Two big questions hang over every job interview: will I get it? How much will they pay me? Most interviewees mistakenly believe that they can influence only the first, so fail to apply basic principles that make a big difference to the second.

The fact is, unless you are up for the kind of bureaucratic role where salary is dictated by a strict formula of age, experience and qualifications, you can move your starting pay by thousands of pounds.

We are back to that great secret of office life — that the people in charge are not as smart as they would like us to believe. They think they are in charge of the interview: if you plan your tactics properly, you are.

The first thing to remember is to keep money out of the conversation. Some bosses are so embarrassed about the pay on offer that they try to raise it at the start, to get it out of the way. Stop them. Tell them you are more interested in talking about the job and the qualities you can bring.

You do that brilliantly, because you have planned it meticulously. You can tell that they are already imagining you in the post. They are mentally abandoning their search, for they have found their candidate. Now is the time to introduce money, when the discussion is a natural extension of the one about your qualities.

And the deal clincher? You get in first.

Most people are too wet to say what they are worth, or they wait for the employer, on the off chance he or she will come up with an astonishingly generous offer. In real life, bosses don’t. By getting your figure on the table, you set the sum where haggling starts.

Scared? Put yourself in their shoes. They started with a price they wanted to pay. Now they really want you, the irritation of offering marginally more than they hoped is less than the pain of losing their best candidate. They didn’t flinch at your proposal? Then it looks as if you have raised your starting salary by a couple of thousand pounds.

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