Justify Your Numbers
Justify Your Numbers
Justify Your Numbers
Negotiating a student affairs job search is already difficult. That’s often compounded when you’ve finally got some really great traction with an institution. You’ve been selected for a first round interview. You aced it! You’ve made it to the second round. You were a little nervous; but the hiring manager got back to you the next day. They want YOU to join their team!
You’re excited! You’re ecstatic! You want to accept the position NOW since you’ve been searching for so long! But you should slow down…
It’s true: this is a big step for any student affairs professional. It’s an especially big step if you’re just breaking into the field. This is where you should be most careful. You’ll need to consider the pros and cons of taking on this position. You have to look at the location; the institution; the culture; and structure.
Most of all you have to look at the compensation. Will they pay you a rate that is competitive and representative of your knowledge, background, skills, and abilities? If not, then you’ll have to start negotiating. This is when you’ll have to be savvy and clever about justifying your numbers.
This article will review how to justify your numbers and your compensation package at the end of the student affairs job search. It’ll include how to explain your reasoning as well as how to begin the conversation about increasing the offered compensation. It’s important to stay objective; remain logical; and quantify your “ask” during this process. That’s why this article will also address how to include recent accomplishments; institutional knowledge; and market worth as part of your negotiation plan. Finally, this article closes with strategies that include aiming high; preparing responses to questions; and timing your negotiation correctly.
Explain your reasoning
The end of your student affairs job search is the ideal time to negotiate your salary. That’s because an offer has been made for you to join the team. They indicated that they want YOU. You have made it past every step of the job search so far. THEY know that you’re valuable. SO it’s time for you to demonstrate the same. You now need to defend your value and why you desired compensation is justified.
That’s why it’s also important that you offer up specific examples of what makes you a competitive candidate. Perhaps you have internship or professional experience in the functional area. Perhaps you’ve worked for the institution in the past in a different capacity. Maybe you even spearheaded an initiative that the institution is now trying to adopt. All of these experiences add value as a professional.
Ensuring that you detail and outline these experiences will be critical for laying the groundwork in the conversations ahead. Knowing where you can bring experience and value to the office, institution, and position is important. But so is relating how that experience translates into an overall compensation figure will help you determine if this is an offer worth pursuing.
How to navigate an increase in pay
This is a difficult conversation. There isn’t nicer way to put it. Negotiating salaries is something that many professionals have trouble doing – student affairs professionals especially. But negotiation is a skill that grows with you over time. It’s something that you CAN become better at with practice.
That’s why it’s important to preface your conversation with the hiring manager by providing tangible connections between your experiences, knowledge, abilities, and the role. Making that connection early on is important: because it provides the foundation for how the institution and the hiring manger can make your “ask” a reality.
Stay objective; remain logical; and quantify
Negotiating salaries is often a very emotional process. Most professionals feel that way because we have to reflect deeply on our own experience and quantify it with a number. That is incredibly challenging since our work can be difficult to assess and quantify.
However, it’s important that you stay objective; remain logical; and quantify how your experiences add value to the office as your navigate your negotiation process. That is how you justify your worth as a professional in the position.
One of the ways that you can do that is to use market data; comparable responsibilities; and the scope of duties and projects to determine what compensation package would be most reflective of your professional status. Gaining market information is one of the easiest and first steps that you can take given the plethora of salary research tools available.
Once you’ve outlined your reasons for why you deserve a competitive salary; it’s now time to lay out your argument for the hiring manager in a thoughtful, logical, and compelling way. Such a structure will create a pathway for you to follow through your salary negotiation as well as justify the reasoning behind your market worth.
Recent accomplishments
One of the first things that you can include in your salary negotiation script is any recent accomplishments that you’ve made in your past internship, assistantship, or professional positions. These accomplishments can include the research and formation of a new residential life policy; the adoption of a new advising model; or the completion of a significant project from your past institution.
One technique that I’ve also relied on in the past is to have current students, colleagues, and faculty members share with me their accolades for different projects and initiatives that we’ve worked on together. Whenever they have something nice, compelling, uplifting, or positive to say; I save it as PDF in a folder which I refer to later.
This folder has grown overtime as a detailed, chronological, and community supported representation of the value that I’ve brought to my office, position, and institution. It represents the words of colleagues who recognize your contribution and serves as “social proof” of your efficacy as a professional.
