Employers: Imagine having a job posted for more than 100 days. You finally find a great candidate named Randi. You make an offer because they have 35 plus years of experience and believe they will be a good fit within your organization. However, Randi is pushing for a base salary that is higher than the maximum of the range.
You are a small organization, and Randi compares your offer to other larger organizations and their pay ranges. (The jobs across the employers are the same and at the same career level.)
You make the job offer at the top of your base salary range and communicate all the other non-cash things that you provide as an employer with the hope of getting Randi to say yes.
Then Randi sends a message to one of your employees, Carol. Carol is currently doing the same job that Randi was offered and has been with your organization for more than 10 years. You needed two employees to do this job instead of one to keep up with the volume of work.
Randi tells Carol that they are being offered a low base salary as a new hire and that it is at least $20,000 less than they are seeing posted from larger employers. Randi goes on to say that they hope Carol isn’t also experiencing a low base salary and just wanted to make them aware of what market is for their job.
Carol talks to their manager the next day. The manager then talks with HR. Randi’s job offer is rescinded.
The manager and HR talk with Carol and let her know that they have learned that her pay is lower than market given the interview process. They will be increasing Carol’s base salary in alignment with what they had offered Randi.
Carol’s trust in her manager and HR is damaged. The mess Randi created by sending the message to Carol is making her memorable. But not memorable in the right way.
Don’t be a Randi.
If you need help with your pay negotiation, send me a message. There is a right way to ask for more and there are many wrong ways to ask for more.
#compensation #hr #humanresources #joboffers #paynegotiation #rewards #paycompression #payequity #paytransparency