Q & A Table of Contents
NEGOTIATING PAY AND JOB DESCRIPTION
From: Chicago IL
Question: I've just received an offer from my deparatment as a financial analyst. This position was created for their purpose to keep me as an employee after graduation. This position requires many tasks that involves doing our most recent and important company projects. However, at the same time when I accepted the offer, one of the financial analyst moved to another dept. Right now, they are looking for a replacement, but it doesn't seem like things are working out for them. I've been considering to apply for that position and negotiate to combine my tasks into that. In turn, I would want a competitive compensation. The issue is that I will be graduating in May 1997 and thus will be considered as an entry level financial analyst. The standard salary for this is $28,000 to $32,000. My offer was in between these two ranges. Now, if I negotiate to combine these two jobs, I would like to know whether I could exceed this limit and ask for a higher salary. I would be responsible for numerous projects, but if I get paid accordingly, I would like to take the risk.
Response: The information you provided in your question is a little complicated. Let's see if I have understood you properly:
1. You are currently employed by a company that has offered you something between $28,000 and $32,000 to become a financial analyst.
2. One of the company's current financial analysts is leaving his/her position and you are considering offering to fill both the position you have already been offered and the 'empty space' created by the departure of the other analyst.
3. Your basic question to me is: "If I offer to fill both jobs, can I ask the company for a higher starting salary?"
If I have understood your situation, here is the advice I would offer:
The first thing you should do is some serious homework:
How much was the other analyst paid?
What skills or experience did s/he bring to the job which the company will need in his/her replacement?
Do you have those skills or that experience level?
In other words, you should be able to demonstrate to yourself your capacity to perform the work, then you should be able to demonstrate that same capacity to the company, then you should determine how much value you would offer the company in terms of the compensation (salary/benefits) they would offer you.
You should do all this homework before you raise the possibility of filling both jobs and before you discuss compensation with the company.
You should also ask some other questions -- again beforehand:
What does the company have to gain from changing the description of the your proposed job? Would they be better off hiring an experienced analyst to fill the other position? How much would it cost them to find, hire, and train another analyst? Do you offer them a less expensive alternative, are you someone who can be more productive sooner than a new hire? Do they have alternative folks within the company who can fill the other analyst's job?
What I have described above is the need to prepare, to ask yourself lots of questions. The answers may only be assumptions, and as you test those assumptions against the company's perceptions you may find your assumptions need to be dumped. But at least it gives you a series of bases for analysis.
There is nothing wrong in asking for more money if, as the negotiations go forward, you determine the company is comfortable with the idea of hiring you for the combined position you propose.
In fact, even if you discover the company is going to hire another analyst to replace the one who left, the company may be paying the new analyst less then the previous one -- and thus have more money available to pay you as someone whom they already know. So, even if your post-graduation job is the same as what is now 'on the table', you may be able to ask for an increased starting salary because, in the circumstances, your experience with the company makes you even more valuable to them than you were before the departure of the other analyst.
Obviously there is much more to consider, but I hope this opens your eyes to some crucial preparation you should undertake.
Good luck and good negotiating, Steve.
| 