Gathering evidence of your contributions and their impact in this way helps you both detail your growth as a professional in the field as well as document how others see you in the role. Two characteristics which help define you as a distinct and competitive student affairs professional.
Institutional knowledge
Another way that you can add value as a professional in your position is to demonstrate your institutional knowledge for the role and the office. This often comes into play when you’re the internal candidate aspiring to take on a new role at your institution. As the internal candidate you are already familiar with the culture and structure of the college or university and therefore ALREADY add value by not spending valuable time and resources being brought up to speed like an external candidate.
Often knowing how to navigate the bureaucracy of an institution is an advantage in and of itself. However, another way that you can add value as an internal candidate is knowing where you CAN’T add value. This seems kind of odd to think about; but as an internal candidate you already know where a position and its responsibilities contribute best to the outcomes of the institution. By knowing WHERE to focus activity is just as important as knowing where to let others do the work that they’re best suited for.
Sometimes the best way to add to a role is know where you can take a step back and let other colleagues demonstrate their own strengths.
Market worth
Of course market worth will play a critical part of your negotiation process. Knowing what others are being paid for in the same role in the same geographical area should be part of your research into the role. That means that knowing this average salary for the position can be used as justification for you to begin your negotiation process.
Though it’s not important to “just show up” with numbers in hand. Numbers do help make your argument. But they aren’t they only factors that influence a salary negotiation process. Instead; come to the conversation prepared with how your experience combined with your past projects; recent accomplishments; and earned accolades from your peers represent value to the office, role, and institution.
Aim high
Part of beginning your student affairs salary negotiation process is knowing where to begin. Often the hiring manager will offer you a starting figure. Then it’ll be up to you to determine where to go next. Sometimes professionals are caught off guard when the starting figure is higher than what they expected. Likewise, sometimes they’re appalled because it’s much lower than they expected.
However, you should take care to “aim high” during the initial stages of the negotiation process. This means beginning with range on the upper end that you can justify with your research, background, knowledge, skills, and abilities. Just remember that you’ll need to justify this starting number and can remain flexible with what salary you’ll eventually land on.
Aiming high has the distinct advantage of providing you with more leeway and more room to maneuver when a final starting salary is eventually determined. In this way; aiming high helps you avoid your “walk away number” and helps you settle on your “acceptable number” during the process.
Remember that this is not the time to sell yourself short during the negotiation. The hiring stage may be the only time that you’ll be able to negotiate for a significant change in your compensation for the role.
Prepare to respond to questions
Any hiring manager that is worth their weight will always critically examine your request for a greater starting salary. That’s why you have to come to the conversation prepared to respond and provide justification for your numbers throughout the process.
Some of the most common questions that you’ll encounter on a regular basis will have to do specifically with your recent accomplishments and how they factor into and provide value to the role, position, and institution. This is where you’ll have to outline just how your activities can directly help the hiring manger.
Timing
Of course, justifying your numbers only has a place when you are ready to defend them. That’s when timing comes into play. Justifying your numbers has the greatest impact when you are in the job search and are negotiating for your starting compensation package. It also helps when you are coming up for an annual review and are trying to justify a change in compensation based on your activities; accomplishments; and projects.
You also have to be sensitive about other outside factors that may influence and otherwise detract from your justification. This could come in the form of institutional instability in changes of leadership; recessions; and mass layoff’s.
Justifying your numbers and asking for a raise can be daunting. However, you want to use all of your accomplishments; data; influence; and knowledge on your side in order to make the best case for earning as much as you should.
Takeaways
This article reviewed how to justify your number and your compensation package at the end of your student affairs job search. It included how to explain your reasoning as well as how to begin the conversation about increasing the offered compensation. It’s important to stay objective in this process; remain logical; and quantify your “ask” during this negotiation. This article addressed how to include recent accomplishments; institutional knowledge; and market worth as part of your negotiation strategy. Finally, this article closed with strategies that included aiming high; preparing responses to questions; and timing your negotiation correctly.
I hope that you found this article useful! If you need some additional help on your student affairs job search, then check out the eBook The Student Affairs Job Search: A Comprehensive Guide available here.
Happy searching,
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Cite this Article
Eng, D. (2020, June 30). Justify Your Numbers. Retrieved MONTH DATE, YEAR, from http://www.jobhakr.com/blog-1/2020/6/30/justif-your-numbers
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