Closing The Deal PDF

Closing The Deal Northern College, BU 2073, Miss Amanda Paananen Adapted from: Watter, M. (2012) It’s your move. A guide to Career Transition and Job Search for Canadian Managers. pp. 15-16 You Can’t Negotiate After You’re Hired Once you’ve nurtured a lead into a solid employment opportunity, evalu...

Closing The Deal Northern College, BU 2073, Miss Amanda Paananen Adapted from: Watter, M. (2012) It’s your move. A guide to Career Transition and Job Search for Canadian Managers. pp. 15-16 You Can’t Negotiate After You’re Hired Once you’ve nurtured a lead into a solid employment opportunity, evaluate it thoughtfully and finalize the offer with professionalism. Your references now play a leading role in helping you bring the transaction to a successful close. Manage their involvement carefully. At the same time, scrutinize the opportunity and the offer. Pay special attention to your fit with the organization’s culture. You want to go in with your eyes wide open, or back away for valid reasons. When you discuss your questions and requests for amendments to the offer with your prospective employer, be conscious that your negotiating style will be on full display. You are setting the stage for the new relationship, and you want to establish trust, openness and goodwill. References From the beginning of the transition process, you will have been in touch with the people who can now provide a reference for you. Some may have been part of your close support network, giving you counsel and support along the way. Others will be more distant, but presumably willing to step in and contribute to your success at this point. There may still be others who you feel would not be inclined to give you a positive reference. You must manage the involvement of every potential reference carefully and respectfully. Guidelines For Managing References • • • • • • • Be thoughtful about the people you select as references. Their experience with you and your work should be relevant to the position. If you are currently employed, the hiring organization should not expect you to provide references from within your organization until an offer of employment has been extended and accepted. The offer can be conditional upon final reference checks. Call each person before offering their name to the prospective employer. Describe the position, explain why you are interested in it, how it complements your experience, skills and strengths and how you expect to add value. This will allow them to decide whether or not they feel comfortable providing the reference and it will help them in preparing for the conversation. Gain explicit permission from each person before giving their name to your prospective employer. Tell your references when to expect a call and who will be calling. Prepare a written list with your references’ names, titles, contact information and one line of information about them relevant to the opportunity for which they are being called. When you are offered the job, immediately call your reference providers with the good news. At the conclusion of the process, thank them in writing regardless of the outcome. Tip: It is increasingly common for organizations to ask for references from a 360° perspective. This would include speaking with peers, subordinates, clients, and other superiors as well as individuals who were your bosses. Give advance thought to this possibility and be ready to contact a number of people who could provide a meaningful and supportive reference for you. Managing No-Reference Policies and Negative References There is growing reluctance on the part of organizations to provide references for former employees due to fear of legal liability. The confirmation of name, title and dates of employment is about as far as many will go. Some will also confirm salary. If your former employer has a noreference policy, former co-workers and bosses who have since joined other companies are appropriate alternatives provided, they have worked with you in the not-too-distant past. If you are stuck, you might approach trusted colleagues who are still employed with the organization; ask if they would consider offering a personal reference that does not represent the organization or speak to work-related issues. Tip: A novel way of dealing with no-reference policies is to script your leaving story and provide it to those who will be contacted in the reference-checking process. Ask them to merely confirm its truthfulness when someone calls and relates the story as part of a reference check. Potentially negative references must be handled with care, particularly if one of them is your most recent boss. It’s best to deal with this honestly and openly. Contact the individual who concerns you and tell them where you are in the process of finding new employment. Describe the role you hope to land and how you believe you can make a contribution. Be honest about how you described the reason for your departure, your contribution, your strengths, and areas in need of development. If there are particularly sensitive issues, consider putting your thoughts in writing before making the call. Have a trusted member of your support network vet the content of your message. When you call, be brief and dispassionate. Seek to understand what is being said and negotiate a way to acceptably express each point to your prospective new employer. If your potentially negative reference refuses to have the discussion or remains recalcitrant, pre-empt their remarks by explaining to your prospective employer what they are likely to hear from this person and why. Remain dispassionate. Respectfully provide your explanation of the situation before references are checked. Analyze Your Fit with the Culture From the first point of contact with your prospective employer, you have been experiencing the workplace culture. The compatibility of your personal values and style with that culture will be central to your satisfaction and success on the job. Culture drives morale and productivity more than any other factor in the workplace. People who are not well suited to their employer’s culture either move on or struggle to stay motivated. Tip: Be forewarned: if you are not comfortable at this stage of the game with your potential employer’s culture, your fit with the organization is unlikely to improve over time. If you and the organization’s culture are mismatched, think twice before accepting an offer of employment. Your impression of the environment, your observation of processes and protocol, your experience with the people and what you have learned through your research have given you insight to the values, norms, and behaviours of the organization. These things comprise the organization’s personality or culture. Your intuition is important when analyzing fit. If you do not have enough information about the organization or the position you are being offered, this is the time to find out. Do more research using your network or ask for further conversations with your prospective boss and co-workers to learn more. Evaluate the Offer By the time you receive a written offer of employment, there may be no question in your mind about accepting it. On the other hand, you might have some serious thinking to do. Use the following worksheet and do a thorough analysis of the position, the people and the organization. This analysis will be particularly helpful when you have