do what you got to do. And in the end, a lot of the HR managers were saying, hey, look, if we already kind of weren't your favorite choice, you're probably just going to land an offer within a few months of working for us and then leave us. And that's even worse if we've already onboarded you and trained you and you leave. Like, that sucks. So if you already didn't want us in the first place, don't come. So that's how you do it. All right, so let's see. So Kim says, I had 3 interviews back to back with the company and all seemed well, and now it's been a week since they told me they were conducting interviews. Is a bad sign. It's been a week and they told me they're still conducting interviews. It's about time. It's so hard to say, Kim. We could make up all day of reasons why this is happening. And it could be that they kind of got a lot of the information about you and now they're feeling like they've gotten a lot of information. So now they need to catch up on other processes. I would say, you know, one of the things I teach my clients and is like one of the things that is really big in reverse search. I know several people who were on my last live were like, oh, Madeline, your show, don't tell strategy is amazing. I would say do the show, don't tell strategy right now as like a Hail Mary of trying to get them to like really consider you because they could totally— you could totally still be in the running. They could still totally love you. They're just finishing up things and want to review everything. Totally fine. But if you do the show, don't tell, it'll kind of really show, oh my gosh, wow, Kim really is really, you know, a great candidate and let's make sure we don't pass up on her and all that kind of stuff. So I would say kind of do a little bit of a go, go a little bit above and beyond to really hopefully solidify this. So Jocelyn says, if the salary is strictly set by HR and not by the department, should my negotiation style change? So if, if the salary— so I'm guessing what this means is the company has like specific salary bands and due to maintaining internal equity, they are saying, okay, you know, this is, this is the salary and we can't really budge from it. And the department saying our hands are tied. So the thing is, is that even if it's set by HR, the person who's probably going to be advocating for you is the hiring manager. So please, can we get, you know, $15K more for this candidate, Jocelyn? She brings so much amazing experience. She might even not be, you know, maybe she's not even a director. She's maybe a senior director. Right. Could we, could we explore different— maybe a raise title to warrant the higher salary? You know, I think it's a lot of things. I think you would approach it a very similar way. And also you would use some of the strategies I talked about earlier. Where, where people are kind of like, where things are not as flexible. And you might ask about here, what areas of this offer are flexible? Got it. Okay. I'm seeing, I know I'm trying to catch up on the questions. And okay, I'm seeing someone say, okay, how do we, how do we get coaching? Is coaching with you? All that kind of stuff. Okay, perfect. Yes. So I, believe I linked my coaching link under this video. It depends on what platform you're on. But if you don't have it there, it's www.madelynmann.com/coaching. Hopefully that is easy enough. And yes, I have coaching program. We have all different packages too, especially if you're like a whole— if you're a senior level executive, we have things for you. If you're more of middle, we have things for you. Yes, it's very hands-on. We have had a lot of success stories in this job market. It's been really exciting. And yes, you can go there and talk to our team first, see if it's right for you. And oh yeah, you can grab that link and you can book a call. Okay. So, uh, oh, this is an interesting question. Steven says, can an employer find out the salary for my previous job at a different company? So as an HR, employee, I was trained to not give out that confidential information. Um, I'm guessing someone could. I mean, if you're, if you're, you know, if you have access to that information, you, you could say it, you know, if they're doing like an employment check, um, a background check. But no, no well-trained HR person is ever going to just give out that information. So I would not worry about that unless maybe you worked for a public company where a lot of the compensation is made public or whatnot. But besides that, I would say I wouldn't worry about that too much. All right. Okay. Yes. If there, if there is a range on the description, you want a bit higher. Should we always give our higher number first? Okay, should we always give our higher number? Okay, so this is something I wanted to go over. All right, so you are interviewing for a company, the range on their description is lower than what you want. There's two different approaches. Okay. The first approach, it's basically between, are you— if you were given a number in that range, would you walk away or would you still take it? That's the first question I want you to answer. Okay. If you would still take it, even though it's, you know, it's not what you want, it is lower, it's not what you're targeting, but you'd still probably take it. Here's what you do. They ask you, you know, is the range on the set, on, on the job description, is that looking good for you? Then I would say, Yeah, you know, I'm, I'm kind of looking more at the overall package. So yeah, I'm excited to