Interview tomorrow - Asking for increased responsibilities??

[Apocalyptica602]

Hi all,

I have an interview tomorrow with a company that I'm interested in joining. I followed some advice here and applied immediately when I saw the posting, and was quickly called for an in-person interview with the VP of Operations (small company ~300 employees).

My concern is that I am on the very high end to borderline overqualified for the position, and therefore don't expect if I were to get an offer, that the company would be able to meet my salary expectations (all my assumption, I'm still going to go through with the interview and the negotiation process if I get that far either way)

For example: The job description says 0-5 years experience, and mentioned a college grad with relevant engineering internship experience is within scope of consideration.

I have 5 years of highly relevant experience with demonstrated success in all of the line items of the description. I currently make ~81k + 10k a year in free tuition toward my MBA + ~4-5k bonus. So my expected new salary would probably fall to 95k on the low end assuming there's no tuition reimbursement program.

Question is: What should I do? I was thinking maybe:

• Express during the interview process that due to my extensive relevant experience and successes, I'd ask if the role had flexibility to give me more responsibilities (maybe 'Senior' title) with higher expectations and compensation commensurate to my experience?
• Don't say anything, wait to see if I receive an offer and then begin the negotiating as above?
• ???

Please help,

Thanks!

[mozar]

I would go with the first option. That will help you get a sense of how you feel about the job.

[Axecleaver]

Both scenarios are risky. If you try to negotiate for more in the interview, you're likely to be judged a poor fit for the job. That feels too early for me, you really have to get past the interview stage first. But, the risk of waiting is that you might not get to negotiate with the hiring manager, and you could get stuck dealing with HR for a low offer that won't work.

Waiting, and then asking to discuss the offer with the hiring manager before you decide, is probably the better move. Try your best to sell yourself in the interview, show them that you've got the situation completely under control and you've seen it all before. Then when you get the offer, and it's time to negotiate for more money/responsibilities, show where you can bring more value and why that would be a win/win for the company. Make sure to negotiate with the hiring manager, not HR!