Negotiation
Benchmark before you ask, not after they offer
Negotiation is mostly preparation. The conversation is short and the research is not.
Ada Nwachukwu
Negotiation writer, Payday Stories
Ada writes about pay negotiation and benchmarking, and thinks most advice ignores who holds the leverage.
Contact Ada through our contact page — mark your message for their attention and it will be passed on.
14 articles
Negotiation
Asking for a rise in a job you already have
Internal increases run on budget cycles and documented contribution. Timing matters more than eloquence.
Pay & Payslips
Monthly, four-weekly and weekly pay produce a different year
The same annual salary paid on different cycles does not meet the same bills at the same time.
Pay & Payslips
The first payslip in a new job is almost always wrong
Part-months, missing tax codes and payroll cut-offs combine, and most of it corrects itself.
Pay & Payslips
Cumulative and period-based tax, and why refunds arrive by themselves
Whether an over-deduction corrects automatically depends on a design choice in your country's payroll system.
Negotiation
The counter-offer, and why accepting one often goes badly
Matching an external offer solves the employer's immediate problem and rarely solves the reason you were looking.
Negotiation
Negotiating an offer when you have no other offer
Most people negotiate from a weak position, and there is more available in that position than the advice usually admits.
Negotiation
Pay compression, and the colleague you trained who earns more
New hires are priced against today's market while existing staff are priced against last year's salary.
Negotiation
Rating scales, distributions and the arithmetic behind your score
Where ratings drive pay, the shape of the distribution decides more than the description of each rating does.
Pay & Payslips
Rounding, decimals and the small payslip errors that repeat
An error of a few units per period is invisible and permanent. Repeated across a year it becomes a sum you would have noticed in…
Pay & Payslips
The annual pay statement, and the reconciliation almost nobody does
A year-end summary of pay and deductions is issued in most systems and filed unread in most households. It is the only document…
Negotiation
Moving internally, and why the rise is smaller than an outside hire's
The same role, filled from inside, is usually priced as an increment on what you already earn. Filled from outside, it is priced at…
Negotiation
Equity in an offer, and what it is worth before anything vests
Shares and options in a compensation package are a claim on a future that may not arrive. Understanding the mechanics is not the…
Negotiation
Two live offers, and how to run them without losing both
Competing offers are the strongest position in any pay negotiation and the easiest to mishandle. The failure mode is usually…