explore more, but that, that looks about right. And I'd say something like that, right? If you would not accept that salary, I'd probably bring up that it's a bit low. You might say, yeah, I saw the salary range and, you know, a lot of the roles I've been seeing have been more of the X to Y range. So it is a little bit lower than what I was expecting, but I'm, I'm still looking for the best overall package, so I'd love to continue the conversation, right? So in that case, we're trying to still give you an at-bat of let's, you know, let's still try to make it through the process. But you're still kind of calling it out of like, hey, this is probably going to be an issue for me down the road. And I think that's totally fine to say, especially if you're If it is going to be something that's going to be a deal breaker for you, you should bring that up early. Now, if it's not going to be 100% deal breaker, I would say let's get through the interview process and wait to talk about it more later. And in how are you going to talk about later? Because we do not want to be this terrible person who's like, well, I know I told you that this was okay, but now I'm going to change it. That's not good. So what do you say then? Will you say— so let me give you an example. So this actually happened and we ended up hiring this person. So it was a software engineer and he went through our process and we liked him. And I talked to his executive recruiter who brought him in. He's like, look, Michael has been interviewing with several different companies and I think he realized now that his value is actually quite a bit more than what he had originally said is his target salary. And so now he's targeting a little bit more at this number. You know, are you, are you open to that? Like, are you able to close the gap there? And it was just kind of an honest conversation of like, now that I've kind of talked to some companies and I've gotten a more realistic idea of what I'm worth in the market, here's what I'm seeing. Like, is there any, is there any wiggle room? Here on this ranch, you know, totally, you know, let me know. So you can talk like that. You just always want to be rapport building. That's something I really want to make sure y'all take to heart is, you know, just thinking about how this is not adversarial. This is not you versus them. It's you both in a rowboat rowing towards the finish line. You are going to be coworkers soon. You're trying to make it so that This is a collaborative process. So be building that, be acknowledging them. Thank you so much for the increased salary that you put, right? Even if it's like $2,000 and you asked for like $20,000 more, you still thank them for moving. You still thank them for the offer. You appreciate their time. All the stuff, you're constantly rapport building. It's collaborative. Cool. Okay, so I'm seeing so many questions. Questions here. Yay! This person just says, LinkedIn user, they probably have privacy settings on, but says, I just got your book, starting to read it today. Love to see it. And I got a really good URL for this book too. I got— I was able to get reversethesearch.com. So if you guys are looking for the book and need a fast way to find it, it's also at a lot of local libraries if you want to grab it there. Oh, Yes, this book is life-changing. Oh my God, I'm so glad to hear that, Elena. I'm so glad to hear that. That's amazing. Yes, yes. And yes, the link for coaching is at— if you're on YouTube, it should be like the link under the video. And I'll just say it again, www.mamaleman.com/coaching. All right, cool. Yes. Okay. I've seen a bunch of people saying, add me on LinkedIn, add me on LinkedIn. I will. I will, I will do my best. Okay, so let's see. How does one negotiate a better work-life balance if we know a company is notoriously bad in that department? I, I would say don't work there if that's your top value. You know, if a company is notoriously bad in that way. And yeah, I mean, I would, Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily think that just kind of some sort of negotiation, oh, I will not work evenings, or no weekends, or 40-week work week or something like that. I think possibly the culture, first of all, they probably will reject it. And second of all, the culture might kind of really push back on that. So I would be very careful there. If you are just already in a position where the work-life balance is bad, I would really just start working loudly. Okay, what does that mean? That means that you, every time you're accomplishing something or you're really busy, you're saying it. I'm really busy. Oh, I've got all these things going on. Oh, you know, the team, we just were doing all these things this week. You're working loudly. And so people are less likely to give you more work. They're less likely to think like, oh, well, what have you been up to this week? You know, have you been working enough? Right. So just start working a bit more loudly. Um, amazing. Okay, cool. Um, all right, so, um, so how can I convince candidates who judge me based on my accent and assume it's a scam that I'm legitimate? I work remotely from India from a— for a reputable staffing company. Um, I would say that, I mean, if, if they are— how to convince candidates. Oh, I understand. So you're, you're a recruiter who's trying to do candidates. Okay, cool. So maybe we can take this a little bit offline because that's a bit— that's, that's more on like the recruiter side. Not really on the candidate side. So maybe, you know, I