Someone just asked me what a fair percentage, over their current salary, is fair to ask when offered a promotion to go from Senior Manager to Director. “Is 10% fair?” they asked.

I cautioned against connecting your current salary level to any negotiation for another job. Negotiations should focus on the responsibilities of the new job and/or the value of any other benefits that may come with the new position, like added vacation or bonuses.

Let’s do some math:

For the sake of argument, consider the current salary of the Senior Manager to be $120K.
A 10% increase would result in an additional $12K

But let’s break that down,

$12K, after taxes at a conservative rate of 35%, would be $7.8K

Using an estimated 1950 work hours per year, the Director position would result in $4.00 dollars more per hour. (Directors don't get paid by the hour, this is just to put the amounts into perspective).

$4.00 per hour for a typical day of wages at 7.5 hours means making $30 per day more if the Director position was taken.

Is $30.00 per day worth the added responsibility, workload, stress and/or pressure?

That’s the question.

Of course, there are a ton of other variables when getting into salary negotiations.

What advice would you give?

#negotiationskills #salarynegotiation