Negotiating A Job Offer

Negotiating a job offer is something that many job searchers fear.

Depending on how the company approaches the negotiation of the job offer letter, they might verbally negotiate with you and then prepare a written offer or they may just go straight to a hard copy offer based on your initial parameters of what you might accept.

Negotiating a job offer is an interesting aspect of the job search because people view negotiation differently. Some job searchers are just happy to be getting a job offer and think that they'll offend the hiring manager if they try to negotiate a better deal. Some people might think that the company will pull the offer away if they try to get a better deal.

On the other hand, some employers might view your negotiating skills as part of deciding whether or not you're the right person for the job. Imagine you're interviewing for a sales job and start negotiating a job offer with the hiring manager. The hiring manager might view how you negotiate with them as an indication of how you'd negotiate with their customers, should you get the job!

If you do a poor job of negotiating the job offer in their mind, you might come across as a pushover in the eyes of the hiring manager.

Sometimes, there is nothing to negotiate and the job offer is given on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

Some aspects of the job offer might be non-negotiable. There might be a company policy that prevents the hiring manager from meeting certain things that you request.

Typically, aspects of the job offer letter than you might negotiate are:

• Salary
• Bonus (size of bonus, structure of bonus, etc)
• Vacation
• Start date
• Job title
• Job responsibilities
• Benefits (or possibly, how quickly your benefit coverage will start)
• Other benefits (ie. you might get your employer to agree to a training budget, travel costs, etc)

When negotiating a job offer with an employer, you need to keep in mind what you already know about them and about the job specifically.

If you know the salary range they are offering, you might find it difficult to get a salary higher than the high end of the stated range.

If you are looking for more vacation time or a better bonus structure, company policy might prevent them from improving on what they have already offered.

Then again, they might simply decide the job offer letter they’ve given you is as good as it’s going to get.

There isn’t ALWAYS room for negotiation…at some point the negotiation has to stop and you have to either accept the job offer or turn it down.

Go to Accepting A Job Offer

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