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All right. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Lori and we are recording today's session and obviously we're gonna be talking about negotiating your salary and also how to maximize your 4o1k. So I am joined once again, this is our last in the series of the graduation boot camp series. So I'm so happy to have Eric Jones with Student Money Management. So Eric, go ahead and introduce yourself real quick. Hey, Erica, I'm like Laurie said and Director of Student Money Management Center. What we do here is financial literacy and financial planning for you and your individual goals. We are available to you just like career services after you graduate. So if you do have questions about 41k or anything else about your finances after you graduate, please reach out.

Yeah. Today, I think is one of the most important things when it comes to the job search is how do we make sure we have enough money to pay for all the things we want to do. And we want to make sure that we're exploring careers that have the salaries that we're looking for and thinking about the kind of lifestyle that we're looking for in part of that comes with negotiating your salary. These two topics really go hand in hand because part of your benefits with an employer you want to check out, do they have some kind of retirement savings? Because you want to make sure that you will have a nice nest egg after you retire so that you can afford whether it's to travel or if it's even just be able to afford your health care costs, whatever it may be. And so I'm going to kick off our session today with our first poll question. I'm just wondering, for those of you that have joined us today, which thank you by the way, for joining us. Have any of you ever tried to negotiate your salary? And if you want, you can even put in the chat. If that went well. They didn't really want to negotiate. If you wanted to share any of that information. So I will go ahead and end the poll there.

Fantastic. So it looks like quite a few, I have not negotiated your salary and that's understandable a lot of times with our entry-level positions when we're just trying to pair our way through college. We don't always necessarily try to negotiate the salary. Sometimes there is no negotiation. The salary is the salary and we'll talk about that in a moment too. But for those of you that have negotiated your salary, if you want to put in the chat how that went? Did it go well, were you able to get a higher salary than what was originally offered? Tanya, which I forgot, I apologize. Tangent is our fabulous co-host today, so she is going to be monitoring the chat. She's our career specialists on the Gainesville campus. So Tania, is there anything in the chat about how that salary negotiation when I tell not see anything in the chat right now. Okay. No problem. No problem. Yes. Excellent. So let's get right into all the really good stuff. So when it comes to negotiating your salary, we also need to think about how much do you even need to make? What is your standard of living?

And that's where I oftentimes will refer students to the Student Money Management Center because a lot of times we just don't even need know what we need to make in terms of what does it cost for our rent? What are the utility is going to be last week in our graduation C bootcamp series we were talking about, well, if you're gonna be moving out of your parent's home, or maybe you're leaving roommates and now you're gonna be living on your own. Then how does that impact your finances? And some of that we need to start thinking about, well, what is an apartment going to cost all my own? Do I need to buy a car? Am I going to be using public transportation and my relocating?

Do I all of a sudden they'll want to pet. Do I need a want a cat, a dog? What is that lifestyle that you want? And that's where I think student money management really comes into play because they can work with you in terms of developing a budget, looking at what do things cost, and then thinking about what kind of salary does that need to be? And last week as well, we talked about some of these cost of living calculators where you can look at, okay, if you earn a certain salary and you're gonna be going to another location, what kind of salary do you need to make?

And this is just one of the many. You can always just do any kind of search for cost of living calculator and kinda get a rough idea of how far that salary would go in a different location. And different location could even be moving from the Gainesville campus down to Atlanta, moving from Salonica campus down to Johns Creek. Those are two different cost of living areas, even though they're just down the road from each other. And so that can really impact. What kind of lifestyle you have. Then also thinking about right now, if you go out often, do you want to continue that? Do you want to continue going out to eat? Do you go to the movies? Are you planning for vacations? And so all of these things really come into play when you're thinking about what is my salary and what do I need to make? When it comes to the actual negotiation?

