Page 291 - Marky Stein - Get a Great Job When You Don't Have a Job-McGraw-Hill (2009)

Get a Great Job When You Don’t Have a Job

even say them out loud or into a tape recorder. Look at
all you know. Look at what you can do. Look at who you
are. You didn’t just pull this stuff out of thin air. You
really did it! You deserve an exceptional reward for the
value that you bring.

One Job, Two Different Salaries
Let’s have a look at Thomas and Stephan, two men who
approached the issue of salary discussions very differently and
ended up with quite different results.
Thomas is a 34-year-old technical recruiter with five years’
experience. He’s been out of work for several months and is get-
ting anxious about finding a job. He’s already gone into debt
after being laid off three months ago, and he’d really like to get
an offer from today’s interview. In the back of his mind, he knows
he will accept any reasonable offer. Anything would be better
than continuing to be unemployed.
Thomas figures he already knows about interviewing tech-
niques because in his last job, he interviewed other people. When
Thomas interviewed for this recruiting position in a staffing com-
pany, he walked away with an offer of $30,000 base salary plus
commissions and a full benefits package.
Stephan has only three years’ experience in technical
recruiting and is 37 years old. He’s done considerable research
on interviewing techniques, salary negotiation, and the company
he is interviewing with. Though his finances have gotten very
tight during a period of three months of unemployment, he’s
willing to wait it out for the right job at the right salary. Stephan
has an interview today at the same company that Thomas is inter-
viewing with. Although he has less experience than Thomas,
Stephan negotiates for a salary of $60,000 plus commissions with
full benefits, a hiring bonus, several perks, stock options, and
permission to telecommute from home two days out of the week.
What happened here?
How did Stephan, with two years’ less experience command
$30,000 more in salary, plus extensive benefits, perks, and stock
options? The chart below examines some of the things Thomas
and Stephan did differently.

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