How much bacon do you want to be makin’?
How much green do you need?
What’s the spread of your bread?
What’s the stage of your wage?
There may be many ways to phrase the salary expectation question BUT there's only one way to answer it.
SAY: I WILL CONSIDER YOUR BEST OFFER.
Isn't that avoiding theuestion? You bet! And that's exactly what you should do. Why?
- Because once you give them a number, the interview becomes about the number and not the value you bring.
- The interviewer, consciously or unconsciously, weighs your answers to questions like: "Tell me about your biggest challenge" against the figure you gave them.
- They're no longer able to listen to unbiased. And the bias makes you either reasonable or unreasonable, a ripoff or a steal, an egomaniac or an idiot.
Everything becomes colored by the price tag.
Don't believe me?
Suppose you're in the market for a new car , you have 40k to spend, and a friend tells you that the Porsche dealer down the road over-ordered 2008 Porsche Caymans and that there's one on the floor available below sticker.
So you hustle over to the dealership. The Caymans are all either red or black, you'd love either color. What's the first question in your mind?
How much?
If the salesman's any good, he's not going to answer your question. He's going to tell you about the Tiptronic transmission and how you can shift between economy and sport. He's going to invite you to sit in the car so you can touch and smell the new leather. He's going to tune the radio to your favorite station so you can hear it through BOSE speakers. He'll do all this until you're salivating for a ride and once you've driven the car, fallen in love, and decided that you have to have it, well...the salesman's in a stronger position then when you first walked into the showroom,right?
Had the salesman told you 50k when you first walked into the showroom, you might have turned around and walked out. But now that you want the car, must have the car, you might just go find the money, sell a motorcycle, dip into your savings, forgo a trip to Hawaii...something.
So what's your next employer willing to spend on you? If you're good at what you do and you know how to sell your skill set, the later you discuss dollars the higher your price tag will be.
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