Okay, I know everyone is weary from the talk about the weak economy we all slogged through last year… I am just as exhausted as the next person. Jobs are scarce, many of us spend countless hours wondering if our careers will ever get back on track, and companies are reluctant to even think about compensation packages that might hint of impropriety. However, I must take a moment to admonish some of you for your very apparent lack of judgment about when to dig your heels in as it relates to negotiating compensation.

 

One could argue both sides of the compensation coin, I suppose – hold your position and ask for as much as you can get (typically comes from someone who feels wronged by the corporate beast), or give in to the conservative nature of today’s offers and be thankful to have a job (the percentage of the population who truly understand the new career paradigm). I, for one, am an advocate of the latter. Having said that, let me share with you a recent situation I had with a candidate that is mind boggling given the fact that in the U.S. we have the highest unemployment rate our generation has ever experienced.

 

Let me set the stage. As is standard fare when conducting searches, I always glean the fundamental compensation information when a candidate first enters the process – annual base salary, target annual bonus, round numbers on equity, and any long term compensation components. Then when a candidate becomes one of the top two finalists in the search, we expect them to reveal all compensation components (large and small) in an Excel spreadsheet designed to provide us and our clients with as many details as possible.

 

In the case of this one particular Fortune 500 company search, we knew the client had very strict compensation parameters due to such factors as internal peer equity issues, talent experience, as well as years of experience. Knowing that the client could not veer from this cap I decided to communicate even more forthrightly than usual about this subject to each candidate as they entered the search process.

 

The finalist candidate (who was unemployed when we involved her in the search), had an annual salary about 15% higher than our client’s cap; she communicated to me that she was comfortable with a reduced salary if the entire compensation offer made good financial sense – agreed! When it came time to make the offer and discuss her reaction, she made a fatal mistake by deciding to trump the honesty of our earlier talk about salary. After I made the initial offer, she decided her position was that she deserved an annual base salary that was 40% higher than what she had been paid in her last job – this, despite the fact that the balance of the compensation package was far greater than what she had at her last job.

 

Now, while I appreciate as much as the next person the fact that it is easier to negotiate down than up, what she did was disingenuous and ultimately she positioned herself as manipulative and more interested in her own well-being. Management was seeking a team player with a vested interest in the advancement of their organization like themselves.…needless to say, she exited the process.

 

Tip of the Month: Don’t let greed undermine your “mental availability” to compete for a job – ultimately we will all make up for much of what has been lost in this recession.