You know your number. The one you have decided you will not go below, the one you have built your whole search around.
But has anyone actually asked what is sitting either side of that number?
Salary is easy to compare. It is one figure, it sits at the top of the ad, and it is the first thing most people scroll to. What is harder to compare, and far easier to overlook, is everything else attached to a role that also costs a business money.
An assistant to take work off your desk. Offshore support handling the admin you would otherwise be doing yourself. Two days working from home, or hours that flex around your life rather than fighting it. A car, a phone, a laptop, all provided rather than funded out of your own pocket. None of this is free to the business offering it, and none of it should be invisible when you are weighing up whether an offer is fair.
What counts as a fair trade off looks different depending on the role. A Property Manager with genuine admin support behind them is being handed back hours in their week that a higher salary alone cannot buy. An Office Manager with offshore help absorbing the repetitive workload is being freed up for the parts of the role that actually need a person in the room. An Executive Assistant with flexible hours built in, rather than vaguely offered, is being given something that shows up in day to day life far more than an extra few thousand dollars would. The number on its own does not tell you any of this.
This is not about talking anyone down from asking for what they are worth. It is about asking whether the full picture has been considered, or just the headline figure. A slightly lower salary with genuine support and flexibility built around it can be worth more than a higher number with none of it. A higher number with no support behind it can quietly cost you more than it pays, once you are the one absorbing everything the salary alone was meant to cover.
So before you decide a number is too low, or hold firm on one that is non negotiable, it is worth asking what else is actually on the table, and whether you have priced that in.
Recruit RE connects Real Estate businesses with the right people for the right roles. Find out more at www.recruitre.com.au