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Is it okay to do this, or is it automatically implied that it's negotiable?

Masked Man
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bmarkham
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  • The salary is always negotiable; but, if you set it too high, then they just don't bother to call you back. If you set it too low, they'll still act like you have asked for a lot, and will test you to see if you will take less. Ask for what you want, and maybe a few thousand above that for the odd shop that tries to get you to cut your expectations. – Edwin Buck Nov 09 '21 at 21:26
  • If it is your first job, maybe. But I think if you're at a current job you should take your current salary and add about 20-30% to that. Like if you make 70k now, ask for 90k and you can negotiate from that. – Dan Nov 09 '21 at 21:39

3 Answers3

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If the company is okay paying the desired salary you write, they will agree to it. If they are not okay, they will negotiate anyway, so appending negotiable doesn't add anything. Quote a desired salary slightly higher than your "real" desired salary, so that they feel like they have been "successful" in negotiating it down while you get what you want.

If you quote too high, they may put you out of the reckoning entirely. If you quote exactly your desired salary, you may end up with a less than desired offer, especially if they have some silly internal policy that every offer must be negotiated downwards and/or the HR person's bonus is tied to the amount negotiated down.

Masked Man
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  • I know this isn't part of my question, but since you mentioned it, I would like to follow up on what you said. How much is TOO high of a quote? In terms of yearly salary, is quoting above 5k about right? Or is quoting 10k about right? – bmarkham Oct 31 '16 at 07:29
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    It is not clear what currency you are referring to, but it helps thinking in relative terms. It also depends on the position. A CEO asking 40% higher may be okay, but a junior employee asking the same is unacceptable almost everywhere. It also depends on the local norms and the industry. In short, there are too many factors to account for for me to give you a definite percentage. You will need to do some research on the salary levels in your place, then decide. – Masked Man Oct 31 '16 at 07:46
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    @bmarkham Usually, ask for between 5-15% more. 5% junior, 10% intermediate and 15% senior. Direction posts are another story as Masked Man said. So if you want 50k and are intermediate, ask for 55k. If it's 90k, ask for 100k (round it up, as 99k would looks odd) – Carlos2W Oct 31 '16 at 15:57
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    "Quote a desired salary slightly higher than your "real" desired salary, so that they feel like they have been "successful" in negotiating it down while you get what you want." Unless your desired salary is the legal minimum wage (which can be a real thing in Australia, since the award system used to calculate the minimum wage accounts for things like the type of work being done and the amount of experience the person has). – nick012000 Nov 08 '21 at 08:32
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    +5% is below the noise threshold at all levels, IMO ... go with +15%, unless you're in a high-bulls###er culture, which includes all C-levels as noted – Pete W Dec 02 '21 at 00:14
  • And if you absolutely feel you have to specify what you want and not more and are ok with rejecting any attempts to negotiate you down, use an oddly specific salary amount, such as 57,375 –  Dec 05 '21 at 04:03
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It's not a good idea to give your desired salary AND to add "negotiable". Because that tells the company that you will be accepting less, which weakens your negotation position instantly.

If I say "$80,000" and you say "$80,000, negotiable", when we both think "$80,000 would be very nice, $75,000 would be acceptable, and $70,000 if I cannot manage to find any other job", I'd bet that I get a higher initial offer than you, and I find it easier to negotiate it up. Like I get offered $75,000 and we agree on $78,000 (close to "very nice"), when you get offered $70,000 and you agree on $73,000 (not quite acceptable, but better than no job).

gnasher729
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  • What if you in your example you write "$90,000, negotiable" versus $80,000? –  Dec 05 '21 at 04:04
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It is absolutely acceptable to write "negotiable" and not give them a number. Some schools of thought in fact recommend avoiding giving a number.

Some articles following this school of thought:

Anecdotally in my experience I believe "good" companies will answer you if you asked them what their salary band available for their position is in response to them asking you for a number. They may however still demand you give them a number, you can try to keep some wiggle room by prefacing what you give them to be a placeholder number or range.

user1821961
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