As a recruiter, I'm used to negotiating salary and compensation on behalf of my job candidates with the hiring manager of the company they are interviewing with.

Salary and compensation negotiation is one of the things a recruiter typically does when helping someone get a job so if you're not a good negotiator this can be one of the things they can help you with if you decide to use a recruiter.

Here are some tips that I've learned in my time as a recruiter that might help you next time you're negotiating salary for yourself with a potential new employer.

1. Let the employer bring up the issue of money first. Ideally, you should let the interviewer broach the issue of money (ie. "How much money are you looking for?") not you. Employers generally dont want money-motivated staff whose main concern is salary since people can easily switch jobs if they can get more money elsewhere.

Certainly, if you're working with a recruiter you can let them know what salary you're looking for since they need to know what range is acceptable to you and avoid wasting your time with jobs that don't match your requirements.

2. Don't state a desired salary range. The problem with saying "I'm looking for a salary of $30,000-$40,000" is that while you might be thinking that you're showing flexibility by stating a wide range, you could actually be low balling the salary you end up getting offered.

While you might be thinking that you'd like the higher end of this salary range (ie. $38,000) the hiring manager might be thinking you'd be happy with $30,000 since you did state that $30,000 was in your acceptable range! While the hiring manager hopefully wants to be fair, some might not offer you $40,000 if you state that $30,000 would be acceptable, which is basically what you're saying with this stated range.

Ideally you want to go into an interview knowing the salary range that the company is offering. A recruiter can definitely get this information for you. Knowing the salary range being offered ensures that you don't price yourself out of range and dont lowball yourself either.

3. Don't state a salary that you won't be happy accepting. If you tell a hiring manager you'd be happy with $30,000 do not expect to be able to go back to them later in the interview process and then ask for $35,000. It can be difficult to get a higher salary agreed to once you've verbally mentioned a lower one. As we spoke about in Point 1, let the employer bring up the issue of money first and try your best to understand the job fully before committing to a stated salary figure.

While you don't want to evade the question if you're asked "how much money are you looking for" during a job interview, you also don't want to ruin your chances at getting a better figure by making a mistake handling the salary question.

The longer you can delay the issue of money in an interview process the better.

A good recruiter should be able to help you with salary negotiation since that's part of their job and since as the middleman, they can negotiate on your behalf without the emotional aspect that can come along with this issue if you were doing it yourself.

Plus, they should have a solid understanding of exactly what parts of the job offer might be open to negotiation especially if this is a hiring manager or company that they've successfully dealt with before!