We do want this to be where it is a win between you and your potential employer. It's not where you try to say, oh, Company a is offering me 5,000 more. Can you match or beat that? We don't want to make this a competition because the employer could easily say, Well, then go to company a, Go, Go on. I've got I've got a line of people. I'm sure you've seen where there are more and more layoffs that are happening. That means it's going to be a more competitive market. In fact, I was just on LinkedIn and I saw that one of our alum just recently got laid off. And so he's asking for help with his job search and all of that. That's happening across the board in many different sectors. There are, of course, employers still hiring. But now that you have more competition in the job market, you're going to find that shortly after COVID or digest or you know, 2021, it was more of a job seekers market. We could demand more remote. We can demand a higher salary.

We could demand bonuses, sign-on bonuses and such. Well, now that's starting to shift to where it's more of an employer market. And because there are more candidates in the pool, now we need to say, Okay, well, how are we going to negotiate the salary so that you can have that standard of living that you want and need. We need to keep a roof over our head. But we also have to know at times when we can compromise. What is there something that you are willing to compromise on whether it's the commute, maybe you'll travel further in order to get the job that has the salary that you want. Are there certain benefits that you're okay if you don't have because maybe a significant other has the benefits that cover you. So we need to think about what are some of the areas that we can compromise on and what are some of the things we can't compromise on. And when you are negotiating, you do need to be able to logically explain the value that you bring to that employer and why you should be compensated. E.g. a. While back, I had previous colleague who had relocated to an area and she she she took the first job that she could find. It didn't pay very much.

And when she was then applying to another position, it was a much higher position. It was the HR director for an entire region, very high-paying position. And the employer was asking for her salary expectations. And of course, it was gonna be much more than what she was currently making. And on her fourth interview, she was meeting with the Vice President. And the first question out of the gate from the Vice President was, why do you need to make so much more money?

And really what they wanted to know is how she does her research. They didn't want to hear. Well, I have to have I want to have I deserve to have. It was more about, well, this position has this kind of responsibility and here are my skill sets, my education, my background, what I bring to the table. Once she was able to logically explain why she was asking for that salary, the Vice President said, Okay, moving on. They just wanted to make sure she had done her homework and really understood why she was asking for what she was asking for. So we do want to usually wait until we are ready to make the deal. Once they've made that offer of employment. That does not always happen. There are times where it might be brought up in the interview. But for the most part, you, the job seeker, do not want to start talking numbers until the employer has offered you the position or they're the ones bringing up the salary question. Now, there are some instances where, say, there is more legislation now where companies are being made to put some kind of salary range on the job announcement. So that way, you know, if you're wasting your time, they're wasting their time. Some employers are very upfront about their salaries. The majority still are not.

So we do want to we do have to still play this game and we want to wait until the employer has offered us position. We know they want us. Now we can start talking numbers and we need to think about, can you walk away from that opportunity? We don't want to find ourselves in a situation where we desperately need the job and that may happen. But we want to as best as possible try to avoid that. Because there are times where they're gonna be asking the employer will ask even on the application. What is your current salary or your salary history? Again, there are some states that have not Georgia unfortunately, but there are some states that are putting out legislation that restricts employers from asking about the salary history. Because there are certain demographics, certain certain folks that typically get paid lower. There are certain jobs that typically get paid lower. And especially when you're coming out of college, you may have had a lot of the retail jobs. At fast food jobs, they tend to not pay a lot. And now all of a sudden you're asking for a large salary and the employer is like, wait a minute, aren't you used to making $10 an hour?

So some states are going away from that because we don't want to continue this cycle of constantly being underpaid. And there are some employers, again, even on the application, they will ask, what are your salary expectations? Now, this is where your research really comes into play. If you're able to put in an application or on a cover letter that you are open to negotiating the salary. Instead of putting a number, that's always ideal, we want to try to avoid putting numbers out there as best as possible. Now, if you cannot, if you must name a number. And that's why we want to do research way before the interview because this could come up in the interview if someone is not a good interviewer, or they want to just get this out of the way and say, Hey, am I wasting your time? Are you wasting my time? Let's talk numbers before we even continue.

