We regularly get asked questions by our candidates that ask us to explain areas of the recruitment process. For example, ‘who decides what salary I will be offered?’ and ‘how is that decision made?’. There are many of these questions so we thought we would start answering them in these posts. We’ll answer them as they come up, so please send us queries if you would like anything in particular covered.
In regards the salary you are offered then, the usual factors that a business takes into account when making an offer are:
1) Your current salary and package – be aware that some businesses have a set policy on the % increase they are willing to give. So regardless of what the package on offer is, your current salary will have an impact.
2) Your skills, experiences, competencies relative to those required – Although offered the role, it doesn’t always follow that the successful candidate has fulfilled all of the asked for criteria. Therefore your salary could be less than, or more than, expected depending on what you bring to the job.
3) Current team members – you may have ticked every box throughout the recruitment process but ended up with a lower salary than expected because of the current team. This may be because someone else in the team has the same skills/experiences as you, but a lower salary. Therefore it can be very hard to justify bringing you in at a higher salary level regardless of how well you performed at interview.
4) Demand – if you have a rare skill set or are willing to do a role that most others would reject you can sometimes be offered a premium. Unfortunately this is fairly rare in current market conditions.
5) Competition – When a selection process is particularly competitive there can often be more than one person who could be offered the job. So in some situations a company will try to offer the lowest salary they deem reasonable, as they know that at least one of the candidates will accept. This happens more often in current market conditions.
So as you can see there are a number of factors that can be taken into account that you will not be made aware of. This can be very frustrating as a candidate, as you do not always have visibility of the decision making process and it can seem completely illogical! Our advice is to work with your consultant to try and maximise your offer, but also to try and be as pragmatic as possible. Try to decide on your minimum acceptable salary based on your situation, not what the possible maximum salary on offer was. Otherwise you may face disappointment based on the above factors that you and your consultant may well have no visibility of, let alone influence over.