Ep 235| Part-6 Salary Negotiation & Cracking Interviews
23 Jun 2024 · 14 min
Jagadeesh P walks through salary negotiation and interview prep for designers. He covers how to create hooks that catch recruiter attention, research salary ranges, and run mock interviews to sharpen your pitch before the real conversation.
Welcome to this day six. Continuing to the fifth video, you're going to learn six very very how to do it in a very strategical way.
Okay?
The entire strategy is called the dolphin design application strategy where it can penetrate and cut through all the noises in your portfolio and resume and your application gets selected. Okay, so how it's going to happen. First you have to watch the five videos and then come to this video how you can do a negotiation for first getting an attraction attention to you. How you can do a salary negotiation properly and how you can really practice that and make a master in interview process. Because what I can see from the students, every time people have a lot of case studies, people have a huge number of projects and skill sets with them, but they're not able to exactly project it to the recruiters in the right manner in the right time in order to get the attention and close the deal of the salary negotiation and offer. Okay? In this video you are going to learn it. Let's jump in. So the very first thing just to quickly recap is we have talked about collecting stories, we have talked about building resume, we talked about how to specifically do an industry research and then we have talked about how you can create an elevator pitch using a dolphin method strategy and how you can multiple pitch for different students, different people, different tutors using the power of AI. And today we are going to see which is very important, which is called closing negotiations and cracking the sal. Cracking this interview. Okay, first is it is a skill of negotiating. It's not only the offers. You need to negotiate for an interview, you need to negotiate for a call. You need to negotiate for a lot of important things in your career. First, okay, you need to get this. Second, you need to understand there are tactics available in. Okay, see, 49% of the people accept the first offer without even negotiating job bite. Because people don't even give a chance of even an attempt. Why your value for that particular value, what people are offering you. Okay, this is a big problem and you have to just do a research which we discussed in the day four. If you're not watched, please go back and come here. Second, you need to articulate your value using the stories and skill set and then you need to use some research methods and data to find out what is the reality in the market. What is the kind of average salary which you can expect. When people ask you what is the salary you want? People are very nervous. People are like stumbling what to say? Whether should I say less or more or if I say less, more. I will not get jobs. So that insecurity is there.
Right?
How to do it strategically? Go and understand in salaryhike.com what is the average salary as an experienced designer or your experience can get it. Second is go and understand from LinkedIn inside. Connect with your mentors for somebody who is guiding your accounting. Okay, network in LinkedIn. If you connect with a lot of people in LinkedIn, what happens is you get to see the kind of value what you're going to exchange. With that you can say for my experience on average, I'm quoting 10 LPA, but you're saying only 7 LPA. But as a market standard itself is 10 LPA, then the HR will settle for 8 LPA or 9 LPA, something like that.
Right?
So there is a process called salary bracketing. Again, it's a very deep subject which I'll record a separate video but for now this is a cut short version of it.
Okay.
So you need to provide the articulation of the value using this research insight. Second is you need to develop some conversation with the people, whomever you are interacting with. Like let's say now you are in the day six, right? So a lot of people would be replying to your messages, your pictures, your elevator, all these things.
Right?
So you can create two different type of hooks. One is called a curiosity hook, one is called a open hook and there is something called a closed hook. Okay, so what happens is when people really message you, you need to create some kind of a curiosity to interact with them. This is one curiosity which I'm creating. But there are multiple ways you can do. You can use ChatGPT or you can use your intelligence first to understand what kind of a hook we can create. And then you can profile it as a message and then you can proofread it and you can send to a lot of people.
Okay.