would say probably take that question offline. So should you always take the first offer or always go back for negotiation? So I— the thing is, is that typically if you take the first offer, it actually sometimes has the opposite effect that you think. Like, it almost makes the company think, ooh, we offered Tiffany too much. She, she accepted right away. We probably could have offered her less. And then that seeds the idea in their mind, Tiffany probably is not gonna need a raise. For several years, right? She just joined. She got a good comp. She didn't even, you know, bat an eye at what we gave her versus someone who's like, hey, I'm actually really looking for about $20,000 more. And they're like, look, we can't increase it, but we hear you. And then that person within 12 months gets a $20,000 raise, right? So it's all about setting this, this conversation of like, like so that you can sleep at night knowing you got the best offer. And them also feeling like they got actually one too. That's actually the thing that I'm always teaching my clients is how do you get the company to feel like they won the negotiation? And actually negotiating confirms that it's like, okay, like we're actually getting a good deal on this candidate. So there's a lot of nuances there. And I teach a lot of like more advanced things, especially with my executives, of how to really get the other person to win, build that rapport. And my clients have a habit of getting promotions and salary increases in under 12 months. So like, you guys may have heard Yonalee. She's talked about her story publicly a lot. Like, within 4 months, she doubled her salary when I worked with her to land her, her, her new role. And then within 4 months, she got an additional, like, chunky salary increase because of the strategies of job shopping. So I love that. All right. Cool. So, let's see. All right. Gary has a whole saga for us here. Let's see what Gary says. I'm currently interviewing for a role with an offer that is okay. However, the recruiter indicated that the client indicated that this was their high range. However, based on my experience, my salary offer should definitely be about $15K higher. What do you think? Are companies likely to open and loosen apron strings to offer more to someone they really want? Yes, Gary, I do think so. It depends on the company, right? And maybe, you know, the companies that you are entertaining, or maybe this company, they have a lower salary range because maybe it's their industry, maybe it's their smaller company, they're a startup, whatever it is. So they may not pay as much as maybe a midsize or a larger company or whatever it is. I don't know the exact situation. Usually, though, the recruiter will be— you will be on your side to try to negotiate as much as you can. So I think, again, it's, you know, I think stating, hey, this is kind of what I'm targeting, so I'm seeing in the market, is there any room? Is there any wiggle room? Is there any equity that could be made up here? Is there any sort of like bonus structure that could be done? What about a 6-month review process where within 6 months I can prove myself and if my compensation is— and we can just review my compensation and my title and make sure it's up to par after you've seen my performance, which I know is going to be excellent, right? That one, that one, chef's kiss. I've gotten so, so many people promotions based off of that statement alone. Um, oh my gosh, another person says everyone needs to get this book. Thank you, thank you. She, she's, uh, she was my, my pride and joy working on her. She just had her one-year anniversary, you guys. One-year anniversary. Reverse the search. Um, very nice. Uh, so, uh, oh, okay. So, uh, Tess says, if, uh, if a company asks for my current salary, what should I answer? Uh, so what I would say is like typically, right, you, you can't— they can't ask that. But it depends on where you are, right? Depending on your location in the world, they can definitely ask that. Um, and what I would say when they're asking kind of inappropriate things, first of all, I might just do the old, uh, kind of the PR-trained move where I'd say something like So what I'm targeting is X, right? Or like, if company asks for your current salary, you say, well, when we're talking about compensation, like, what do you— what do— what, what range are you guys seeing for this role? Like, I might even just, you know, flip back and they might even be like, cool. Yeah, well, I'll tell you the range. But if they're like, no, no, we actually— I want to write down what you're currently making. You can say, absolutely, I can provide all of like my pertinent personal information once an offer is delivered. Okay. You're basically saying, okay, okay, you want my address? You want my last salary? You know, you want my, you know, a link to my direct deposit? Yes, I will give you all the information once an offer is presented. And that kind of says like, basically, it's kind of checking them being like, that's sensitive information. You know, and I'm, I'm, I'm— but notice it's a yes. It's a yes. I will absolutely provide that and any other personal information like needed once an offer is presented. All right, y'all, did you— could you type the surname please? Oh, here are people looking because they want to connect with me on LinkedIn. So hold on, guys. So if I hide this, you can see my name here, Madeline Mann, so you can find me on LinkedIn. If you are just joining us, I gave everyone the deal that if you want to find