Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep83: When to ask about salary during an interview?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of my Grow Your Career online and offline podcast. It's Mei Ping here and today I want to talk about a very interesting topic and it's on when is the best time to talk about salary benefits and perks doing a job interview process?

Starting point is 00:00:47 So this was a recent trending topic on LinkedIn. And my career insight and perspective was also featured by the LinkedIn news team, which is something that I'm very thankful for to be able to share with millions and millions and millions of corporate professionals who are looking to improve their career and get hired. So one of the questions that really came up was, you know, is asking about the companies or the roles, salary, perks and benefits very early on in the interview process is really going to jeopardize your chances of landing the job. So fair right so um when is really the best time to talk about pay because at the end of the day you know we are all we are all working for money i mean

Starting point is 00:01:32 for lack of a better word and to be completely honest about it right you know having a fair you know salary compensation plan right um vacation schedule that's something that i think it's um it's really an exchange for a lot of the hard work and value that we are providing to our employers right to organizations as well so definitely it's a really really big component and for most people who really want to you know be open to new opportunities of course right um increasing their salary and making more money is normally one of the top motivations why people switch uh you know people switch roles right look for new jobs and so forth so completely fair question the thing is um while the salary

Starting point is 00:02:17 conversation has to happen at some point during the entire job interview negotiation process, my view is this, right? You just want to be careful about the timing of when you ask. Like the secret is really in the timing. I have had clients who managed to increase their compensation like overall salary plan by, I mean, their overall salary package by 30 or even up to 50% overall, just by waiting for the right time. And in most instances, the right time is not at the beginning, and it is not during the first interview itself, right? Normally, it's maybe, you know, second or third round, depending

Starting point is 00:03:01 on how senior the people who are interviewing, right, I guess how senior are the interviewers, how much of a decision maker those interviewers are, and normally two hours later during the process, it also allows you as a candidate to better demonstrate your value. So the problem I noticed is candidates who want to really find out about the salary during the first interview itself most of the time when they enter into the interview right they are actually going in with the very um with a wrong mindset already because in their mind it's just about can this company pay me can i get paid paid? Can I get paid? Can I get paid? If you are going into an interview with this kind of mindset, it is actually very difficult to be successful and to

Starting point is 00:03:52 really connect with the interviewer because you're thinking about me, me, me, me, me. But the reason for the overall job interview is to make sure that you can actually do the work and you can actually contribute to the company and the salary right benefits and perks is a compensation for the value that you are going to bring right so this is an important point that you really need to understand because if you don't understand this point then if everything is just about the money I can almost guarantee you that before you even get to the real money negotiation, you would have already lost the chance to even be considered to be hired. Because what it also shows is that you are a person who only cares about the money.

Starting point is 00:04:37 It's not about the growth. You don't really care about contribution. You don't care about the other growth opportunities, the other networking opportunities, the broader exposure that this company or this new role could potentially offer you. So we will not go into how to choose a role and how to choose the suitable job for you. But in today's podcast, I just really want to focus on timing. Like I said, the secret is timing. And if you ask about the salary right at the beginning, or even during the first interview itself, even though you didn't really feel like you performed very well, you didn't really feel like, you know, you didn't get a good feeling that you connected with the interviewer or the interviewer really understood your experiences and really basically get a sense that you are the best best candidate one of the best people that they have met so far

Starting point is 00:05:29 and you ask that question even with those kind of like um negative telltale signs then yeah you will not you will not get the callback for interview i can almost like say this 99 percent that's because that's what has happened to a lot of people and then when they come to me asking me how come I'm not getting the callbacks and blah blah blah and normally when I do the interview review interview coaching sessions with them I always like to tell them you tell me exactly what you've said and like walk me through the entire interview flow right how did you approach your interview who said what and from there on i actually break down to them all the mistakes that they are making during the interview and that also includes what questions not to ask and what things not to talk

Starting point is 00:06:16 about and actually the actual timing of like when they should be saying different things and in most instances those are really the root causes why they're not performing very well so you need to be able to demonstrate your value first and really the first part of the interview right it's making sure that the interviewer really understands like your background skills and experiences and what is your career growth mindset what do you actually want to get out of the job and why did you apply for this role? Right? If you can't answer,

Starting point is 00:06:48 and if like, you know, the interviewer doesn't understand any of these things, then actually it doesn't matter talking about salary because you will never be that person. You will never be that candidate that they will hire because they still don't understand. Like, what is the point of me hiring you? What can you do for me?

