Secrets to Negotiating the Highest Salary
How do you know if you’ve done what you could to negotiate for the highest salary? A PGY2 oncology resident I’m working with has a dilemma about whether to stay on at the hospital where she’s doing her current residency at a salary that is around $30,000 lower than another offer she has. She would rather stay at the hospital she’s currently at, but the salary difference is so significant that he was bummed. She didn’t think it was possible for them to come back with an offer that he could accept.
What to do in this scenario?
Let me peel back the curtains and share with you a few tips I gave her to use as her personal arsenal during negotiations at the hospital she wanted to stay at. These valuable tips are centered on a mindset shift that can inspire a pharmacy hiring manager to give you more money (or an offer package) than you would’ve imagined.
#1 It’s not all about the money. Approach the conversation with the mindset of partnership. I remember growing up watching my dad negotiate. He had a specific style of negotiating–Hardball. He always started with what someone else offered for the same product or service…”they are doing this for me…so it would make sense for you to do this for me.” I remember thinking that it didn’t “feel good”, even though it seemed to work for him.
That style of negotiating doesn’t work for me, although I mimicked it for years until I discovered it was possible to get the outcome I was looking for while having it feel good.
Negotiation is not just about getting your way. It’s about putting things on the table to come up with the best possible scenario for both of you. For example, you may want 14 additional vacation days and your employer may be ok with this if you agree to work weekends for half the year. You may not come to discover that this kind of exchange would work for both of you until you put things out on the table & brainstorm on how to make it work .
#2 Appeal to the pharmacy hiring manager (HR or pharmacy director)’s perspective and focus on what you can do for them. Help them to see what would it mean for them if they were to hire you over someone else. Will you be saving them time or money by avoiding a hiring decision that doesn’t work out?
For the oncology pharmacy resident I was helping, if she stayed at the same hospital she was doing his residency at, she would be reducing the employer’s risk of hiring a new pharmacist who might not be a fit for the hospital. Plus, since she is already working there, the initial training process would be minimal. Hiring managers know that no matter how diligently they screen during the interview process, they are taking on a risk by hiring someone new.
The cost of turnover is high. Show that your pharmacist experience demonstrates a proven record of excellence that aligns with the hospital’s culture and team, and hiring managers will love knowing that you won’t be a high risk to them.
The reason why going into negotiations with this simple mindset shift is so effective is because it changes the tone of the conversation from “how can I get what I want” to “how can we make this benefit both of us?” Once negotiations are over, the tone you set during the negotiation process can carry over to your working relationship. This will help you start off in the spirit of partnership.
Try using the simple mindset shift above the next time you negotiate for a higher salary/offer. Comment below on what happened before in your previous negotiations that didn’t work for you, so we can all learn from it.
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After you’ve internalized this mindset shift, check back here later for tips on what to do or say during negotiations so that you get the best offer. Plus, stay tuned to hear what happened to the PGY2 oncology resident’s negotiation in a future article.