Inevitably, they are taking a gamble moving you into a job with more responsibility than you have been used to.

You may be expecting the salary your predecessor was on for doing the same job. But your predecessor had experience that you haven’t yet gained. They may have started the job on a much lower salary than they left it on, and your employers will equate your value more closely with the starting salary than the leaving salary.

By promoting you, your boss has automatically given you some degree of pay increase. But they have also transferred you on to a new ladder where your potential has increased considerably:

you could end up earning more in this job than you ever could have done in the previous one. This potential for earning more has a value in itself, which you should calculate into your overall compensation package – your boss is certainly taking it into account. And they will know that if they start you too high they will be boosting this potential even further.

Luck or Value?

Your boss may take the line that, ‘You’re lucky to get this new job. Don’t push it by asking for too much.’ This implication that they are doing you a favor is unfair, so don’t stand for it. They offered you this job because it suited them to have you do it. If they come out with this line, tell them, ‘I thought you offered me this job because I would be valuable to the organization. Negotiating my salary is a way of establishing what that value is. I believe I will be more valuable than you perhaps think.

If your salary is negotiated down further than you had hoped in this new job, let your boss know that you intend your pay to increase quickly: ‘I recognize that you feel there’s an element of risk in appointing anyone new to a job. But I hope that as soon as I’ve proved my ability to do it we can review my salary with a view to raising it to reflect my value to the company.

If you are very dissatisfied with the level of pay you’re being offered, it is still worth taking the best you can get at this stage. Get your foot in the door (or your feet under the desk) and once you’re in the job your bargaining power will increase. But in the meantime you can aim to:

• Agree a specific date for a salary review in, say, four or six months’ time.

• Negotiate a performance-related element of your pay.

• Agree a specific rise in response to a specific target. For example, if you successfully resolve the current overtime problems within two months, you will get a specified salary increase from the beginning of July.

All of these options (and you may think of others) are a way of saying that you believe you are worth more than your boss is prepared to commit to. So let them give you a chance to prove your value first, with an undertaking that if you are as good as you promise, you will be rewarded in the relatively short term. The options also give you a justification for seeking a pay rise very soon after your salary has been set.

As well as seeking a salary increase, you also have a chance to renegotiate your whole package. As we’ve seen before, you might well be able to justify a company car to go with this new job, or a bigger office. And should you get childcare allowance or a better level of health insurance too? Be realistic – ask for what you can justify, as always – but don’t miss out on any opportunities for developing the whole package.

If you are being offered substantially less than you clearly feel you deserve, this might at least be a good time to ask your boss to reward you in other ways. If they’ve just said no to a reasonable request for another £2000 a year, they’ll find it that much harder to say no to a car, a home computer or a private office as well.

Know Where You’re Going

Make sure you have a detailed meeting with your boss to establish exactly what your objectives are in this new job, and where your priorities should lie. This will enable you to direct your energies towards adding as much value as possible, as quickly as possible. And this, in turn, means you can justify asking for your next pay rise all the sooner.>