Starting point is 00:07:06 Or how can you really contribute? How can i see your skill sets actually fit into this current role that we are hiring right now so all these actually in accumulation is it is a demonstration of value and this is something probably you need at least like half an hour at a minimum to be able to really answer the questions intentionally, really be able to be more precise in the way that you're articulating and expressing your experiences, making sure that you are communicating clearly and concisely, and also making sure that the interviewer also understands and also i guess can see you as a person who can fit into the team right so team culture is definitely very important and just just some of the things that i'm to take note during interview but like i said right idea of today timing is so

Starting point is 00:07:58 critical so um let me share a very quick example with you. So recently, I actually had a client who is a fairly fresh graduate. So she did, after her graduation, she did a one-year traineeship in a company. So now that her traineeship is going to end, like, yeah, it's going to end after one year. So she's in the process of job searching right now. So when she came to me, she had already attended an interview, but she didn't feel like the interview went well. And towards the end, she said the interview was really, really bad. And it actually stressed her out, gave her a lot of stress. So I asked her what happened. And she mentioned to me that, you know, she felt that she could answer all the questions. But towards the end, when the interviewer asked herer asked her also do you have any questions for us and she said oh so like

Starting point is 00:08:50 how much money is this set up is this job going to pay me like she actually asked it in a very blunt way so um uh i think that actually caught the hiring manager off guard and it kind of caught the HR who was also in the room a little bit off guard as well. Because you need to remember that for this particular candidate, she actually only has like one year of like trainee experience. So it's not like a full-fledged sort of like experience, right? So she actually had very minimal experiences,

Starting point is 00:09:22 but the way that she asked it, it kind of came across as somebody who only cares about the money. And it also looks like, you know, as such a junior professional, she doesn't come across as a person who really thinks about her career development, which is actually a very important point as a very junior professional, right? Having that kind of career goal and career growth is something very critical. So now let me tell you what the hiring manager replied her that made me conclude that she's definitely not going to get the callback. So like I said, the hiring manager was caught off guard and the hiring manager pretty much said,

Starting point is 00:10:05 um, okay, but I want to still focus on how you can, you know, contribute if we were to hire you and don't worry about it. When the time comes, we know how much to pay you. Okay, so let me tell you this. If any of you have attended an interview and this is the kind of answer and this is the kind of tone that you are getting from the hiring manager, you are not going to get a call back. It already shows that the hiring manager, the trust and the rapport that you have been trying to spend the past 30, 45 minutes trying to build with the hiring manager, that is gone

Starting point is 00:10:43 the moment you ask this question. Timing of the question, right? Because yes, it's at the end of the session, it's at the end of the first interview view, which you could ask about salary, but only if you really felt that it was like good synergy during the interview itself. So for this particular client, clearly during the interview, she wasn't confident that um they could really get along and they you know she really communicated herself well so even with that kind of doubt she still asked this question um it's a you know red flag and number two the way that she asked the question as well right because she she asked in such a direct manner it makes like i said it makes it sound like she only cares about the money um and that is not a good thing right that's not a good thing that you want to portray Because she asks in such a direct manner, like I said, it makes it sound like she only cares about the money.

Starting point is 00:11:25 That is not a good thing, right? That's not a good thing that you want to portray. So my point here and the key takeaway I want you all to take away from this podcast episode is demonstrate value first. Demonstrate value first and then let's talk about the money later all of my clients who managed to get the best salary increments like 30 up to 50 they always ask it towards the end either is that during the second or third interview or it's they attended an interview with a very very senior person in the company who is a decision maker and they really demonstrate that you know they are the best person they could feel a good sense of like connection with the other with the interviewer

Starting point is 00:12:10 and then they actually ask it in a very polite intentional but slightly indirect way which i normally teach in my one-on-one session so i just want you all to be very cautious about it and i'll just end this with something very quick as well um i'll probably cover this in another episode but it's not always true that you can fully demonstrate your value doing i mean in only one interview sometimes it takes a little bit of time as well particularly if it's a very popular job and many people are applying so don't make the mistake that, you know, one interview is enough, otherwise you're wasting your time. No, that is actually a really wrong mindset.

Starting point is 00:12:49 And like I said, if you go into a job interview with this kind of like really poor, selfish mindset, then I actually urge you to rethink your entire job searching process and job searching strategy, just to make sure that even before you're doing anything, make sure that you have a very clear mindset and the right mindset towards job searching.

Starting point is 00:13:10 Otherwise, if you're going in every single thing, if you have a very negative attitude, then that is not good for your overall career development. So with that, I'll leave you to ponder on how you are approaching job interviews, how you are approaching salary negotiations, whether it's your first job, your next job, or even potentially asking for more salary during a promotion process at work. So I'll leave you with this couple of things to ponder on and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!

Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep83: When to ask about salary during an interview?

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