Always negotiate job offer?

[Anonymous]

If what you want is more flexibiity and vacation, I would go with that. often easier to approve than more money. Just say I am very excited about this job and joining the team. This position represents a 50% reduction in vacation time however as well as the flexibility I enjoy in my current role. Would you be able to increase vacation to 3x/week and consider a telework schedule of X days a week (or whatever you want).

[Anonymous]

Feels like negotiating an official offer is a few steps too late. The only time I've really had to push back is when the offer was absurdly low. I countered, they denied (with no alternate offer), and I walked away. If I had even minimal insight on the salary, I would have just skipped talking to them and saved everyone some time.

In the current job I knew the compensation structure compared to my previous job, and the salary I needed to make it worthwhile to me. I said I currently make X, and the offer needs to be Y to move. They offered me Y and I accepted. People will read that and call me a terrible negotiator: it's dumb to tell them what you make, what you want, and not push back. They're probably right if the intent is to maximize the money I can make. But I got what I wanted and thought was fair based on my research of the position, market, experience, etc. I'm happy with that.

On the flip side of that, I interview a fair amount now and it's interesting to see it from the other side. By offer time we've gone through 4+ hours of interview time, and then another 2x that much in preparation, writing scorecards, discussing among each other. And then we might interview 4-8 people. So 48-96 hours of company time at well over $100/hr I'm sure. So when someone asks for another $5-10K, we've already spent at least that much money getting to that point with them, and it will take another $5k-10k to find someone we like equally well.

[Anonymous]

Let us know how it goes, OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Feels like negotiating an official offer is a few steps too late. The only time I've really had to push back is when the offer was absurdly low. I countered, they denied (with no alternate offer), and I walked away. If I had even minimal insight on the salary, I would have just skipped talking to them and saved everyone some time.

In the current job I knew the compensation structure compared to my previous job, and the salary I needed to make it worthwhile to me. I said I currently make X, and the offer needs to be Y to move. They offered me Y and I accepted. People will read that and call me a terrible negotiator: it's dumb to tell them what you make, what you want, and not push back. They're probably right if the intent is to maximize the money I can make. But I got what I wanted and thought was fair based on my research of the position, market, experience, etc. I'm happy with that.

On the flip side of that, I interview a fair amount now and it's interesting to see it from the other side. By offer time we've gone through 4+ hours of interview time, and then another 2x that much in preparation, writing scorecards, discussing among each other. And then we might interview 4-8 people. So 48-96 hours of company time at well over $100/hr I'm sure. So when someone asks for another $5-10K, we've already spent at least that much money getting to that point with them, and it will take another $5k-10k to find someone we like equally well.

You should know the salary range once you first talk to the recruiter. The recruiter also doesn't want to put forward someone that ultimately will have to decline because the salary isn't there.

Once you have the official offer, you are in the best position to negotiate as they have already invested in you and you know they want you. You should absolutely make reasonable requests for more money and vacation. They can always decline and so can you.