This may come up early on. You want to do your research well in advance so that you have a nice range to give them. I always say a range is good just because you don't want to give give a solid number that's either too high or too low from what their budget is. You definitely don't want to lowball yourself because then that's going to impact what you can put into your 4o1k, what you can put into your retirement that will impact you long term. So we definitely want to try to get as top dollar as possible. So again, thinking about what kind of salary do you need to make to keep the roof over your head? Have the standard of living that you want. And we want to make sure that we're looking at opportunities that at least their lowest number is still above what you desperately have to make. We don't want to make it where you're just barely making ends meet.

That's not where we want to be. We definitely want to be above that. So we have some cushion. But in addition to thinking about the numbers, we want to think about what's important to you in terms of what's on the job. So that takes us actually to our next poll on what do you value in a career besides the salary or in addition to the salary? Again, we want to be able to take a vacation. We want to be able to make our car payments and so forth. But there are some other things that we want to make sure are important as well. In terms of location, that could mean close to home. That could mean in a certain geographic location in terms of another state. Also, what kind of life balance is important to you? Is that even important to you? I once had a coworker.

We all said, Oh, we will work-life balance. And she was like, I don't care about love work-life balance. I want to be challenged at work. That's what's important to me. And of course, some of our team was like, Oh, you don't care about work-life balance. The values aren't the same for everyone. So it looks like the majority of you, what's important to you is location. Some kind of life balance followed very closely by salary and benefits. Career growth is also really important because thinking about for some, some industries and for some companies, it may be really small. So there may not be a lot of growth there, which means that could be lack of earning potential moving forward in your career and having a challenge on the job? Yes. A lot of times we don't want to be just doing the same thing all the time. I know for myself having independence is very important. I don't like a micromanager. Tanya can speak to this as well. Ours well, when I worked on the Gainesville campus, our supervisor Edward, very much lets you do your own work.

And I really, really enjoy that because pretty much want to be left alone. I know what I need to do and I know directors have to tell me what to do when there are things to be done, that's perfectly fine. But for the most part, stay out of my business. I know what I'm doing. And that's very important to me. If I have someone that's always like, What are you doing? I'm like, Oh my gosh, leave me alone. So those kind of things are really important in terms of what's on the job. And is it even having a pleasant working work environment? I got I like my coworkers. I see these people more than I see my family. I got to like where I am because I'm sure some of you may have experienced where you don't mind the work itself, but your co-workers get on your nerves. And then that makes like where you just don't want to go to work. We don't want that. We want to at least wake up and go. Okay. I'm good to go for work. So as we were talking about earlier, when it comes to negotiating your salary, some entry-level positions do not have negotiation.

A couple of weeks ago we had one of our alumni, bonnie, and she was talking about her experiences with negotiating negotiating her salary and the position that she found. It was actually the fall before she graduated. She graduated, I think in about 2018. And so in 2017 is when she actually interviewed for her her first position right out of college. They flew her up to Virginia. She had an evening of casual networking and then the next day was all day interviews. And then they offered her the position the following week. So of course, we were planning on okay. How are we going to negotiate the salary? So they gave they offered her the position. They gave her a salary. And we started off with well, thank you very much. Can we negotiate the entry-level salary? The answer was no. There was no negotiation. However, there were some other benefits that were added to a career growth, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So there was no negotiating, but they had other benefits that they could add to it. But a lot of that really does depend on a variety of factors.

What is this position? What is your previous work experience again, what value would skill sets are you bringing to the table? The manager themselves? Is this, uh, where, where do you fit within the organization? All of these things are being looked at as well as what's their budget. A lot of these things have an impact on whether they can negotiate the salary. So one way to start doing some research in advance is through professional associations, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So that gives you a nice range of what some of the salary ranges are. But also just salary.com, Career One Stop glass door. And really just talking to your friends if you've got any one that works there. So guanine, with this latest position that she got at BlackRock, she had a friend that was working at BlackRock and she was like so what's the salary range for some of the positions that she was looking for, what can she expect and how can she negotiate for the higher end of the salary range? And so sometimes just even talking to your friends and colleagues that can really help out as well. So thinking about all the different ways that you can gather this information well in advance.

