Make More Money!: The Fine Art of Asking ... Most Don't
170
Make More Money!: The Fine Art of Asking ... Most Don't
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781491797457 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 05/27/2016 |
| Pages: | 170 |
| Sales rank: | 965,982 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.36(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Make More Money
The Fine Art of Asking ... Most Don't
By Jack Worth Milligan
iUniverse
Copyright © 2016 Jack Worth MilliganAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-9745-7
CHAPTER 1
An Overview — How to Use This Book
The employment process is complicated. Sometimes the technology is overwhelming, and there is much uncertainty and, unfortunately, very little feedback. In America, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the civilian work force is somewhere near 140 million individuals, and the unemployment rate is somewhere around 5.2 percent, which adds another 7 million that would like to employed. Every one of those employed and millions of others not counted in the labor force have experienced the challenge of a job search. Some of those searches have been easy, some more difficult. This book is designed to lighten that burden, ease that path, and enrich the final outcome for all those who are searching for new employment now and in the future.
Among those currently employed, there are perhaps millions that are underemployed and are currently seeking an opportunity that is more fulfilling. This book is intended for anyone remotely interested in getting a job, because the negotiation process, which most people avoid like the plague, if done correctly can accelerate your retirement security and give you economic advantages during your employed years that you never thought possible.
Whether you are currently employed, underemployed, unemployed as part of that 140 (or so) million people who are counted, a student, or a member of the armed forces (who aren't counted), this book should help you. Even if you are a high school student looking for part-time work, this book is for you too.
Make More Money was originally focused on the end of the employment process. Salary negotiation is the final hurdle to overcome before you get the pleasure of being onboarded at your new employer, and as you just learned from the preface, most people skip the opportunity to negotiate in the heated rush to get to yes and start their new job. Wealth in the millions of dollars is left on the table each and every year as the vast majority of people who could negotiate choose not to, leaving thousands of dollars of wealth uncollected. I will make several references to this honey pot of money that most people leave on the table. Hopefully, after reading this book, you will ask (appropriately, of course) for more and put that honey pot to work for you and your family. I have expanded the original focus (salary negotiations) to include the upstream and downstream aspects of a job search, which should provide a helpful context for those in a job search.
I also want to introduce you to the notion that all jobs are temp jobs. No matter what you may have heard, there are no permanent jobs. No exceptions. It is globally, universally, and galactically true that all jobs end. As you toil away in your current job, rest assured it will end someday. As you start your new endeavor with the next employer, it too shall end. All jobs end; there is no such thing as permanent work. Appreciating this will help you understand, expect, and negotiate for the end (of that job) before you start. See chapter 17 for more on this.
My book is titled Make More Money for a simple reason. I want to introduce you and everyone remotely thinking about the employment process to the notion of asking appropriately for more. It won't hurt, it's nontoxic, it's easily done, and as long as you do it correctly, there is no risk, and it almost always pays off. What a concept!
To all the women out there who toil away next to men who earn more money and rise through the ranks more rapidly and just plain get more out of the employment experience, I have written chapter 14 especially for you. Once I got into the research on the why part of this sorry state of affairs, the causes began to make sense, and therein lies a contradiction; it doesn't make sense really. We human beings populating this planet are all products of our environment. Our behavior is whittled and chiseled and formed and polished and refined in the bubbling, crackling caldrons we call home. We enculturate, emulate, educate, and tolerate behavior from our boys that would be unacceptable for our girls, and the outcome of this environmental reality is inappropriate, unjust, and unfair. This little book might help fix that.
While the book is focused on the fine art of asking (appropriately) for more, negotiations do not take place without going through all the preparatory steps of getting you there. You must do the other things well to get you through the hiring process and to get the offer. So I have included chapter 10 about getting you there. This book is designed around the anatomy of an offer (chapter 5). Thankfully, there is only one rule of salary negotiation according to Jack. I will go into detail about that one rule and show you how to play your A card and get some time, which is part of what you must do to maximize your negotiation experience.
All the chapters of this book are designed to get you to that point. Nevertheless, you can pick up this book and go only to the issue of importance to you. If you go through from start to finish, you should find information helpful throughout the job search process. These techniques are usable if you are unemployed or underemployed. They work within your own company for upward mobility, and they have a shelf life of forever.
I will close the book with some suggestions that should resonate with all generations in the workforce right now (there are five of them), about the special effort required as you settle into your new environment and, to borrow a phrase from Michael Watkins's great book by the same title, The First 90 Days at your new job are unimaginably important in creating a successful future. Beyond that, it is also important to recognize that the days of corporate entitlement are pretty much gone; your employer is not going to take care of you. You are a free agent, totally responsible for your own career development, and if you don't make it happen, it probably won't, so I have included a chapter on that subject.