more than one opportunity to consider. Even if you have only one written offer, surmise the terms of your possible alternatives and use the evaluation worksheet to score them. This can help you decide if it’s worth taking the risk of losing one opportunity while waiting for another. Tip: Don’t think of this as an all-or-nothing exercise. Your objective is to develop a list of things to negotiate and rank them in priority order. Even if an offer seems acceptable, you might find ways to improve it. Negotiate the Deal The foregoing analysis should give you a clear picture of the positives and areas of concern regarding the culture of your prospective employer and the suitability of the job for you. If you are convinced that you have found an ideal opportunity or if you really need the job, you will be more willing to accept features of the offer that are less than perfect. Before opening negotiations, be clear about how important the job is to you. Tip: Don’t feel that you must negotiate changes to an offer of employment. If it’s acceptable, take it as it is! Many aspects of the employment offer will be negotiable, but there are a few that will not. While your prospective employer may be willing to adjust your eligibility date for the benefits package and pension plan, don’t expect them to make changes to the terms of the plan itself. Similarly, the structure of a stock option plan will not be up for discussion, but the number of options available to you will be part of a negotiable remuneration package. Policies regarding confidentiality, ethics and compliance are likely impervious to change at your request. Nonsolicit and non-compete clauses that restrict your activities upon exit from the organization are usually non-negotiable; however, the financial package that you would be entitled to receive upon exit is a matter of negotiation. Find out early in the process which features of the offer are open for discussion. The salary and benefits have probably been negotiated to some extent prior to the organization making an offer in writing. At this point, you are not likely to be able to achieve a significant increase in base salary, but there could be more room for improving the terms of variable pay. Think of remuneration and perks as a composite, and don’t get stuck on any specific point in isolation. If the organization cannot give you concessions in one area, they might have flexibility in another. Go for the best overall deal. If relocation is involved, comparable disposable income and the opportunity to establish equity in property must be considered as a part of the overall package. Tip: If you come to a stalemate in negotiating remuneration, ask for an early review of both performance and remuneration. If agreed, ask that the offer letter be changed or sign it back noting the change. This precaution will give you some protection if the individual negotiating on behalf of the organization is no longer in the same position when the time for the review comes around. Asking for a broader scope of responsibilities, a different job title or a different reporting structure may be met with a definitive “No.” However, the more senior the role, the more competitive the market or the less bureaucratic the organization, the better your chance of success. Sometimes organizations will shape a role to fit an individual who brings a rare combination of skills and knowledge to the deal. Proceed with caution when negotiating factors that go beyond remuneration. Know your position well. Guidelines For Negotiations The best time to negotiate is when you have a written offer of employment in hand. The organization clearly wants you to sign up, and it will be interested in a speedy resolution of the process. This puts you in one of the best negotiating positions you will ever have. Don’t let this advantage go to your head. Every organization has a maximum tolerance level, and you don’t want to push it too close to that line. These negotiations will have an effect on your ongoing relationship with your new employer. • Know your position: - - - Before negotiations begin, use the Worksheet 19.2, “Analyze Your Negotiating Points,” and make a complete list of the points you would like to improve or add to the offer. Establish your minimum acceptable level for each of the negotiating points listed and know your priorities. If the existing terms of the offer are not close to your minimum levels of acceptability, it’s going to be an uphill push, and you need to think about alternatives. What might you be willing to trade off (e.g., variable pay for base salary)? Think about equivalent values. If you are in a period of life where your cash-flow needs are great, higher base salary might be much more important than it is for someone closer to retirement. What is non-negotiable for you? • Know your alternatives: - What other opportunities realistically await you if you cannot come to a satisfactory agreement on this offer? You don’t want to drive too hard a bargain if there is no fallback position. Even if you win your points, you risk tainting the relationship. - Keep all of your other job search initiatives going. - If you are waiting for offers from other organizations, evaluate those opportunities and see how they would score in comparison to the offer in hand. This will give you clarity regarding the wisdom of stalling to see if something better comes through. • Learn as much as you can about the organization’s position. Use your network, ask the search or placement consultant, check with your career transition consultant or ask the individuals conducting the final interviews: - What does an average remuneration package contain for your peers in this organization? - What are the standard compensation levels and where does your position fit? - How are incentives and equity ownership terms usually structured? - What is the range for performance bonuses at your level? - How much authority and flexibility does the person negotiating the deal have? - If flexibility is limited in some areas, is it less limited in others? • Get comparable industry data. Know what others are paying for people like you in similar positions. Enter the negotiations with the intention of finding a resolution that leaves both you and the organization feeling like winners. Negotiate in person if at all possible. Negotiating over the phone or through a third party is not as effective. Begin by affirming your interest and enthusiasm for the opportunity. Confirm items that you agree on and enumerate the items to be discussed in order of priority. For each item, explain your interest or point of view and the rationale behind it. Listen carefully and ask probing questions. Focus on the rationale for the organization’s responses to your requests, not just the answers. Find out what policies or practices make it difficult for them to meet your needs. Remember that you are always communicating with your body language and voice, as well as with your words. Reaffirm your enthusiasm for the position where appropriate throughout the process. If you relent on one point, make sure that you get something else in return. Your goal is to build an amicable working relationship with the people in the organization. Do not give in too soon and do not create a problem for yourself by insisting on a better deal than they can afford. • • • • • • • • • • Tip: How you ask is more important than what you ask.