That's what we want to be looking at. Again, understanding that full compensation, there's the salary, There's the work environment, but there could be the retirement package. Are they matching your 4o1k? And Eric is definitely going to be talking about that. Are there any education benefits? Will they pay for you to get a master's or doctorate? Are there any bonuses, any kind of flexible schedule? All of these things can be really important, especially when thinking about high gas prices and such. Can you have a flexible schedule where it's more of a hybrid? You a lot of places do more of a hybrid schedule. We're we're allowed here in career services during the school semester to have one day at home. And during the summer, we usually can do two days at home, which really does help with one just your peace of mind in terms of I don't have to rush out of the house. Makes for a more calming work environment and also saves on the gas money.

So thinking about that in terms of your salary, if you don't have to pay for parking that week or that day, that saves you some money there as well. And as we talked about last week with our moving on and moving out relocation, do they help with that? Guanine is first employer helped with relocation costs up to Virginia. So all of these things are part of that compensation package in addition to the base salary. So thinking about it in terms of a whole picture here. So when you are negotiating, you do want to fully understand the entire offer. Go ahead and ask questions. If you don't understand something, make sure you fully understand. You do not want to sign on the dotted line. Only to realize months or years later, you could have gotten a better deal. Or that wasn't really what you were looking for. You do not have to accept the offer on the spot. You can ask for a couple of days to think about it. But makes sure that if you say, I'll get back to you in 48 h, make sure you really do that. If there are other things to negotiate, you could negotiate things such as any kind of benefits or vacation. If the salary can't be budged on. But you don't want to be playing games in terms of doing a little bit at a time. And again. Comparing it, uh, oh, I've got another offer over here.

Like I said, right now it's going to start turning into an employer's market. They may go in and you can go ahead and go. You do want to be confident in that counter office, but offer, but you want to remain neutral during the process. Even though this is an emotional experience, getting a job, the whole job search, it can be very stressful, but we don't want to be like, Oh my gosh, I have to have this because that's going to turn them off right away. We don't want to negotiate and little tiny pieces where okay, now that we got my salary, now let's talk vacation now. We got my vacation. Now let's talk for a one k. Now that we've got the four, they're gonna get annoyed pretty quick and we don't want that to happen. We also want to make sure that we have a good counteroffer.

We don't want to ask for an extra hundred dollars more. You're just going to look silly and we don't want that to happen in the entire process really should be in writing, even if it's through e-mail, even if you're the one initiating it, even at the end of it, you whoever offered you the job, whether it was HR or the hiring manager, that's the person you wanna be talking to. And you may even need to say at the very end of this whole negotiation process, okay, this is what we've agreed on. It makes sure that all of that's in writing so that in case anything changes, you can always go back to that. You do want to say positive throughout all this. Again, you don't want to say I have to have I need to have. Instead, it could be I had more in mind than what you offer and what can we do? Let's make this a conversation. And you can make it more of an exploratory kind of language would if we consider, how do you feel about what are the alternatives? So using that kind of language makes it more to where it's open to conversation and not so much of a competition where it seems like, oh, we gotta be combative here. We don't we don't want that in this whole process. If you accept the offer, you do want to accept with enthusiasm well before that deadline.

Again, except through the through the person who had offered you the position. Always send thank you. Notes throughout the whole process. You want to make sure that you think everyone, whether it was a hiring manager, the recruiter, a colleague, who told you about the opportunity. Make sure you have all of that. All those thank you. Is there. Now, if you do have to decline the offer, again, you want to explain why, but you also want to do so very graciously. Maybe it's just you couldn't come to an agreement, but leave the door open for future possibilities. You never know their budget may change. You never know what can happen. Then if anything else, if you want to apply to a position again in the future, at least you left the bridge intact and you left everything on a positive note. So now I am going to turn this over to Eric because now he's gonna be talking about, Okay, we've got the job, we've got the salary. Now we need to know how to really maximize that for o1k so that you actually have a really good retirement fund built up. Because everybody wants to work forever, right? I know it's it's kind of odd timing you're getting the job. He just accepted the offer right out of college. You should be thrilled about that and not thinking about retirement.