Hey, I saw your company profile. Job description. It seems that many years this project is running and you guys are creating an impact. How can a fresher like me bring a new perspective in your old design studio? This can trigger some curiosity. Maybe they'll ask you hey, what kind of an experience you have. They may have some questions you can itself ask. Can we have a discussion Today shortly at 3pm in the Zoom? Banking apps are losing its engagement. Can I offer you a solution for that? I do have a framework for that. I wanted to have a short phone call with you in order to discuss this. This involves a gamified version for the reward system. It involves some AI feature which can enable this. So this Kind of a curiosity will trigger these people to ask certain questions. With that opportunity, you will have to grab them for a quick interview call. Maybe in the zoom, maybe in the phone. That's totally up to you. Okay, two options. This is one curiosity hook. Next is called open hook. You need to engage in an open conversation. Same like what you do in qualitative research, right? You ask open ended questions. You're looking for interns. Will you provide any kind of UX research, storyboards, information, wirecraft in your key projects and certifications? If I'm working with you for six months, will I get that? I'm not worried about your salary. In fact, zero salary is okay for me. But can you provide the certifications and the key project working opportunity. This can invite a lot of recruiters to you. Don't worry if you are a fresher. Don't worry if you don't have any big case studies projects and all these things. If you only have skills, don't worry. Nobody is reflecting on you or maybe replying. You just use this one message, start pitching with people and tell that I'm not worried about any salary. What I'm worried about is somebody needs to really be accountable with me, acknowledge my key result and provide me the certification at the end of this month. If you feel I'm adding any value, then you provide me a salary. One of the case today, one student interacted with me a day before. He was not seeing that opportunity as a proper opportunity. I told him this seems like a perfect opportunity for you. Use these right words to pitch them. Next day he did that. He got 25k per month salary. Before that he was 0. He was like in a very big depression. Not having job, not having clarity in one day he got that result. So right information to the right person will hook you the right result. It's very important.
Okay?
And you need to ask for these questions, will I be getting some enthusiastic involvement in the project or will I be creating impact through this design and will I get an opportunity? Will I get to interact with clients? All these questions can lead you to open ended answers so that you can clarify with your HR manager or a designer. If the HR manager is saying I don't know this, ask that same HR manager. Can you forward me to any designer who can answer this question? This is how you create a hook. Then it's called closed hook. Closed is like are you available for a call it want to discuss. This is called a closed hook. Like let's say I have a solution for your design problem statement let's say they have posted any problem statement in their profile or LinkedIn page or any design task or something. You're just asking them, I have a solution. Can we discuss at this call? This is called closed loop. You're just telling come this can be reached after building some trust with the people. This can be reached through different interactions. And after that you can pitch them all of these hooks. There are in fact 12 different way in which you can hook guys. But it doesn't matter whether you know all or not on that presence of moment on that instance, what you require, you have to think and do. That's it. Okay, so what do you do? How do you do this exactly? You can do it in four different ways. Your first conversation should have a hook. Not necessarily. It can be a pain point. You can say more than 50% of the designers lack this kind of skills. Particularly I. This is the exact skill I got. So you can see after you hook the person with an attention, then you're creating a pain area and then you're showing it. Maybe it could be screen any framework, any design process. So you could offer anything. That's totally up to you. You can offer a framework design process. Maybe your process is very optimized. Like let's say if 10 steps are taking for a person to go and achieve an application, maybe in your work in your framework, maybe it can be in just 10 steps. Banking, easy loan, that could be a project. So you can just hook them through the solution by creating this. And then what you can do is you need to give a call to action. So ideally your pitch should have a hook, it should tell the pain point, it should offer a solution. What you're trying to say, don't just tell pain, pain, pain. Okay, Just tell your solution in one day you can do a project. Even if you want to understand what is this industry doing, how I can get through the job here? Go and listen to my audio in person. Spotify or Apple one day project, the link will be there in this particular description. You can go and watch it. When people do a project in one day, understanding the pain area of a company, you will penetrate through lot of noises and other applications because that's what people are looking for directly. You can hook them. You need to have a hook, you need to have a pain area, what they're facing. You need to bring your solution to give a call to action. Ask them for a call, ask them for an interview, ask them for a design task. That's how it needs to be done. This is how you initially cut through all these noises and then you can invite them to negotiate to come into your interviews first, to interview you first. And then you can go and do a different kind of a salary negotiation. And all this you can do preparation of mock interviews. You can find out certain common questions, what designers ask, like let's say why do you switch careers? They'll ask like that. They'll ask you what salary expectation is there? They'll ask you like, can you relocate? And they'll ask you like, what's your motivation in a design? So there are some common questions