Salary negotiation planner Your figures, official market data and a script, kept apart.
Plan a negotiation for a new job offer, a counteroffer from your employer or a raise. Type your own numbers and priorities, see official BLS pay percentiles as context, and build a script from your figures. The planner never picks a number for you, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
To negotiate salary, get the offer in writing, decide your own target and a private walk-away floor, check official pay data for the occupation and area as context, pick two or three things besides base pay that you care about, then make one clear ask with your reasons and get the final terms in writing. The planner below lays out each part separately; the figure you ask for is always yours.
Planner
Your situation
No offer yet? Answering “what are your salary expectations?” is covered in interview prep.
As you write it, for example EUR or £. Amounts are shown in it as typed, with no conversion.
As written in the offer or your current title.
The employer you're negotiating with.
Shows BLS pay percentiles for the role's occupation.
Metro areas are BLS metropolitan statistical areas; each covers the whole area, not one city.
Your numbers
Your figures
Your numbers Only what you type; the planner adds none.
From the written offer.
What your current employer offered to keep you.
The offer from the other employer.
Base pay in your current job.
The figure you will ask for. Your own number; the planner never suggests one.
Private: used only in the private check. It never appears in the script or the copied text.
A typed amount, for example a target bonus.
One-time amount.
The yearly value you were quoted, if any.
As written in the offer.
As written in the offer.
As proposed.
As written in the offer.
Your priorities
What matters to you besides base pay
In your own words: the scope of the role, a skill you hold, a result you delivered.
Another reason, in your own words.
Another reason, in your own words.
Only if you want to say it. Left out of the script when empty.
For example a date you choose.
Your plan
Market data, your numbers and your priorities
Data Official market data
Market data
BLS data covers U.S. jobs only; use your country's official statistics.
Your numbers Placement and arithmetic
Private: your floor
Your priorities
Advice Negotiation guidance: your script
Template wording is TryHired's suggestion; say it in your own words. It uses your figure, your reasons and your priorities, and never your floor.
Your facts · template wording · [placeholder to fill] · BLS figure, only if you add it
Negotiating by email? Write it in the job search email builder: choose “Counter-offer / negotiate” and type your figure there.
How to negotiate
Step by step
Advice
Get the offer in writing first: base pay, bonus, equity, benefits, start date and title.
Decide your own figures before the conversation: the target you will ask for and a private walk-away floor. Keep the floor to yourself.
Look at official pay data for the occupation and area as context. It describes all workers across experience levels, not what this employer will pay.
Choose two or three things besides base pay that matter to you, so you have something to discuss if the base can't move.
Write down your reasons in your own words: the scope of the role, the skills and results you bring, and a competing offer only if it is real.
Make one clear ask, then stop and listen. Thank them whatever the answer.
Ask for the final terms in writing before you accept, and before you resign from your current job.
Rules on salary-history questions vary by state and city.
Checklist
Before, during and after
Advice
Before
Read the whole offer, not only the base pay.
Fill in your target, your floor and your priorities in the planner.
Practise the script out loud once or twice.
Decide which of your priorities you would trade for which.
During
Start with thanks and genuine interest in the role.
Make your ask with your own figure and your reasons.
Listen; ask what flexibility they have on the items you listed.
Market figures are BLS OEWS May 2025 wage percentiles (10th, 25th, median, 75th, 90th; annual and hourly as BLS publishes them) for the BLS occupation named beside them, for the United States, a state or a metropolitan statistical area. Where TryHired's role is an O*NET specialty, BLS publishes pay only for the broader occupation, and the planner says so. A figure BLS does not publish is shown as "not published". A value BLS reports as "#" is shown as "Exact value unavailable in the BLS file": BLS reports this value as "#"; TryHired does not convert it to a numeric estimate, and the planner places your figures only against published numbers. When BLS publishes nothing for the occupation in the area you pick, the planner shows the state (for a single-state metro) or national figures and says which.
Placement only says between which published percentiles a number you typed falls; it never estimates a percentile. Gaps and totals are plain arithmetic on your figures. Hourly and annual figures are converted at 2,080 hours a year (40 hours × 52 weeks), a full-time convention, only where the planner says so.
Roles listed: the 160 careers with a published TryHired career page and a complete O*NET profile. The script is assembled in your browser from your entries and fixed template sentences; nothing you type is sent or stored. Picking a state or metro loads that role's BLS figures as a static file; the request carries nothing you typed.
What this page can't tell you
What a specific employer will pay or agree to: BLS percentiles describe what workers in an occupation earn, not offers.
Which figure to ask for: that is your decision, and the planner never proposes one.
How likely a negotiation is to succeed: no reliable public data measures that, so the planner makes no such claim.
Legal or tax questions, including severance and contract terms: read the documents and ask a qualified adviser.
Pay outside the United States: BLS covers U.S. jobs only.
Sources
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates: national, state and metropolitan statistical area files. Public domain. bls.gov/oes
O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. TryHired selected, ranked and combined the data; O*NET is not responsible for these pages.
Disclosure. TryHired sells HIRED, a paid job-search program. This planner is free and doesn't require it.
