How Should I Approach Salary Negotiations with My Third-Party Experience in HR Placements?

Dear All,

I am Andy and currently pursuing an MBA in HR from a reputed B-School in Navi Mumbai. I have a question that has been bothering me for a while, and I hope that some HR experts in this forum will help me in setting realistic expectations for myself.

I joined my MBA last year from a reputable B-School in Mumbai. Previously, I worked with one of the biggest engineering and construction companies in India in the Strategic Resourcing Group (Corporate HR). My job responsibilities empowered me to be the process owner for campus recruitment drives across India for various technical, non-technical, and management colleges (over 100 drives in 2 years). I was also associated with the pre and post-joining formalities of thousands of trainees who boarded the company and conducted joining formalities across all centers of the company in India. Some other achievements include visiting several colleges as a guest lecturer on their invitation and conducting induction for trainees at the request of the training team head. My concern is that I was not on the company's rolls and was a third-party vendor (Kelly & Teamlease). I am also undergoing a 5-month internship in Compensation and Benefits in a global pharma company.

Now, my placement season is fast approaching, and I need to be mentally prepared for it. I have maintained excellent grades (among the toppers) across all semesters, been in key leadership positions in my stream and college, and have won many role-play and debate competitions. Additionally, I have represented my college in multiple HR forums like NHRD and BMA, and on one occasion was a student panelist for a management program.

Questions Regarding Placement and Salary Expectations

1. Should I be bothered if my experience will be considered during placement salary negotiations?

2. What would be a realistic expectation for the salary package for HR (I know the college name matters... please assume it's a decent 2nd tier college in Mumbai)?

Regards,
An Aspiring HR Professional

Dear Aspiring HR Professional,

You have already hit the bull's eye with the experience you have gained. However, your doubts are valid, as companies often seek fickle measures to negotiate and save a few grand.

Request you to stay focused on the experience you have gained and negotiate on the role. Do not discuss compensation until you have a clear understanding of all your deliverables. Try asking questions such as how much time it typically takes to deliver a task, how your reporting structure is designed, and how the information would flow to you.

Similar questions can give you a view of what you would need to deliver and its level. Weigh the cost of mistakes made by you at work. Once you have fully gained an understanding of it, ask for the monetary compensation they allocate to it.

Be assured that if you are worth your salt, every employer would want to hire you. They would have a min-max salary range and try to fix you somewhere lower to mid, to optimize your increments later and de-risk.

Hope this puts you in a better position to understand the process. Negotiation is a win-win deal.

Speak to them keeping this in mind. Wish you all the best!

Do share with us once you accept an offer and how it went.

Thank you so much, (Cite Contribution). That seems to be a modest approach.

The only adversity to that reply is determining the difficulty of the deliverable beforehand. As in, the specified task may sound easy but be difficult and vice versa. Being young in the field, I might fall short of understanding the exact requirements, especially in other areas like T&D, Operations, Lateral Recruitment, HRBP, etc., where I still have limited practical understanding. I presume I won't be in a position to negotiate since I wouldn’t understand the depth of the tasks assigned until I get hands-on exposure.

Secondly, with the experience you have in this field, what should be my salary expectations from recruiters given my background? I don't want to be over-ambitious. I want to be reasonable in my approach, at the same time not accept any offer which is below my potential and suited for my experience. Hence, I thought I would consult the experts!

Once again, thank you, (Cite Contribution).

Regards,
Andrews