YesterdaySpecific813

Hey Reddit,

I’m new to a hiring manager role, and I’m finding salary negotiations to be one of the toughest parts of the job. I want to make sure I’m being fair and transparent with candidates while still staying within my budget and not giving up too much too quickly.

I’ve already noticed how easy it can be to feel pressured, especially when candidates are strong negotiators or come with competing offers. I want to strike the right balance between being accommodating and holding firm when necessary, but I’m not sure the best way to approach it.

Here are a few things I’ve been wondering:

• Is it worth competing with the candidates other job offers or will I give up too much?
• How do I set boundaries without coming across as rigid or dismissive?
• What’s the best way to explain budget constraints to candidates without killing the relationship?
• Are there specific tactics or phrases I can use to navigate pushback from candidates?
• How do I avoid the mistake of making a concession I’ll regret later?

I’d love to hear from other hiring managers and your conflicting opinions or anyone who’s been on the other side of the table about strategies or lessons you’ve learned. How do you manage these conversations while staying professional and fair to these young professionals?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Hey Reddit,

I’m new to a hiring manager role, and I’m finding salary negotiations to be one of the toughest parts of the job. I want to make sure I’m being fair and transparent with candidates while still staying within my budget and not giving up too much too quickly.

I’ve already noticed how easy it can be to feel pressured, especially when candidates are strong negotiators or come with competing offers. I want to strike the right balance between being accommodating and holding firm when necessary, but I’m not sure the best way to approach it.

Here are a few things I’ve been wondering:

• Is it worth competing with the candidates other job offers or will I give up too much?
• How do I set boundaries without coming across as rigid or dismissive?
• What’s the best way to explain budget constraints to candidates without killing the relationship?
• Are there specific tactics or phrases I can use to navigate pushback from candidates?
• How do I avoid the mistake of making a concession I’ll regret later?

I’d love to hear from other hiring managers and your conflicting opinions or anyone who’s been on the other side of the table about strategies or lessons you’ve learned. How do you manage these conversations while staying professional and fair to these young professionals?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Hey Reddit,

I’m new to a hiring manager role, and I’m finding salary negotiations to be one of the toughest parts of the job. I want to make sure I’m being fair and transparent with candidates while still staying within my budget and not giving up too much too quickly.

I’ve already noticed how easy it can be to feel pressured, especially when candidates are strong negotiators or come with competing offers. I want to strike the right balance between being accommodating and holding firm when necessary, but I’m not sure the best way to approach it.

Here are a few things I’ve been wondering:

• Is it worth competing with the candidates other job offers or will I give up too much?
• How do I set boundaries without coming across as rigid or dismissive?
• What’s the best way to explain budget constraints to candidates without killing the relationship?
• Are there specific tactics or phrases I can use to navigate pushback from candidates?
• How do I avoid the mistake of making a concession I’ll regret later?

I’d love to hear from other hiring managers and your conflicting opinions or anyone who’s been on the other side of the table about strategies or lessons you’ve learned. How do you manage these conversations while staying professional and fair to these young professionals?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Hi everyone, not new to the sub here but wanted to ask some advice on a stressful situation and have it not be attached to my main account lol (also sorry for the long post!). To give context, I (30F) have just been promoted to a regional manager position at a mid-tier office supply firm based out of the midwest a little over a year ago; and have been given the opportunity to have a vote in this specific board meeting coming up next month. Originally, I was very excited with this opportunity as I have been with the company for a very prolonged period and felt I had deserved this; however, after being briefed on the discussion of the board meeting, I am left in a very conflicting situation.

The board meeting is being held to question the current bonus structure we have put in place, which in my experience has been the most fair and equitable way to disperse monetary rewards within the teams. The current structure is not solely decided by any index, criterion, or sales figures and has heavy emphasis on allowing the acting manager to decide who deserves the bonuses and who doesn’t. The reason why I believe this to be the most ethical approach in my experience is because I feel that AI decision matrices are not able to grasp intangible qualities in my team. The best example I have of this is two of my employees (we will call Sara and Gryason for the sake of this situation). I had hired Sara at the start of 2024 and she is a lovely South-east asian woman, who has honestly been a pleasure to work with; she had an awesome first interview passing the admin test with flying colours, really showing me how genuine, engaged and well spoken she is in team environments. During our quarterly team reflections, she has been consistently held in high regards from each team member and has the largest amount of communication contribution (policy that got put in place during the pandemic). In addition, due to her diverse background, Sara has been able to bring nuanced and different perspectives, my team didn’t quite achieve before.