I have had the rare and rewarding experience of working up close and personal with people on both sides of the employment coin. The first twenty-five years of my career were spent in corporate human resources work. The past twenty years have been spent as a career coach and outplacement specialist working closely with thousands of people in search of their next opportunity. These two unique perspectives allow me to have a special awareness of how jobs get created and how people get hired. The forces at work are occasionally in conflict, but know this: organizations don't get anything done without people, and the most important ingredient in providing a sustainable, competitive advantage is human capital, which is you. For employers, the best way to create a sustainable, competitive advantage is through hiring the right people. For employees, the best way to a better economic reward is to ask for more. Most people don't.
CHAPTER 2There Are Only Two Kinds of Jobs out There: Rated and Ranged
According to the US Department of Labor, there are approximately 150 million people in the American civilian nonfarm, nonmilitary labor force . Many of those jobs are unique, and many of those jobs are positions that are similar or identical to others around them. There are dayshift jobs and nightshift jobs and part-time and full-time jobs. There are seasonal jobs and rotational jobs and salaried jobs and hourly jobs, inside and outside jobs, and jobs that pay commission only, and some that pay commission in addition to a base rate. You get the point; there is an endless variety of jobs out there.
But when it comes to negotiating your salary, there are only two kinds of jobs out there, rated and ranged. That endless variety of jobs out there also comes with hundreds, perhaps thousands of different compensation systems; however, all of those jobs and all those pay systems can be simplified into these two easy-to-understand categories. Rated jobs have base rates that tend not to be negotiable. Rated jobs pay a base hourly rate. Ranged jobs have base rates that are generally negotiable; they pay salaries within a certain range, usually within a minimum up to a maximum and usually stated in weekly, monthly, or yearly terms. Now, rated and ranged as well as hourly and salaried are terms not to be confused with exempt and nonexempt jobs. Those latter terms are references to the Fair Labor Standards Act, which also categorizes jobs into two categories, those that get paid overtime and those that don't.
Rated jobs are those that have a specific rate, and usually these rates are fixed in the short term, and it is difficult for the individual, no matter how unique or clever, to negotiate a different rate. Rated jobs pay a certain rate, generally per hour but not always. Take the case of the grade school teacher in Apache Junction, Arizona, with an undergraduate degree and a teaching credential who is paid a starting rate of $35,600. If this teacher has a master's degree, the pay rate goes to $38,400. It is not much different for the registered nurse at the hospital, or the mechanic at the car dealership, or the clerk at Circle K, or all of the unionized jobs in America with bargaining agreements that stipulate the pay rate for that job for the duration of the contract. These are all rated jobs.
Ranged jobs are those that have some flexibility in the pay range. Sometimes the salary range is formal, with a minimum, midpoint, and maximum, and sometimes the range is very informal. Informal ranges tend to be the norm in smaller, more entrepreneurial, and less structured companies. The more formal ranges, represented by a minimum, midpoint, and maximum, tend to be found in organizations with a formal structure and generally speaking will also have forty to fifty employees or more. The larger the company, the more structure.
While rated jobs are typically hourly and typically nonexempt, they are found in offices and factories, assembly houses and call centers, retail stores, fast-food restaurants, insurance companies, governmental offices, and in employers large and small. Abundant exceptions to this scheme are evident everywhere, including the president of the United States, who is in a rated job. Yep, the chief executive of the good ole USA is paid a specified rate for the job. It is not negotiable, and it doesn't matter who gets the job; the pay rate is the same. It is a big rate with an abundance of perks, but it is a rated job nonetheless. Military personnel and government employees, both federal and state, deal with rated jobs all the time. Skilled professionals are frequently in rated positions. Many health care professionals, security personnel, deep-sea divers, maritime workers, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers frequently find themselves in rated positions.
Individuals hired into these positions usually (but not always) meet a specific set of qualifications, but the duties are frequently ubiquitous, homogenous, and sometimes repetitive. That is not to say they are not highly skilled, experienced, and professional in what they do; many of them are in demand on a global basis and command significant incomes. Interestingly, some very highly skilled employees with imminently transferable and in-demand capabilities are also in ranged jobs. You get the point; rated jobs, by definition, have a specific paid rate for performing those duties. Hourly compensated positions, union and nonunion alike, make it difficult to differentiate, and the culture and tradition of these jobs is that everyone else hired into these jobs started at that rate, so ... take it or leave it. Frequently, the compensation progresses as either time or competency increases, but the position stays rated. Everyone is treated the same. Even if the employer wanted to reward someone with unique qualifications, the employee-relations problems would be formidable for both the company and the employee.