me on LinkedIn, connect with me within the next 24 hours. I'm going on a connecting spree so that you guys can grow your network. When you connect to someone with a lot of connections, that will grow your network a lot faster because you'll show up in a lot more searches because now you are a second, third, fourth degree connection of a lot more people. So I'm doing that for the people who show up here live for the next 24 hours. Cool. All right. So, um, if I have the reference of salary from such a type of companies by revenue team managing industry, is it correct to define exact amount I had my previous role if the same? Okay. Yes. So, okay. And let I think I understand the question. And of course, correct me if I'm wrong, but can we just mention what we earned as our last salary if it's kind of what we want next and it's similar to what these things are saying? Absolutely. We do not need to hide our previous salary if we actually think it's a data point that will help us. So they're saying, okay, you know, this role is $180,000 and you go, hey, look, I've done this exact job for $220,000. At my last role, you know, I am open to being a little bit flexible in that area. But just know like that, that would be a $40K cut to me salary-wise. And so now it changes, changes the conversation, right? So only share that information if it's advantageous to you. Okay. So is it appropriate to ask about history of raises and promotions at the level we're hiring for, that they are hiring for? Would they be able to give a truthful answer based on actual historical numbers? Would they be? So I don't know. It depends totally on the company. I, when I worked at certain companies, I don't know that I had those numbers like, like the average employee. You know, it takes 28 months for them to get their first raise or promotion, right? I don't know if I had that, that the data like on the jump, like ready to offer or always calculated. But you could. I do think it's appropriate of, you know, you know, I'm interviewing for the sales team. How often was the last time someone on this team was promoted? How long does it take for people to be promoted? I think also this information is public. You know, just go on LinkedIn. You can go look up the people on the teams. You'll see if they've been promoted. You'll see, you know, what's happening there. You could even ask someone in the interview, you know, you've been here for 8 years. Like, have they entertained you getting a promotion? Like, right? Like, if they haven't got a promotion, it could be a discussion point of like, I am looking for somewhere where I can really build my career. Do you feel like that's a way? I mean, um, you know, do you feel like it's, it's, you know, that there's a path to get promotions here? Is there, you know, is, is there, you know, different kind of paths for certain professions? All that kind of stuff, right? Um, so I definitely check it out, um, online. Um, so, uh, the book comes in audiobook. Heck yes, it does, and it's me, yo. I sat in a booth for 3 days straight. It was dark. There was no windows. Reading your book, your audiobook, is not as glamorous as— actually, I don't know if you think it's glamorous. It's not, okay? My voice was so sore by the end, but you know what? I put my blood, sweat, and tears in there. You're gonna hear me. It's me. It's your girl. So yes. Oh, okay, sorry. So people are asking for what's the title of my book. So it is Reverse the Search, um, and the website. So like I said, I got the sweet, sweet URL for about $20 a year. It was like the best buy of my life. Uh, reversethesearch.com. It's like there's no— there's nothing funny about the URL. It is absolutely flawless and perfect. So reversethesearch.com is where you can get it, or you can check out your local library. Um, okay, and people are saying please add me on LinkedIn. Oh my gosh, okay, I'm putting you guys— your guys' names up on the screen so that I can, uh, I can double check later that I've gotten you guys. Okay, so Aaron and Chiara and Nicole. All right, I'll do my best. I'm going to go through and end at it. All right, so let's see. Carl says, I have a second round interview and any tips of passing the second round interview and getting an offer? So I would say, you know, I have tons and tons of videos on this channel that will help you with the interviews. Even one that I think is specifically on the second round interview, because what's typically the second interview is, you know, the first round interview is do you have the raw, you know, qualifications and are you likable? Okay, so you pass that one. Now, second round is usually Do you have the skills and the attributes we're looking for? And it's usually either with a team member or with the hiring manager, one or the other. Though it could be anyone, right? I'm just saying what's typically happening. So you need to really practice your behavioral interviewing, which I have some of the— literally, I looked it up the other day. If you Google behavioral interviewing and there's like the section for videos, my video is the very first one that shows up. You guys did that. Thank you so much. So I have tons of really, you know, videos that have gotten tons of people jobs from behavioral interviewing. Look that up. You need to practice skill-based questions. Okay. So they might say, well, how would you do this in this situation? Or how have you done this in the past? Or here's another scenario, or, you know, walk me through how you do this, right? Skills. And that might even