There’s one insight from our client work that many people would find surprising: mid-career professionals often land stronger increases, both in percentage terms and in absolute dollars, than do senior executives.
At first glance, it feels counterintuitive. Senior leaders negotiate business deals, oversee large teams and budgets, and carry higher titles that signal experience and competence. But job offer negotiations draw on a different set of muscles, and the instincts that help people succeed at the executive level don’t always translate cleanly.
In this week’s episode of Gentle Power (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), we discussed how the same tactics that help executives climb the corporate ladder can backfire when it comes time to advocate for themselves in new roles. Below are a few patterns that stood out.
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Confidence can cloud judgment
Many senior executives earned their roles by projecting confidence, making calls quickly, trusting their own read of a situation, and are used to operating from a place of certainty. That confidence often serves them well in the workplace, but can lead to preventable mistakes in a negotiation where the details are unfamiliar and leverage is shifting moment by moment.
We’ve seen senior candidates move briskly through early conversations, assuming they “know how this goes”. However, their past experience hiring and building teams can lead them to make assumptions about how the process should work without considering that other employers may do things differently. These small assumptions can be costly, as they can build on each other to the point where the employer can see most of the executives’ cards or even decides that they’re not the right organizational fit.
Mid-career candidates with fewer assumptions about the process tend to enter the job search with more curiosity, which leaves room for finding creative win-wins that benefit both them as well as the employer. Certainty can be an asset in leadership, but can become a liability when the goal is to learn what’s possible and crafting a final offer that leaves everyone better off.
Transparency gives away leverage
Many executives build their careers on clear and direct communication. These skills may bring clarity to their vision and strengthen teams, but tend to work against them in job offer negotiations. Sharing salary history, volunteering a preferred number early, or confirming that a certain budget works for you may feel collaborative, yet each one of these moves quietly narrows the range.
We once worked with an executive client who proudly sent over his W-2 to a prospective employer to show that he was earning a top-of-market salary, thinking it would demonstrate value, when what it actually revealed was his leverage and became his ceiling in the new job offer. (The full story about this exec in this past newsletter: Here’s how you’re accidentally giving away leverage).
Transparency and overcommunication are key attributes of high-achieving top performers, but these same traits can tank potential gains in comp negotiations. We dove deep into this and how to avoid oversharing in this past newsletter issue, as well as in our interview on the Career Contessa podcast:
“Executive presence” can cause unnecessary friction
The confident, decisive voice that earns credibility and respect in all-hands talks and boardroom discussions can also shift negotiations in unintended ways. Some execs sound firmer or more adversarial than they realize, especially when they feel they’ve already “earned” something, and recruiters could interpret that as hostility.
Intentionally taking a warmer, more collaborative posture can help steer the conversation in a different way. Recruiters share more, the dialogue feels easier, and possibilities that weren’t visible at first start to surface. Humility tends to read as groundedness rather than insecurity or lack of competence, especially for senior professionals with established track records.
By the time you have a written offer, it’s safe to assume they already know you can do the job. Softening your tone at that stage comes across as steady, grounded, and respectfully confident in the value you know you bring to the table.
Role scarcity distorts decision-making
The higher someone climbs, the fewer roles exist that match their scope, identity, and ambitions. Because opportunities at higher levels surface less often, when one appears, it can feel like the safest move to maintain your title and status is to secure it quickly. This can influence the discussion in subtle ways: agreeing too fast, overlooking red flags, or convincing yourself that even if there are red flags, you can come into the company and change things. Mid-career candidates often approach the process differently simply because they see more roles around them. Because the market feels wider, the perceived risk of asking for adjustments feels lower.
In reality, advocating for yourself rarely, if ever, threatens the offer if you negotiate well. In many cases, negotiating actually demonstrates to the team that you’re thoughtful about how you approach potentially tricky conversations and situations. It may even present red flags to the company if you don’t negotiate. They may think, “wait, this person just accepted the first offer without asking for more? Why are they so desperate? And is this how they will handle things with our customers, partners, other teams?”
These patterns tend to grow out of the environments people operate in and the instincts that helped them succeed along the way. Senior leaders move quickly, decisively, and often aggressively because they’ve spent years steering teams in high-stakes, high-visibility roles. When those same instincts show up in their executive job offers, the vibes of the negotiation can shift.
Remember, our same negotiation principles apply whether you’re an executive or a mid-career:
- Don’t be overconfident or make assumptions about the interview process; keep an open mind to maximize opportunities for creative agreements on your job offer
- Don’t overshare
- Show humility, excitement, and enthusiasm for the role
Listen to the full conversation here: YouTube | Spotify | Apple
Best,
Gerta & Alex
Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com
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