Depending on the employer and the economy and some good old-fashioned luck, many people work their way up through these kinds of pay schemes, live well, and prosper. If they prosper enough and work hard enough and, yes, are lucky enough, they usually find themselves presented with the opportunity to move into a ranged position.
Ranged positions are the second type of jobs out there, and you do not always have to work your way up into one of these. Most of the jobs that are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act fit into this category. But there is also a large contingent of salaried nonexempt jobs that have ranges. At the exempt level, these jobs generally do not receive extra compensation for overtime, and the incumbents are simply expected to get the job done — that is to say, whatever it takes to perform the duties required. Most supervisory and managerial, as well as certain administrative and executive and sales positions are in this category. As the name implies, there is a range of pay for the position, and the actual paid rate for any individual in the job varies, depending upon the knowledge, skill, and ability (negotiation ability included) of the individual.
The size of the organization has an effect on range formality but little impact on rated and ranged positions. Both small and large companies have hourly rated positions, most with zero flexibility on the starting rate for the job. Both small and large companies have salaried exempt positions, most with some flexibility built into the pay system. Where there is flexibility, there is negotiability.
Either way, it won't hurt to ask for more than you get in the initial offer. Remember one of the great things about requestive channel negotiation (RCN) is that you never put your offer at risk by asking for more. Even if you get a resounding no to your inquiry, at least you have peace of mind in the knowledge that you asked. Most people don't ask.
According to the US Department of Labor, about 13 percent of all workers in America are represented by organized labor, and that number includes all public (government) workers. On the private side, there has been a steady decline in the percentage of workers represented by unions for the last forty years. Members of labor organizations work under terms and conditions negotiated with the employer and memorialized in contracts or labor agreements. These agreements specify the rate of pay for each and every position within the bargaining unit. The employer is obligated to pay the negotiated rate, no more and no less. If you go to work in a job represented by a labor union, there won't be much room for individual negotiation. Interestingly, in some highly enlightened unionized environments, there might be some flexibility in the hiring rate of jobs that are highly skilled and where both the union and the company want to recognize individual differences, but for the most part, these jobs are rated.
In addition to the union positions in America, there are many others that pay a specific rate for a job, and there is very little that can be done to negotiate individual differences in the initial pay. All in all, according to the Department of Labor, about 40 percent of all jobs in America fit into this category that I call rated. That means well over half of all jobs have some flexibility, and where there is flexibility there is negotiability. That translates to eighty to ninety million employees in America enjoying some form of flexible (and negotiable) compensation system.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Make More Money by Jack Worth Milligan. Copyright © 2016 Jack Worth Milligan. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface The Whole Thing, Up Front and Easy, vii,Acknowledgments, xv,
Chapter 1 An Overview — How to Use This Book, 1,
Chapter 2 There Are Only Two Kinds of Jobs out There: Rated and Ranged, 5,
Chapter 3 The Case for Asking — in Search of the Honey Pot, 13,
Chapter 4 Seventy-Five Percent of People Who Could Negotiate Don't. Of the 25 Percent Who Do, Most Do It Wrong. Clarice Did It Right, 23,
Chapter 5 Anatomy of an Offer, 37,
Chapter 6 The Repetitive Chapter — It's Worth Repeating, 53,
Chapter 7 Three Promises and Roger Graham Too, 55,
Chapter 8 How Employment Offers Are Formulated, 63,
Chapter 9 Relocation and the Negotiation Process, 69,
Chapter 10 A Word or Two about the Job Search Process — You May Want to Skip This Chapter, 77,
Chapter 11 Drafting Your References, 85,
Chapter 12 Headhunters, 95,
Chapter 13 Culture and Fit Still Matter, 99,
Chapter 14 Gender Differences, 105,
Chapter 15 Testing the Final Offer, Poking the Bear, and Getting Perilously Close to Ultimatum Channel — for Advanced Users Only, 113,
Chapter 16 Negotiating for Tomorrow, 117,
Chapter 17 All Jobs Are Temp Jobs — the Silver Bullet Story, 121,
Chapter 18 Employment Agreements and Termination Agreements, 125,
Chapter 19 Settling into the New Job, 129,
Chapter 20 Free Agency — You Must Take Responsibility for Your Employability, 133,
About the Author, 137,
Endnotes, 147,
Appendix, 151,