be like they're actually going to ask you, you know, sell me this pen or like do this coding challenge or whatever it is, right? Uh, the third thing to think about is just like they, they might just be wanting to, you know, understand you and, and what you're like and all that kind of stuff. So building that rapport. Cool. Um, all right. Oh, and Lori Walker's here. Good to see you. Good to see you. Um, love to see you here. Um, let's see. So Um, let's see. Uh, job search for 8 months, interview today with a company that has horrible reviews on Glassdoor. People complain overwhelmingly with no breaks or lunches, long hours. Still go for it? Uh, so Randy, I would say still go for it. Let me tell you why. Glassdoor is a place for people to kind of come to complain. And so we can't always take it at face value. Now, it sounds like you're saying, you know, that maybe, maybe it's quite severe on this Glassdoor, and maybe it's all true, right? And maybe it is a terrible place to work. Why don't you network within the company? A few, a few things. And when I say network, I mean interview. Few things. Those people who interview you will likely not always be at that company. Now you've made contacts that might go to another company. And now you have a referral into that company. Okay, these are networking opportunities. These are people in your field, in your industry that you're going to get, get to meet on a silver platter. Fabulous. Second of all, like, let's see, like, especially if you are realizing you don't want this opportunity, you're practicing interviewing is going to be like pretty interesting, right? You can just kind of maybe even experiment with some things that you might not otherwise, and you're probably going to be able to relax, and they'll probably actually result in you getting an offer. And then you can use that offer to get the other companies you're interviewing with to speed up or to get you an offer. You guys, that is one of the strategies I do with my clients and one of the reasons why they're getting— why so many people in this job market are getting zero offers and they're getting 2, 3, 4 offers at a time. It's because we can pin these offers against each other. I tell my clients all the time, get these shitty, these crappy, or these not so great offers. And then I'm like, okay, here's how we're going to parlay this into getting more offers. And then we show that to the other company. We're like, hey, I got an offer. And then they go, oh, we're about to lose this great candidate. And then they start showing up for you. And like, so anyways, it's like good to parlay your offers into other offers. Okay, cool. This is— these are all such great questions. Yes, yes. And exactly, if you want the coaching, maybe someone can put a link in the chat, www.mamaleman.com/coaching. And we can talk to you. We have some, some spots open right now on the calendar if you wanted to chat with one of our team members, just to see to see if coaching would be right for you. We talk to people in all different levels. We've also been working a lot with director, VP, and C-level executives, doing a lot of great work there and having a lot of success. So yes, definitely head over there. All right. Should you negotiate other components with a company that has a non-negotiable salary compensation policy up front? Yes, exactly. You should use the phrase I mentioned earlier, which is, are there any aspects of this offer that are negotiable? Is there anything about this offer that's flexible? Let's talk about it. Definitely. Cool. So, yes, lots of people saying add me on LinkedIn. Okay. All right. All right. So folks are saying add me, add me. All right. I will. I will add you guys. Sounds good. Perfect. I'll add you guys after this. We're going to stay on for about 9 more minutes and I will, I will go and check that out. Yay. Oh, Daniel says lots of tangible takeaways here for a very important part of the job search process. And y'all, I am coming on doing these lives mostly every Tuesday. There's going to be a couple that I take off. Um, and there is going to be a week starting May 18th where I will be doing a 5-day where I'll be going live every single day, and it's going to be really in-depth. It's going to be hardcore. We're going to spend a lot of time together, um, and that's going to be really great. And I'll be unveiling some other new offerings, and I'll be opening up some really cool stuff and some really cool bonuses for my coaching program and all that stuff. So that's gonna be great. Um, all right, so, um, yay! And Jeffrey says the interview tips videos are incredible, highly recommend everyone listen or watch them, much appreciated. Um, cool. And, um, Ronald's— uh, sorry, Roland says, uh, Madeline, very impressed with Reverse the Search, now the next level. I just joined your program, so excited for it. Yay! I'm so excited to work with you. Let's do this. Let's get this job. Let's go job shopping. I'm so excited, uh, to make it happen for you. Uh, so Roland, let's do this. I'm excited. Uh, all right, so, uh, so, uh, Kiara says, I received an offer, basis firm, offered 6-month review, no bonus. I asked for, um, plus $5K from plus $10K. If not met, how do I ensure the review is defined and leads to a guaranteed raise? So I would say you want to put the, the review in your offer. So you want to get that written in of that there'll be a 6-month review of the salary, of maybe the salary and title if that's, if that's also important to you. You know, with the review happening