How to Negotiate Your Salary

Preparation beats nerve

Salary negotiation feels confrontational, so people avoid it — and leave money on the table that was there for them. It is not a fight; it is a normal, expected step, and employers plan for it. The candidates who negotiate well are rarely the boldest. They are the best prepared. Do the work below before the conversation and you will not need nerve, because you will simply know your position.

Know your number

Walk in with three figures clear in your mind. Deciding them in the moment is how people under-ask.

1. 1

   Research the market range.

   For this role, level and location, find what it genuinely pays. Salary sites, recruiters, and people in the field all help. You want a range, not a guess.
2. 2

   Set your target.

   A specific number near the top of what the evidence supports — ambitious but defensible. This is what you are aiming for.
3. 3

   Set your walk-away floor.

   The number below which you would decline. Knowing it keeps you from accepting something you will resent, and gives you a quiet confidence in the conversation.

Anchor all of this to your value and the market — never to your current salary. What you earn now is history, and often the very thing you are trying to correct. If your current pay is below market, tying the new offer to it just carries the gap forward.

Timing: when to bring it up

The best moment is after there is an offer, when your leverage is highest — they have chosen you and want a yes. Before that, you have little to negotiate with. If you are asked about salary expectations early, try to let them name a figure first; if pressed, give a researched range rather than a single number, framed as flexible. Never volunteer your current salary as the basis.

The conversation

When the offer arrives, you do not have to respond immediately. Thank them warmly, express genuine enthusiasm, and then make your case calmly.

Then — and this is the hard part — stop talking. You have made a clear, reasonable ask. Let the silence sit. The instinct to fill it by softening your number is what undercuts most negotiations. Give them room to respond.

Handling the counter and the “no”

They may meet you, meet you partway, or say the base is fixed. If base pay cannot move, widen the conversation — total compensation is more than salary:

• A signing bonus
• More equity, or a faster vesting schedule
• Extra holiday, or flexibility on how and where you work
• An earlier performance and salary review — say, at six months
• A title that better reflects the role

And if the answer is simply no, a gracious “no” leaves you exactly where you started — with the offer intact. Asking well never costs you an offer that was real.

Email or live?

Either works, and each has a strength. A live conversation lets you read the response and adjust in real time; email gives you a written record and time to phrase things carefully — and to hold your nerve without the pressure of silence. Many people do the ask in writing precisely because it lets them make a clean, unhurried case. Use whichever lets you stay calm and specific.

Common mistakes

• Not negotiating at all.

  Instead: Most offers have room, and asking is expected. Declining to ask often just forfeits money that was there for you.

• Anchoring to your current salary.

  Instead: Anchor to the market and your value. Current pay is history — and sometimes the gap you are trying to close.

• Naming a number too early.

  Instead: Negotiate once there is an offer. Before that, give a researched range and let them go first.

• Talking past your own ask.

  Instead: Make the request, then stop. Filling the silence is how people negotiate against themselves.