Almost all job seekers have been in situations where they realize after they accept a position that they could have asked for more. Yet many people are not comfortable negotiating their employment package because they fear they will be perceived as aggressive and will damage the relationship they h...
Want More Than the Average 2.9% Salary Increase in 2018? Here’s How
According to the 2017/2018 Mercer US Compensation Planning Survey, the average salary increase budget is expected to be 2.9% in 2018, remaining flat from 2017. So how can you be perceived as a top performer in 2018? Here are some tips. Document your accomplishments regularly throughout the year...
Navigating Tough Interview Questions About Executive Compensation
Remember when you were a kid playing Monopoly and you got to the point in the game where you needed to trade property or offer money in order to make a monopoly? You had to decide what you needed to do to stay in the game, and then you had to work cooperatively with the other players to make it happ...
New Job? Four Ways to Improve Your Salary Offer
After guiding thousands of clients through the salary negotiation process, I’ve noticed that when most people begin to negotiate a job offer, they focus on the base compensation and ways to improve it. While you may be able to improve the initial offer, you may not be successful getting to your â€...
How to Avoid Five Job Seeker Frustrations
A large part of my role as a career strategist is to help people in search be accountable and manage the inherent frustrations that are part of every search. Here are the five most common frustrations I see and advice for moving past them. Applying to an online job posting. The Challenge: Some...
Five Ways to Sink a Job Offer
After discussing the salary negotiation process with more than a thousand clients, I’ve found that many of them made mistakes in the past that we corrected during our coaching sessions so they could have better outcomes. Some negotiate too aggressively, damaging the relationship with the hi...
How to Get More Than the Average 2.9% Salary Increase in 2017
According to the 2016/2017 Mercer US Compensation Planning Survey, the average salary increase budget is expected to be 2.9% in 2017, up slightly from the average increase budget of 2.8% in 2016. So how can you be perceived as a top performer in 2016? Here are some tips. Document your accomplishme...
How Women Can Negotiate a Salary That Isn’t Half What Their Male Predecessor Earned
Recent reports regarding GM CEO Mary Barra's salary suggested she was earning half what her male predecessor, Dan Akerson earned. And while the latest reports note that GM has clarified that when Barra's total compensation of base pay, short-term, and long-term compensation is disclosed later this y...
How to Negotiate a $109M Severance Package
There's been a lot of press about Yahoo COO Henrique de Castro getting fired by CEO Marissa Mayer after just one year in the job. Much of the press revolves around his $109M severance package because people are dumbfounded by how anyone could receive so much money for failing. But let's examine th...
Average Pay Increase for 2014 Projected at 2.9 Percent
According to a recent compensation study by Mercer, the average projected merit increase for 2014 will be 2.9 percent, which is slightly higher than last year. As organizations look for enhanced ways to pay for performance, they are segmenting their workforce by high-performing as well as high-po...