Hello !
I (26F) am currently in a recruiting process with one of the Japanese branches of a French insurance group in Tokyo and i’m wondering how to negociate my salary (IT auditor with almost 4years experience, first in the financial services branch of a Big4 in France and then in a global financial group in Belgium).
How did you guys manage to negotiate your salaries ?
Any tips to share ?
Thanks !
3 comments
Sharing my experience as I just went through this.
1st and most important: understand the market. I’m coming from silicon valley so I was completely shocked and my expectations were vastly unrealistic. Do some research to understand the salary range of your field and your company in particular. For smaller companies it’d probably be harder to get reliable information. Unless your expectations have some overlapping with market data, there’s no point in negotiation.
2nd: get other options. This is not particular to Japan, but just a general negotiation rule. The better your alternatives, the more power you have. If you can’t really walk away or take another alternative, you won’t be able to confidently push very hard, because you’ll be afraid of losing this one. I had multiple offers, plus my current comp was much better than anything else, so I simply asked for their top of the range and eventually got it.
3rd: be creative. I don’t know what company you’re going for and how their comp package looks like, but if possible, see if there’s wiggle room in any other components besides base salary. In my case, since they already offered me the top of the salary band for my level, I was able to negotiate some more sign on bonus and RSU, as well as being able to work remotely 100%, so I can work from Osaka while my company is in Tokyo (that’ll lower your living costs, hence pushing your salary further).
4th: don’t disclose too much information, and don’t lie. If some piece of information is not beneficial to disclose, just say “I’d like to keep that confidential unless absolutely required” (nobody has ever told me I have to disclose anything regarding my comp). Most of the time I don’t disclose the other offers I have, I simply ask for what I’d like (you should add 10-20% on top of what you would consider accepting, to give them room to negotiate down, as long as it’s not outrageous. e.g. if you know the salary band is around 30 – 40M, don’t demand 60M, they’ll just think you’re clueless).
I’d recommend starting at 20-30% more than the Japanese market rate because as a woman you’d often make about that much less than your male counterpart.
Look up the company on Vorkers or see if there is data for Japan-based employees on Glassdoor. (Sometimes international companies will have Japan salaries there.)
Depending on the company and what your position within the company will be, you might be able to negotiate for things like a relocation fee or assistance in locating housing. But generally that only comes with big packages. If you’re just coming for a normal job without much influence, or you’re coming to a small company, that might be harder to negotiate.