Just want to post and remind people here of the reality of negotiations going bad for you. Most posts here about starting new jobs recommend that you always negotiate your starting wage as most employers expect you to. While I would still recommend this too, I will say make sure you are negotiating from a position of strength. Luckily for me, I’m still employed with a job I like and could afford taking on the risk of losing an offer. But for people who are unemployed or underemployed, I would think twice before possibly losing a job offer. Know your worth.
Little backstory on the job offer:
I currently work as an Application Engineer for a company that I genuinely enjoy. My pay is fair, it’s an ESOP, I never have to work over 40 hours (usually only do 37.5) and the first $2,500 of medical expenses per year (out of $6,000 total deductible) is paid for by the company, which makes going to the doctor a lot easier knowing I won’t have a bill. We also receive bonuses based on company bookings. These bonuses give me an additional $12-14k a year. Safe to say, I know how good I have it and was not actively looking to change things up.
A couple weeks ago, a CEO of a small company reached out to me on LinkedIn and presented an interesting opportunity. He had just purchased this small company (<5 people) in the area I was working. Basically this was a family run company and the guy he bought it from was looking to retire. He was going to stay on for additional 1-2 years to help train me be a suitable replacement for him. I liked everything about the opportunity and would have taken it if the compensation lined up. After the interview, I received an offer in my email. The base pay was about 13% higher than my current pay and this job also had bonuses, but I had no idea how easy they would be obtained compared to my current situation. He offered less PTO then I was currently receiving and I already knew I could kiss goodbye to my great work/life balance that I currently had, since he wanted to grow the company by 50% in the first year. The guy who was on the way out was already doing 60-70 hour weeks. I counter offered stating that I expected the work load to increase from my current position and that I genuinely don’t want to leave so I asked him to raise the base salary by $10k (A 15% increase from the initial offer) and that I would accept if he could meet that.
He wrote back the following:
“At that rate we will be pursuing a more experienced engineer with less demands at such an inexperienced level. “
In my mind that’s a very unprofessional response so I already know I dodged a bullet.
But anyway just be careful when negotiating, but if you have a job that you like, play hardball all you want.
Submitted September 28, 2019 at 09:33PM by idontcare111 https://ift.tt/2nDtuJn