which you can be prepared of. Okay, 76% of the people believe preparation stands out because they may make a very impactful impression in the course of time. Okay, this is about interview strategies and I'll tell you some practice sessions also you can do a mock up interviews focusing on your storytelling. You can find a partner or a peer who can do that. Or if you don't have anybody type out what is your pitch? What is your kind of an interview? When somebody asks you like let's say hey, who are you? Introduce yourself, tell me, why are you expecting this job role? What is the salary you're expecting? If you can do a text of say two to three minutes and paste it in this comment of this video, I'll make sure I read that and I'll give you personalized feedback. If you want to connect with me, you can drop in your email. I can able to do it, no problem. Even you can message me directly from this video so that I'll give you a personalized feedback, what you're lacking, what mistakes you're making. And then you will know exactly how to pitch, how to grab the attention, how to get the thing negotiated for your attention. And then you can go and ask for salaries and value and whatever you want. Mostly I'm talking from a precious point of view, but if you are an experienced person, you need to know how to even do a salary negotiation. First, do a research of what the average industry does. Second, offer what that company is doing exactly in the market, how much is the value they're offering for their other designers and do a benchmarking and try to understand whether the company is going in a positive cash flow or not. And then provide you a value pitch for offering a salary negotiation nobody will give you. I've helped students getting 2x very easily with just using the right words. Recently one of my students have tracked 1.5x. But the point is he did not use the exact words. He got little nervous during that negotiation. Because of that his salary got reduced. RNC would have got at least 12 LPA. Last he ended up in 10.5 LPA. So the usage of right words with the right person at the right time will get you the right offer. Okay, I hope it is very clear for you. I just told you about this one example. In case study, people have increased up to 20 percentage just with doing negotiation ask. It comes with only case to case. It doesn't come with just like random. I have learned the skill, I'll go and apply. It comes with the proper accountability and it requires some mistakes and practice. And then you can do it proficiently without any problem. When you say yes, no, take a time to decide that. Because sometimes the 15 LPA job will have a lot of conditions and agreement which will say like you have to work in night shift. You need to work with this fund of hours. You need to deliver this kind of a task within a month that will screw your life. You need to be very carefully choosing the offer. Whether it's low, high, be clear on what is your requirement and then choose that. Even if they are accepting, you need to ask for time. Sometimes people will pressurize you. Hey, why don't you tell your exact expectation of the salary now? Because I need to close the deal for the hr. The deliverable is they have to close the deal and they have to move for the next candidate. So they want to ask you what's your expectation? You'll be nervous. Will they reject me? Be very clear and confident. Because you did the research in salaryhike.com invite job, LinkedIn, premium everything, right? So you know that 9lpi is what is the expectation I have? Because in the market people give approximately 8 to as an average salary. But I'm just asking you, very fair offer. Nine. But they've initially offered you six. Then what happens is the HR will come back and will say okay, HR will give eight from six. You already increased to eight the moment if you ask exactly this is what I want, they'll not give you. You need to go a little higher to make them come down and close it. This is one technique called salary bracketing. Again, there are a lot of artful techniques which is inside the salary negotiation which I cannot possibly cover in this full video, but in the coming videos I may cover. But also it all depends on the exact presentence. What is your case study? What is that job? What is that description you are facing and how you can create that particular question and ask them if you understand this, be able to get a better offer. Second is I'll give you an activity. Choose any person on a mock up interview or maybe if you are allowed, do this to me in this particular comment and do a role Play. Create a 5 minutes introduction of you and send a voice, note or a text message of them.
Okay.
You can record your voice and transcribe it using AI tools and send that text to me. You can also do a role negotiation in that five minutes. There is a structure to it. You can do it. So tell about yourself personally, professionally and tell about what's the skill you got passion, hobby, don't tell hobby. Your passion should solve a problem then only it's called a skill set or else it's just a hobby. I like cooking, I like gardening, I like car racing. With that are you earning some income or are you helping some other industries and businesses? Then it's called a hobby. How can you help them use your skills? Tell that through your case studies and projects and tell how you can find a fit over there and give them a call to action. Try to tell this in five minutes and then switch on the timer again. Try to tell this in 3 minutes and then switch on again. Then tell it in 1 minute. Give a 3 introduction and send it to me in this video. I'll be more than happy to read all of your comments and give you a personalized feedback how you can improve over the course of time. Because it's not about you're just listening. You have to take action and you will know that this particular action is going to get you results faster. Okay, I hope this video is very clear for you. I wish you all the best to try it out and give me a comment and I'll also send my email id. Whoever wants to send me a personal email with their introductions, please do it. I'll be more than happy to help you out. Okay, take care. All the best. See you in the next video which is the last important video. Bye bye.