To ask for the higher end of the salary range and to ask mumsnet how to get it?

[orangesandlemonssaythebellsofstclements]

I'm going for a new job and I'm really excited about it. The interview is in a few days.

The problem is, I haven't actual had a "job" job in almost five years now. I have five years experience in the role, followed a year's experience in a similar role and then another four years experience in the role I am applying for before I was made redundant towards the end of 2019 (I was made redundant from the two jobs before my last one too).
I stayed at home for a couple of months but was intending to start looking for new jobs in January 2020 when my youngest turned 2 but covid started to make it impossible.
Instead, my husband and I set up a business together (relevant to his work experience and absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with mine) which I've run from home since 2020. TBH I hate it, I want my own job, in the role I loved and I want to actually go out to work and have set hours instead of being stuck indoors fitting a job round the kids and being on the phone to customers at any moment of the day. Husband is on board and willing to close down the business and do some ads-hoc work part time to add to my wage and be home more with the kids, do school runs etc.

AAAANYWAY... to make this lifestyle and income change worth it (the business is doing well), I really do need to achieve the top end of the salary range they are offering which is more than I've ever achieved in any similar job. Does my previous experience seem enough to ask for it? would the five year gap put employers off and lower my earning potential?
Any tips at all on how to ask for it would be much appreciated as I've never had to before.

Thanks so much if you got this far!

The OP said public sector. Most public sector employees are either in the NHS, emergency services or civil service (just about everyone who works for 'an agency' is a civil servant on civil service T&Cs).

Often they want a certain level of skills/experience but know they've no hope of getting it for the pay on offer so employ various smoke and mirror tactics with the wording of the vacancy to make people think there's more than NMW on offer.

Perhaps the OP could clarify?

@Bjorkdidit I'm with you, I doubt it is civil service with the pay scale range, and most other sectors do allow flexibility within the scale, civil service are just an irritating outlier!

Haven’t yet read the full thread but noticed a few people saying it’s virtually impossible to get an up lift in the public sector. That was always my impression too. However I did it a few months ago.

Offered a job in a separate area with different pay scales. This would make me worse off but I’d save a lot of commuting time and fuel costs. Even factoring this in I’d still be slightly worse off for the first year until I went up a spinal column point. I wasn’t too bothered as an extra two plus hours of my day back seemed worth it and the new job has better opportunities for progression.

I asked nicely anyway hoping for a small uplift.

They whacked me to the top of the scale and tried unsuccessfully to get the role reassessed for the grade above. It seems they got into a tizz they’d lose me and were very apologetic they couldn’t offer more.

So I think if they think you’re the right candidate, it is possible.

We are just guessing!

The salary range is odd for the public sector. I’d possibly ask about this in an interview.

I’d have to agree this against budget with my finance manager. I can’t imagine saying it will either be £34k (roughly what a 22k looks like on a budget sheet) or £50k (£38k) in the current climate.

However it could be that there’s an income generation target set against it and another area unlike mine, would look at this - ie a 22k role would generate a 40k surplus, a £38k role would generate a £70k surplus.

My only other thought and possibly most likely (though I can’t see how it would be advertised in this way where I am), is that there’s two roles on the table. One entry level and one more senior?

You're wrong. I didn't do a "bit of answering the phone for my DH" and I manged much more than a temp receptionist, not that there is anything wrong with being a temp receptionist.

It is our company. We set it up together. We are partners, co-owners, and are both directors. He goes out and delivers the service to our customers, I run the office which includes answering phones, managing the finances, bookkeeping, dealing with professional bodies, dealing with suppliers, creating and sending invoices, creating and sending quotes, and a whole host of other things. I don't have set hours, I do fit it around the children, but I absolutely have a full and active role in OUR company.

Our friends do not think so, our friends know and love us. I was speaking about members of the public that we deal with.

I'm not sure if you are sexist, or just unkind, but either way you know nothing and your opinion is of little value so please don't bother replying.

I said "there isn't currently any staff".

I'm not sure what suggests low intelligence. It's an entirely new team all currently being recruited. There is no internal staff to recruit from.

I run the office which includes answering phones, managing the finances, bookkeeping, dealing with professional bodies, dealing with suppliers, creating and sending invoices, creating and sending quotes, and a whole host of other things.

I don’t understand why these tasks can’t be undertaken remotely.

We always ask candidates what their salary expectations are in an interview. I would suggest saying something along the lines of "I have a good ten years' of experience in this field, so I would be looking at the top end of your range, certainly somewhere in the upper quartile eg. £X-XX".

