Asking for More Pay Can Pay Off Big

Here are several great comments left on my post titled Ask for More When You're Given a Job Offer:

As was said it's about how much they want you. There is an art to negotiating because it has to be in good faith and fair & reasonable or you risk losing the deal. But realize you have the most negotiating power BEFORE the offer is signed.

Be gracious, thank them for their interest in you. Talk about the job and the fit as much as possible, wait if you can before discussing anything salary related. After all you don't want to buy something until you know you want it and then take the time to consider the cost.

Make sure you have a good reason to justify why you want more. Usually being in a good job with some level of golden handcuff or other vesting benefits is a good reason to ask for more to 'compensate' you leaving your current job. Ideally your reason should be more than saying you would like the extra money. That doesn't seem fair & reasonable to the employer - everyone wants more money but you will have to justify it. Be careful of leveraging multiple offers to boldly or the hiring company won't think you are interested.

If you can follow this and are valued you will have an exception made for you to come in above the internal equity pay rate. However your challenge now is to perform to prove your worth. It isn't as hard as it sounds since your hiring manager has agreed to pay you more and implicitly wants you to succeed.

I've been in 5 jobs so far, every one after the 1st job has followed this scenario with the exception of job #4 that followed a company shutdown of a startup. I took a paycut there but still successfully negotiated for a $10,000 signing bonus (from nothing offered) and increased bonus level even with my reduced negotiating power.

The next commenter agreed with these thoughts:

Everything Big Cheese said rings true with my experience. First you have to sell them on why you are THE ONE. In the process you have to determine if this would be a good move for you. And then you have to sell them on why you deserve what you're asking for and why they are going to have to stretch to lure you away.

It helps if you have the option of staying right where you are. I never let on if I'm unhappy with my present circumstances. As far as the prospective employer is concerned, I'm happy where I am, think the people are great, think the org is great, expect to get a raise soon, BUT simply feel limited in some way and/or wish to explore other options.

I have never taken a new job without a significant increase in pay, responsibility, or prospects. It's simply not worth it, unless it's a strategic move to a new career path.

And then, someone left a testimony to the fact that asking for more can really pay off:

I've asked for more money with every job offer I've ever had. One case was an extra $2k a year and another an extra $5k. Not bad for just saying "hey, you want to try to increase that a little?" Once they have offered you the job, you KNOW that they want you there. I have never, ever, ever heard of someone having a job offer rescinded if they asked for more. The worst thing that can happen is that they say no.

Finally, we end with a different thought -- be sure you have the same sort of boldness when asking for vacation time:

I came back to work for a company I had previously worked for. One of the things I asked for, and got without any hesitation was to have my years of service bridged from my previous time there. Since that is used to determine vacation time, it was worth a couple extra days of vacation each year.

A couple thoughts on vacation specifically:

1. It's often easier to give than a salary increase since it's a soft cost to an employer. As such, if a company refuses to give you a salary increase, you could ask if they could give you more vacation instead.

2. I have NEVER gone back in vacation time when changing jobs. Yes, the companies I've worked for had a "policy" that new employees only get two weeks of vacation. But I already had four weeks, and I wasn't giving that up. In every case, I've asked for and received my same level of vacation. (Maybe I should have asked for five weeks?)

Comments

[used vans girl]

Wouldn't starting a new job and having to make friends be kind of difficult in a new environment where people resent you for having double the holidays they have. Some of the employee's there may have put 20-30 years into the business then a new guy comes along and is given special priorities that no one else has. That has to cause some kind of jealousy! It’s human nature.

[Brent]

My response to the above comment would be - tough luck, that's what you get for being a bad negotiator.

[FMF]

Vans Girl --

1. How would they know?

2. If you get more vacation in the example I used above, it's because you earned it somewhere through years of service (at a different job), so it's not like people working at the new place for 30 years get a week and some 20-year-old gets four weeks. It's more like you'll be in the same class as people with similar amounts of time worked -- theirs will be just for one company and yours could be several other companies.

3. What Brent said. If you can negotiate a better deal, why not do it?

[Matt]

Used Vans Girl:

The amount of your pay can cause jealousy too. Vacation is just part of the total compensation package. Some people are more highly compensated than others, even controlling for tenure. That's life.