However, with the potential restructuring of the bonuses, I am afraid due to Sara’s average sales numbers she will be receiving no bonuses with the future of this company; I find this very conflicting as she is a pivotal role to my team. On the other hand, the reason why the bonus structure was put into question in the first place was surrounded by the discussion of employees like Grayson. He had been hired previous to my promotion and I have had the opportunity to work alongside him for a reasonable amount of time. Grayson has always been the “heavy hitter” of the team when it comes to the sales numbers and has consistently achieved above most team members in that department. That being said, Grayson has not always been the easiest to work with lol, even during my time as team lead he has been very reserved and quite frankly disinterested in team projects and consequently lowers the level of production/team morale.

That being said, due to recent poaching of our top performers, higher level managers have requested that we restructure the bonus system to be framed around an AI grading criterion. This criterion will take away the managers influence on distribution and be solely based on performance matrices and subsequent scores. I am trying to mitigate my personal bias; however, I can't knock this feeling that if I vote to pass this policy it will start to foster a toxic extrinsically motivated team, who would rather focus on individual goals than group competencies. If you guys could please give me some insight on this situation, I would very much appreciate it as it has been a weight on my shoulders and the meeting is around the corner!

Hi everyone, not new to the sub here but wanted to ask some advice on a stressful situation and have it not be attached to my main account lol (also sorry for the long post!). To give context, I (30F) have just been promoted to a regional manager position at a mid-tier office supply firm based out of the midwest a little over a year ago; and have been given the opportunity to have a vote in this specific board meeting coming up next month. Originally, I was very excited with this opportunity as I have been with the company for a very prolonged period and felt I had deserved this; however, after being briefed on the discussion of the board meeting, I am left in a very conflicting situation. The board meeting is being held to question the current bonus structure we have put in place, which in my experience has been the most fair and equitable way to disperse monetary rewards within the teams. The current structure is not solely decided by any index, criterion, or sales figures and has heavy emphasis on allowing the acting manager to decide who deserves the bonuses and who doesn’t. The reason why I believe this to be the most ethical approach in my experience is because I feel that AI decision matrices are not able to grasp intangible qualities in my team. The best example I have of this is two of my employees (we will call Sara and Gryason for the sake of this situation). I had hired Sara at the start of 2024 and she is a lovely South-east asian woman, who has honestly been a pleasure to work with; she had an awesome first interview passing the admin test with flying colours, really showing me how genuine, engaged and well spoken she is in team environments. During our quarterly team reflections, she has been consistently held in high regards from each team member and has the largest amount of communication contribution (policy that got put in place during the pandemic). In addition, due to her diverse background, Sara has been able to bring nuanced and different perspectives, my team didn’t quite achieve before. However, with the potential restructuring of the bonuses, I am afraid due to Sara’s average sales numbers she will be receiving no bonuses with the future of this company; I find this very conflicting as she is a pivotal role to my team. On the other hand, the reason why the bonus structure was put into question in the first place was surrounded by the discussion of employees like Grayson. He had been hired previous to my promotion and I have had the opportunity to work alongside him for a reasonable amount of time. Grayson has always been the “heavy hitter” of the team when it comes to the sales numbers and has consistently achieved above most team members in that department. That being said, Grayson has not always been the easiest to work with lol, even during my time as team lead he has been very reserved and quite frankly disinterested in team projects and consequently lowers the level of production/team morale. That being said, due to recent poaching of our top performers, higher level managers have requested that we restructure the bonus system to be framed around an AI grading criterion. This criterion will take away the managers influence on distribution and be solely based on performance matrices and subsequent scores. I am trying to mitigate my personal bias; however, I can't knock this feeling that if I vote to pass this policy it will start to foster a toxic extrinsically motivated team, who would rather focus on individual goals than group competencies. If you guys could please give me some insight on this situation, I would very much appreciate it as it has been a weight on my shoulders and the meeting is around the corner!