How to negotiate offers?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > How to negotiate offers?

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Dwight Eisenhower posted:

Saying that your present salary is private is fine. If you're going to get passed up over that, then you are getting out of involvement with a caustic organization. You should always feel free to say what you want to make. Always be aggressive; you'll never get to push past this number again with this employer.

The smiling recruiters also get evaluated on how well they keep the cost of new employee acquisitions down.

The recruiter is not your friend, they are basically there to bring in stable talent at the lowest possible cost to the company.

Pretty much recruiters are aiming for a middle sweet spot the avoids too low of salary since the employee will probably leave but also avoiding the high side salary since they
get rated on much their talent acquisitions cost the company.

etalian fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Feb 16, 2014

# ¿ Feb 16, 2014 18:45

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 15:50

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Dwight Eisenhower posted:

When you can, get an employer to make the first offer. They see many more candidate employees than most employees see potential employers. If you're ambivalent about a position, go ahead and force them to make you an offer with a number, or walk. When they offer it gives you all kinds of advantages:

- You've anchored the bottom end of the conversation at their opening offer. You'll only go up from here in negotiation.
- If their offer is near your ideal YOU CAN CHOOSE TO BE DONE! "I'd like that very much." You're both happy, no negotiation required.
- Their offer is almost certainly based on higher exposure to the labor market, and gives you concrete data about what you can reasonably expect to get offered from anyone. Even if you don't take this position, you've now got more pricing data about what your work is worth.
- You can ask for the moon and then negotiate down from there and will not scare off many employers. An employer making a lowball offer runs a very real risk that they'll offend you from further discussion, and thus will be less greedy in their opening position.

Keep in mind trying to force an offer from an employer instead of disclosing how much you want to make is a move that risks the employer walking too, so I really only think you should do it for positions you're fine losing out on.

Yeah also it's a standard principle in negotiation in which it's in your best interest to get the other party to show their cards first.

Most of the salary information in online employment forms is to take away this advantage and make sure the recruiter knows your cards first so he can make a offer that saves the company money.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2014 06:35

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Wickerman posted:

This thread helped me negotiate for 20% more pay for a research position than was being offered to me, and all I did was be honest and firm.

Thanks, thread.

You really don't lose anything by trying to negotiate especially if you have the skill set and background a prospective employer really needs.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 03:18

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Kalenn Istarion posted:

Sounds like they're just trying to anchor to your current pay. Just tell them to make you an offer. It's up to you to decide once they've offered it whether it's sufficient. I don't live in the states but from discussion here and elsewhere I understand it to be fully in your rights to say no to giving them a W2.

Also from negotiation viewpoint it's always best to force the other party to show their cards.

Companies demanding things like previous salary information is driven the recruiters goal to bring you onboard without giving you a higher side offer.

They pretty much take your previous salary and then just add some cost of living adjustments plus mid-range offer to cut the down the new hire cost.

It's pretty much driven by how acquisition costs is one of the big metrics recruiters get graded in terms of yearly performance evaluations.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 02:16

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Guinness posted:

I don't know if that really answers your question very well, but in my one experience trying to play hardball on benefits they were pretty unwilling to budge on stuff like vacation/sick days, but were happy to increase salary or pay a signing bonus.

It's the whole point of the negotiation either party rarely gets everything but you tend to come out instead vs. accepting the standard offer from the recruiter without any negotiation tactics.

In your case you got a bigger signing bonus and also better starting salary.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 04:20

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

corkskroo posted:

Just to hammer home the importance of negotiating, this dude wrote an email and IT MADE HIM FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER YEAR. Not only that but the employer won out too imo because they got an employee who feels they value him and is probably more likely to feel invested in them. Everyone wins!

You pretty much don't lose anything by asking and trying to negotiate a better deal especially if you have specialized skills the company really wants.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 22:12

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Guinness posted:

Also keep in mind that recruiting and hiring is an expensive process for the employer. If they find a candidate that they like and want to hire, it is very expensive for them to let that hire slip away over reasonable salary negotiations and what is ultimately a small amount of money to the business.

