Does salary negotiation always have to happen based on one's last salary or do they consider one's last highest official package also?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

Does salary negotiation always have to happen based on one's last salary or do they consider one's last highest official package also. There could be reasons, why somebody might take a pay cut for some other benefits(to learn more skills as an example or some other reasons) when some one decides to join a new company.

What is right here or what isn't as a starting point to discuss the salary negotiation if one wants to move on to another company from the last company where they decided to join with a pay cut. I'm not sure if there is a fixed answer to this question, but I would like to know how are these kind of questions generally dealt with and what is right here in HR terms.

I have seen some HR folks considering only the previous package, while others seem to give weightage even to one's highest working official package received so far. As any candidate seeking a new job, considering only the previous package doesn't really seem very fair to me.

Would like to know what is right here so that a candidate can appropriately put some facts forward with the HR when having this discussion if that person is in such a situation. Any articles or pointers on this would help.

Thanks.

manpreet 2 years ago

The only one-size-fits-all answer to your question is that it depends. Companies have the policies they want and you are looking for consistency and uniformity where there is none.

You can make any argument you want but an argument that flies with one company will go over like a lead balloon with another. Back when I was young and stupid - now I am just stupid :) - I successfully advocated to my management that we pay one of our temps, a Soviet refugee, $1 more per hour for counting cars on the ground that he had a tech degree. Three months later, he applied for a part-time job with us to write computer programs the minute I told him I was going to be his boss. I successfully advocated with my management that we hire him AND got him $1 more per hour than what they were originally planning to pay him when I argued that he had worked for us and that he was a known quantity to us. He didn't know a lick of computer programming, of course, but no worries, I worked him to death :) I know I wouldn't get away with that argumentation at other firms I worked at.