Salary Negotiation These are the 6 worst salary-negotiation mistakes you can make

Salary Negotiation These are the 6 worst salary-negotiation mistakes you can makeSalary Negotiation These are the 6 worst salary-negotiation mistakes you can makeAs a top-billing headhunter for roles ranging from chief executive to the analyst level, a big part of my job welches to negotiate between the candidate and the client what compensation package to settle on. Only upon successful negotiations would I get paid, so I had to excel at this skill to survive. As someone who retired fromheadhunting at a young age, Im excited to share my volume of knowledge I gained from a third-party perspective.At the end of the day, here are the top sixbiggest mistakesand misconceptions Ive seen candidates fall prey to during salary negotiations.1. Relying on one offerBasic supply and demand dictates that the higher the demand for your skill set (assuming the supply of candidates is limited), the more youll be paid. In most skilled/white collar roles, there are more jobs than likable and qualified candidates available, therefore, the question is more importantWhy dont you have more offers brewing? The first mistake is relying on one employer.Why would an employer pay above what they can get away with if there is no competition? Its hard to create a bidding war when no one who wants to buy you. I advise candidates to use other offers to theiradvantage and also to be absolutelyhonest during the interview process. Dont hide the fact that you may have other offers coming inCompetition is good. You will raise your desirability in an employers eye if their top competitors also want to hire you. Your salary will naturally be higher in this scenario- this is the beauty of leveraging. Use this to your advantage and drop the hint that youre hot stuffIf, in your job type, there are more candidates than jobs available, then youre looking at an even bigger problem. You will elend be able to negotiate that much if youre operating in a role in which you are a commodity and easily replaced (worse yet, eventually automated). If youre relatively substitutable, you probably cannot negotiate for a higher salary above what is the market norm. For most jobs, there is a maximum ceiling, unless you bring something truly unique or add value.2. Not doing enough researchIf you rely on the negotiation at the end of the process to dictate your future, youre taking a big gamble. You should have been using market information from day one to set the stage for your negotiation strategy and expectations. Waiting until the end is the ultimate cat-fishing move for both parties involved.I always prefer to set the stage from the very beginning, or as early as I feel the tide turning in my favor. Once the phone interview is done and the face-to-face is being scheduled, Im already calculating and thinking ahead what numbers would be reasonable to me.3. Becoming an unemployed job-seekerI talk a lot about theDandan Global Power Spectrum- the basic tenant is that the more unhappy you are with y our job, the worse bargaining position youll be in.Unless you have some rational reason for why youre unemployed (winning the lottery, being extremely rich, having no kids/family to support, working within an industry where you dont have to continually stay employed), employers tend to view unemployment unfavorably. In cases where there is a layoff, and you have a severance, this is understandable.But too long of an unemployment timeframe impacts your desirability because there will be more questions to answer, such as Why havent you been able to find employment? Are you lazy, unqualified, incompetent, or just simply burnt out? Meanwhile, other candidates who are happily employed will also be competing for the same roles you are. Double whammy.The market value of someone employed is very easy to calculate- its their current salary or adjusted counter-offer amount. As someone who is unemployed, youre a bit of a guess, and theres only your past salary to work with. So again, this is w here you need to decideWhere are you willing to settle? Essentially, youll need to decide your strategy early on Either roll the dice on salary at the end and wing it, or dictate from the beginning what you want in a transparent manner.No matter what the scenario is, it helps to have money saved up at all times to make sure you dont get desperate to take on a job simply for the money. You never know what may happen, and you dont want to get sucked into a crappy job because you didnt plan accordingly. Theres a reason why various pundits will harp on the idea of the emergency fund, and rightfully so.4. Focusing too much on the moneyThe biggest complaint I have with negotiation gimmicks is that people propagate theidea that there are a few words or strategies that will magically fool an employer to pay double or triple the amount of money for you. That rarelyhappens. If it does, it isnt always a good thing.I worked with clients who are terrible people and horrible managers. Guess what? They usually pay above market rates for their talent The people who get wooed into that scenario forget to look at the opportunity and what theyre getting for their money. Are they really going to learn skills to increase their future employability? Are they working with a manager and within an environment that is conducive to a happy, enjoyable, healthy working environment?No The answer is no They may work there for a year, but will quickly leave and find another place sometimes for the same if not lower salary. Those environments are unnatural and unsustainable Any employer willing to pay unnaturally high rates definitely is undergoing something theyre not telling you.If youre an amazing organization, you dont and wonthave to bribe people to join you Im not saying this is always the case, but it certainly should raise a red flagfor you to investigate further. Dont be fooled by their desperation to hire you at all costs.None of my clients whowere halfway decent employers couldbe f ooled like that. Smart employers know the game a lot better than any gimmicky person out there. And besides, if youre able to double or triple your salary, that may be a one-time feat only (max twice, anyone else who does it more than that is too rare to replicate). That wont happen consistently, because market dynamics do not allow for that on an every day basis. Otherwise inflation would be through the roof5. Knowing what else the compensation package encapsulatesPeople place too much emphasis on the kusine salary as the most important piece to negotiate. Theyre forgetting one veryimportant compensation factor equity. The equity is what matters if youre looking for a true windfall Make sure youre not negotiating the small stuff andmissing out on the big stuff.Warning Many times, people from established businesses feel that its a risk to join a smaller company that is in an earlier stage of growth. They prefer large-cap companies, but then they miss the true windfall when a stock g oes from $50 to $600 like one of the clients I worked with. As a mid-sized company, everyone I placed there eventually became millionaires off of the equity package alone. At that point, does $10k on base matter compared to the $100k you can earn on stock options/restricted stock units? Dont miss the big win due to a small gripe. That may lead to regret further down the line.This is why you should never attempt to do my next and final point6. Behaving belligerently and/or with paranoiaSome people are so concerned about $5k or $10k on base salary, that theyll miss the job/offer entirely. I had a candidate who made such a stink about $5k that they lost their offer. The client was so turned off by their aggressive, give-me-all-you-got-I-know-you-have-it attitude. Remember, $5k after taxes is a little over $2,500. Why lose a job at $130k for $2,500?Not only was that candidate extra greedy, they were also extra entitled, and therefore extra rude. They treated their best friend in the hir ing process, their headhunter, like garbage. They were rude, aggressive, and mean. Again, totally unnecessary behavior. Even the HR person could hear this persons negativity and counseled against the hire.Please be careful how you negotiate and how you treat people in the process It does no one any favors by behaving like a total tyrant who thinks theyre the only person on earth who can do the job. Whether you like it or not, there is competition, so if companies have other employees to consider, you bet theyll take their chances.At the end of the day, employment is a two-way street it has to be fair on both sides. I have boosted peoples salaries by 10percent to 30percent on average, but its because they earned it. The employers I worked with understood that unterstellung are high-value employees so they were happy to pay extra.Ultimately, the point I am trying to make is that you should be easily able to achieve what you want if you know how the hiring process worksare competent in your role and have done a good job in your careerknow how to work with people who will help obtain the maximum amount of offers for youideally are looking for a new job when youre employedand are likable to bootThis article originally appeared on Quora.