Even more if they bring you in for a something like a out of state on-site interview and feel that you are a good match for the position.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2014 01:53

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Ethanfr0me posted:

Letter reads:

We would like to schedule a meeting on X to discuss salary and finalize your employment. Typically, this position has a starting salary of $36,000 per year with annual raises of 10%. Given your qualifications, we feel that we can begin significantly higher. If you can provide us your current salary, we can use this to best determine your salary at X company

*Health & Dental Coverage.
*Vacation of (2) weeks per year:
1st Year: (1) week unpaid / (1) week paid
2nd Year and beyond: (2) weeks paid.
*Sick Leave: (5) days per year.
*Profit Sharing: Annual Bonus typical (2) weeks – (1) month salary per year depending on profitability and growth.
*Food Plan: Lunch provided by company up to three times per week + Espresso bar.
*personal purchases at 10% over cost

I am a logistics manager, I would be moving from a 30 person corporate company to a 6 person small business. I know that $50k is in the middle of the scale in my area but I also have 5.5 years experience. I want to negotiate 2 weeks paid vacation / clarify holidays off the bat as well and iron out the medical / dental plan details.

The old show us your current salary is one of the oldest tricks in the book to undermine your negotiating position.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 02:21

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Bisty Q. posted:

Jesus, dude. You are wrong. Having an offer rescinded is earth-shatteringly rare. You've poured about 10,000 words into this thread to exhaustively argue with everyone that it is something you should even consider. You shouldn't. The chances of them going "oh, you asked for another $5K? No, and also gently caress you!" are so small it is literally not worth considering.

Any company that you should ever entertain working for would, at the worst, say "Nope, sorry, offer is firm" and not go "HEY MAN gently caress YOU WE'RE JUST GOING TO GO WITH OUR FIRST CHOICE WHO WANTED THE SAME AMOUNT AS YOU." I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but the odds of any professional company rescinding an offer are quite literally zero for all intents and purposes that don't involve fraud.

They decided on you for a reason (and made you #1, not #2 or 3) and ultimately nobody involved really cares if you get an extra $5K or not. Really. The recruiter doesn't get the difference added to their check. The hiring manager doesn't get a bonus for keeping salary low.

Not to mention companies invest a lot of money in screening candidates such paying for a out of state on site interview.

If you have a offer letter it means they want you for the job, which makes negotiation for a big more possible.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2014 03:43

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Kalenn Istarion posted:

I'd be careful how often you do that. When your resume starts to be full of new jobs every one or two years new employers are going to start to get reluctant about bringing you in.

Not really I would argue that sticking in the same company and stagnating is worse than changing jobs every few years. Not to mention if the multiple jobs gives you a skillset that
allows you hit the ground running with minimal training or oversight from more senior employees.

In today's business world places pretty accept that employment for life is a thing in the past.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2014 08:48

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Kalenn Istarion posted:

Not being employed for life is one thing. Someone seen as a job hopper because they never stick around is totally different. It costs a great deal of time and money to train someone into a new company's systems and culture, regardless of the experience they come in with. If a company can't count on you being around long enough to actually see the benefits of that training they won't bother. There are industries for which it is more acceptable than others, but it certainly bears being cautious.

Would rather candidate A who doesn't have the skillset for all the job requirements but worked for a long time at the previous company?

Or would rather higher candidate B who matches all the requirements because he worked at multiple companies and also avoided career stagnation?

Job hopping is only bad IMO if you don't have the improved skillset, experience or glowing references to show for it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/learnvest/2013/05/09/are-you-a-serial-job-hopper/

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 01:28

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Dango Bango posted:

I would like to get the offer bumped up by that $3k difference. Any advice as to the best way to go about doing this? Call and explain my position to the HR rep who offered? I've never been in a position where I had leverage to counter before.

You are pretty much best off negotiating with the actual hiring manager and also getting the hiring managed intrigued by what you have to offer first, then trying to go for the extra cash.

I found this to a be a handy guide:
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 03:17

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 15:50

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

asur posted:

The company doesn't really care about COLA so bringing it up is at best irrelevant and given that they give you a COLA adjustment benefit is probably a negative. I think it would be much more persuasive to argue for an increase because the new job is more advanced, I'm assuming that means more responsibility. I would also recommend that you ask for more than 3k if you're at the bottom of the salary range and it would be helpful if you had at the very least salary comparisons for the new city.

Yeah a important part of the negotiation process is doing research and other methods to ballpark the possible top range for the position.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2015 04:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > How to negotiate offers?