If they have advertised the job with a salary range then the company has signed off on paying the top end of that. Don't be afraid to ask for it!

Given all the things you've described doing, I don't understand why you are saying you haven't worked in the last few years. At the very least I'd be describing your time working in your company as Operations Manager/Director.

In terms of the salary range, that's really broad. I'm based in London, so we don't pay any staff £22k as London Living Wage is circa £27k. I'd expect someone at that level to be perhaps entry level/uni graduate and hardy any experience.

To get the higher salary, you need to emphasise both your experience from the time you were last in this role, but also transferable skills you are bringing across from your business.

If they ask you what your salary expectations are, I'd be honest and say £32-38k, knowing that £32k is the minimum you would expect. Again you need to reiterate your experience to justify starting at the higher end of the salary range.

As they have offered a salary range, you don’t have to raise the subject of salary before you are offered the job. In either case you need to be prepared to present an evidenced case that you are very experienced and deserve the top end of the band.

I think it's a really bad policy, but some organisations advertise the full salary range for the grade, but with no intention of someone joining at the top of the grade.
I have done on occasions, but only after turning down a low offer.
TBH, without recent experience, you may need to accept a slightly lower salary than you'd like to get back into the market.

@orangesandlemonssaythebellsofstclements - a lot of what you say below is exactly what you need to put in your CV and any application questions!!

"It is our company. We set it up together. We are partners, co-owners, and are both directors. He goes out and delivers the service to our customers, I run the office which includes answering phones, managing the finances, bookkeeping, dealing with professional bodies, dealing with suppliers, creating and sending invoices, creating and sending quotes, and a whole host of other things. I don't have set hours, I do fit it around the children, but I absolutely have a full and active role in OUR company."

Instead of being annoyed at the poster, be grateful that they got you to realise what you need to point out to the interviewers!
None of your previous posts made this obvious at all

The wording should be 'there aren't any staff'. You used the word isn't which is incorrect. It's a small thing but very, very noticeable and just doesn't look or sound great. I don't claim to have perfect grammar, but I thought I'd pass on the observation as for right or wrong, people do often find themselves judged on how they speak. Sticking to correct use of language looks better.

@Wisenotboring I hate to be that person but actually both are correct. When I was a student doing English literature a million years ago we certainly would have been expected to use ‘staff’ to mean the singular - ie a body of staff. So the grammatically correct usage was ‘there isn’t any staff’; alternatively you could say ‘there aren’t any staff members.’

More recently, language has evolved so that you can also use ‘staff’ to mean ‘staff members’ as a plural noun.

I was quoting you back to yourself. You've only just identified in this post that you also did quotes, invoices and book-keeping; employers really can't guess what you have done so you need to get specific like thia on your CV and in interviews. If quoting and book-keeping are part of the role you are going for then it's really helpful experience to include. Presumably also chasing debt, managing a website etc? My point still stands that you can outsource a lot of this when you get another job.

All the book keeping, preparing quotes etc etc.. is it relevant to the job you're applying for? If you want 32-35 do the interviews and if you're offered the job say you'd be happy to accept at 36-38. If they think you're worth it at anything over 30 they'll counter offer, if not they'll decline.

Why would you want to close a business, where there could be lots of earning potential, to work for someone barely willing to pay minimum wage for a job?

Fair enough. I did think that bit I would still err on the side of caution when going in for a negotiation on salary.

I’ve only read the OP’s posts, but usually in the public sector HR has a matrix that determines what point on the salary scale you enter at. In some cases, you have to enter at point 1 regardless, then you get your annual increment up to the top of the band.

I’ve hired several people to public sector roles in different organizations and it’s been fairly evenly split between the two methods. In my current place of work, if the JD says “candidate needs a degree and at least 5 years of relevant experience” and they have 5 years they enter on the first point of the scale. If they have 7 years it’s point 2, if they have 10 years it’s point 3 etc. I’ve never actually hired someone at the top of the scale, because it gives them nowhere to go in terms of raising your pay for increments or performance.

are they recruiting a number of people across different pay grades?...that would explain the very wide salary bracket that they have advertised?

@greatcoffeebadhair @Wisenotboring It’s also different in UK vs US English. I work in the States in an environment with UK, US and Canadian colleagues and the North Americans use ‘staff is/team is’ whereas we Brits tend towards ‘are’.

Maybe wait to see if they even offer you the role first!