One of my first jobs, I was offered and accepted. The guy that hired me soon after told me (essentially) that I was an idiot for not asking for more; he was ready to pay more but wanted to start lower for the negotiation.
I've negotiated ever since and always gotten more than was initially offered. [Reply]
I interviewed for a job once where I asked if it would be possible for me to work about a half hour less each day than everyone else doing the same job. They called me the next day and offered it to me. In the end I didn't take it anyway. [Reply]
I've countered every job offer I've received, and always received what I asked for. On the flip side, I hired 28 people last year, and denied every person who countered. They all took the original offer. Now I give people a fair warning that I'm going to make them my best offer, and there is no room to counter. [Reply]
Originally Posted by The Franchise:
What a ****ing moron. Him not you.
Yeah, I kind of wanted to follow up informally afterwards and ask, "Why did you do that?" It completely undermined the person's credibility.
The hiring process is fascinating. Most people are very good, but sometimes you get a person who makes your jaw drop with bad decisions. I've had people show up an hour late to interviews with no good reason, people who've talked about how they would yell at their former bosses when they disagreed, and people whose resumes have been ... weird at best, mentioning aliases, making racial comments, and other stuff.
My most extreme hiring story is a person we made an offer to many years ago. He passed all of our tests and interviews and seemed like a great candidate. We gave him a conditional offer contingent on a background check and reference check, because he was on the East Coast and we wanted to be sure that he was really interested in moving 1,500 miles before we went to the expense of the background stuff. He was on board, so I tried to contact his former employer.
I don't recall the details, but we couldn't reach them, and it was kind of important in the process because it was several years of experience in a similar job. So I asked him if he had other contact information.
He said, "No, but don't worry about it. I never worked there."
"Huh?"
"It's just something I put on my resume to show job experience."
(Long pause.) "So you never worked there and you listed it on your resume as several years of experience?"
"No, it's my aunt and uncle's company. I just needed to list a job to stay in the country." (He was a foreign guy who was on an H1B visa.)
"And you never worked there?"
"No."
Needless to say, I rescinded his offer, which set off a couple of weeks of conflict where he kept telling me he was moving to Colorado to start work and I kept telling him he didn't have a job because he falsified his resume. He also told me that he really did work there and just told me he didn't, and I could call his aunt and uncle now to confirm, which I thought was funny. I think the last e-mail exchange was him threatening me and saying that he was driving to Colorado. Fortunately, he never showed up, though I suspect he lists my company on his resume now. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower:
Sounds like a great way to have that offer rescinded.
My wife was told by the CEO that she was by far the best candidate they interviewed and that she was the only one with a certification and healthcare experience.
She’s definitely got the leverage here.
The goal of the counter was to provide a range of things instead of one particular item. [Reply]
All negotiations have the same issues be it for buying a house, a car, a business or a job;
1. Get all the RECENT data you can BEFORE you interview/shop so you know the true value of the market and your worth
2. See if you have any SPECIAL skills that the company can use to justify the top end of the salary. Soft skills are worthless
3. Try and contact a few current or recent employees BEFORE you interview to ask them all kinds of questions about the company and how they treat employees and if they honor their word. LinkedIn makes this pretty easy
4. Have a list of deal breakers that you MUST have and THROW AWAYS that you can concede back to the company to negotiate
5. The greater the skill position and more senior, the more likely there will be negotiations and sometimes it could be several weeks worth.
6. If they are hiring in mass to fill (x) of the same position due to sudden growth, less likely there will be negotiations.
7. If it is a very large company, Fortune 500, and you are replacing someone in a group you will get a standard offer that has little flexibility.
8. If you can recruit other employees or have a great Rolodex that will bring immediate impact to their bottom line, that is a HIGHLY negotiable item. A bounty or bonus on goals set
Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud:
The bottom line is this: Know your value. If you're willing to work for less than your value, you're doing yourself a major disfavor because once you've accepted a lower paying job, that's your worth moving forward.
This is some of the best advice you've dolled out on CP. :-) [Reply]
Except... it’s not. In fact, it seems like you are espousing the typical boomer position, i.e. you should take what you are offered and be happy you are offered anything at all, and that’s an absurd position unless you don’t have any demonstrable skills. In that case, then yeah, a counteroffer is absurd.
As has been mentioned, virtually every company has a salary band for every position and you can bet that you are going to get offered the bottom end of that band. Know your worth. [Reply]
I'm not that old, I just prefer to not think in black and white terms. Asking for more money or whatever doesn't pigeonhole you into deserving an offer to be rescinded... the honest companies out there who make reasonable offers have to deal with the fact that not all companies are like that, which means people will negotiate.
And wait.... thinking that a company is crotchety and not worth it if they rescind an offer due to one counter offer is "boomer thinking"?
I'd think if someone were to stereotype, it would fall under younger generations and the thought that it's entitled young people thinking they deserve more money. :-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by Third Eye:
Except... it’s not. In fact, it seems like you are espousing the typical boomer position, i.e. you should take what you are offered and be happy you are offered anything at all, and that’s an absurd position unless you don’t have any demonstrable skills. In that case, then yeah, a counteroffer is absurd.
As has been mentioned, virtually every company has a salary band for every position and you can bet that you are going to get offered the bottom end of that band. Know your worth.
Exactly.
And I even said earlier that I absolutely hate negotiating, even though I totally get why people should do it. Companies low ball all the time, especially when the economy sucks and they try to assume candidates are desperate. And also in situations of internal transfers.
Some companies suck and they're all more focused on their bottom line than yours... shocker. [Reply]
I was offered a good job after being laid off in Feb, tried to negotiate my salary and we got within about $5k difference of each other... Then Corona hits and they go on hiring freeze and I'm stuck in a lurch. [Reply]