But if you concentrate only on work and don't start contributing to all of these benefits that you're getting through the company. You're doing yourself a disservice. So we want to talk a little bit about a four or one K, how it works and what the consequences are or the benefits are starting early or starting late. So what is a 4o1k? Before I say this, let me ask. I'm sure there's some of you out there who already have a four or one k either through a part-time job or through their previous employer. I'm not going to ask you to self-identify, but for those of you who don't, you may not know that the 41k is yours. You can take it with you from job to job. There are certain vesting periods to where the employer part may not travel with you, but that would be a short-term hiring situation to where you're not with a company very long. So keep in mind that this is yours. So it's important to know what is your responsibility within it. So what is a 401? It's an employer sponsored savings plans. So you are going to be evaluating employers based upon in part what therefore a one k looks like. It could be a decision that influences whether or not you leave.

If there's a substantially better for one K plan with company a rather than the company you're with now, didn't you may choose to leave for the same salary because the benefit packages that much better. So it is an employer sponsored savings plan to which the employer generally contributes money to your plan as well. If we can have the next slide. Any of you who have. I'm done a little homework on for one case. Watch some YouTube videos, seeing some informational packet somewhere.

You may hear the term free money, that the 4o1k, your employer's matches Freeman. While it may be as close to free money as you're ever going to get in your lifetime. It is not free money, you're working for it. It's part of your benefits package. It's something you should evaluate. So any money that your employer puts in there is money that you should be considered to having earned yourself. So parts of the 41k, So annual contribution limits, these change based on inflation. Usually this year it's up to $20,000, 500 that you can put on your employer or whatever they match goes on top of that. Next year due to inflation, it's going to raise up to 22,500. So in just a couple of months that's going to change. Your employer generally contributes additional money to your plan based upon how much you put in. We're going to go over that part later. Tax-free contributions and tax deferred investment growth. So if you are in a traditional or a one k plan, not a Roth 41k plan, your money is going to be deducted from your paycheck before you pay taxes on it.

So this investment is tax-free, at least until you withdraw the money. You can access the money when you are 59.5 or older. But phishing a half is as soon as you can access this money without paying a penalty, ten per cent generally being the penalty. Why do you want your money to grow tax-free? Well, hopefully, while you're in your peak earning years, you're making more money than you'll need to draw from in retirement. So that puts you in a lower tax bracket. When you're pulling that money out, hopefully your house is paid for at that point, your kids are all through college. You're not actually needing these large bills to be paid, so you can take out less money and still live a better lifestyle. And the whole point of investment growth and paying taxes on investments as little as possible. That's the difference between an IRA or Roth IRA. As the difference between an IRA or Roth. Ira or Roth is just a term attached to these tax-deferred plans that determines when you paid them up. If you've got a Roth plan, you pay taxes first and you have tax-free distribution when you retire. If you have a traditional plan, you contribute tax-free and you pay taxes when you take it out. So with whirlwind Kate, you can have some early access to your money in emergencies or other situations, but it's generally not a good idea.

So how it works, your employer has the 41k plans setup and when you are hired, you have an account created for you. You have the option to opt in during your open enrollment period or when you are hired. And you set a defined percentage that is deducted from your paycheck and placed in that account. For a paycheck period, your employer will match a percentage of your contribution and deposit that into your account after a period of time with the company. The vesting period is what this is called. The employer contribution is yours to take with you to your next job. This is called rolling over your 4o1k. And once you are invested, all of your employer's funds that they put in contribute towards your retirement can go with you. So that's why some people look at it as free money. It's not. Remember you're working for your benefits here. Once you reach 59.5, You may begin to withdraw the money penalty free. You are required to take out minimum distributions at 70 and one-half. Y. Basically think of i