by— and I would put an actual date. So I'd be like, by September 30th or whatever it is, right? So I would get that on there. And then I would say it's up to you to, first of all, to make sure it happens because your manager is probably going to forget. Not on purpose per se, but just because their world is probably very much about themselves, as all of ours is. And, you know, I would say if there's anything in your profession that's a very clear indicator of your performance, you know, certain revenue goal achieved, a certain, you know, amount of talent brought onto the team, whatever it is, maybe write that in if you're— if there's something really tangible that you feel like you can do. Otherwise, I would say overdeliver, you know, make— you know, if you're, if you're a fabulous hire, make yourself irresistible. Oh my gosh, he says, my— your videos have been so instrumental in my job, my job search. Thank you. That makes me so happy. So happy. Oh my gosh. And Denise says, this has been super helpful. Looking forward to connecting on LinkedIn. Yeah, I have so many new connections today. I love it. I love it. I love it. What would you say to someone who is wanting to transition in my career? I already— I am ready. But so many people say that now is not the right time because of the job market. So I have helped a lot of my clients transition their career in this time, and they've done it successfully, and they've even gotten some compensation, uh, increases along the way. That's not guaranteed, but it definitely happens. Um, the reason why I— the, the career changes I've worked with have been so successful is because they are these chameleons. The way I treat people, the kind of like the job shopping method, that's just turning job seeking into job shopping. The job shopping method, basically the reason why it's so counterintuitive is because you start with the role you're going for and you work your way backwards from that. So that everything, like imagine telling your life story but starting with the ending, starting with Now I'm going to be a VP of product marketing. Okay. And then you tell the story in a way where everything makes sense and you're leaving out 90% of likely some of your best accomplishments because that was in another field. And so kind of fully repositioning yourself, diving into that, you know, that industry, becoming a massive student of it, becoming obsessive about it to be that someone who is like, fully rebranded themselves, like that's the thing that really breaks through for people and has led to massive success stories in this market. So you can absolutely do it. It's just really about the way you position yourself. All right. We're going through a lot of good questions today. Chris says, how do I handle job offers where the salary isn't discussed until the offer stage when email offer PDF, and I must ask to call, review, negotiate before signing the offer. Are they avoiding it? Um, I think companies do it differently. I think there's a little bit of a blessing here because they kind of, you know, you have a lot of power in this moment. You have already made it all the way through instead of you having to discuss it earlier. So that's a win. Um, but I also don't think you should feel like, oh, because it's in a PDF, because it's, you know, I have to jump through hoops to discuss it, that you should see it as some sort of negative. Um, this means that you can really take in the entire offer and come up with a negotiation that's actually quite well-rounded. You know, you understand the full package. I actually, like, if you were my client, I'd be kind of jumping up and down because I'd say Ooh, I now get all the information at once. My client isn't out there like accidentally saying something that they don't mean to say on the spot. Like, no, we have all of the information. We can now craft the perfect response. We can now— we have all the different pieces. We can ask for more here, more there, this. And then if they say no to this, we'll come back with this, right? There's— so there's a lot more to do there. So I actually, I would, I would say this is a positive. All right, y'all. Well, this has been my absolute pleasure. Like I said, come back next week. We'll be doing a session again. Definitely add me on LinkedIn. I look forward to connecting with you. If you wanted to talk to one of our coaches, we also have the link. I think I also said it in my emails, but you can also go to madelinemann.com/coaching and talk to someone on our team. As well as thanks so much for everyone, all of your kind words about the book Reverse the Search. I'm really excited for you guys to keep reading it. And just as a reminder, like, if you are feeling generous, right, if my videos have helped you, um, if you're one of those people who have written those beautiful success stories in the bottom of the video, if you could write a, a nice review about Reverse the Search on Amazon or Goodreads, that is the currency of the book world. I gotta earn back my advance here. Okay, so I'm not even— I'm still earning back my advance, guys. Like, I'm not even making any money from you guys, uh, buying this book. Okay, it's more of, you know, really getting it out into the world. So, um, thank you so much, and I will send you away with a Wi-Fi high five. You guys are wonderful, such good questions today. I'm seeing lots of love in the chat, seeing some thank yous from folks. Oh my gosh, Uh, Tessid, Sarah, um, is that, uh, Eileen, David, thank you so much. I really appreciate y'all.