Is taking a demotion career suicide?

I am a hiring manager in IT. I dont have advice per se, but i can tell you about my most recent hire. Working through HR to get developers on board is hard. At my firm, HR is always slow. I would not take the low ball offer or the slow offer as evidence that the hiring manager is reluctant about you fitting into the team. At my firm, HR handles salary negotiation. Other than advocating changes in the salary range associated with the position, I don't set a say in specific salary negotiations. I think this is happening more and more. My most recent hire knew that I wasn't directly involved in the offer process. After the poor job HR did with it, I think knowing it wasn't a reflection of my attitude was all that let her take the job in the end with some feeling of dignity. HR was particularly demeaning in her case. The other thing that this scenario allowed her to do is negotiate aggressively for salary. She was certain that I was advocating her hiring after a recruitment process that found few qualified candidates. So, she pushed for the high end of the published salary, and ended up in the top quartile after 2 weeks of negotiations. If I were you, I'd ask for the 8000 as a representative of the value that you as an experience developer would bring to this position. The hiring manager wants you. HR is probably feeling pressure to close this deal and you can let it stay open a couple weeks to improve your salary. You're talking about $4/hr. it could take years to make that up. On the title demotion issue. It's not an issue at all. The work you are responsible for leads to the next IT role, not the title.

Call back HR and say, "I'd like to accept the position and I was given to understand that the salary we discussed was X. May I have a new offer letter reflecting that?" The worst they can say is no. When you take the job, concentrate on tasks and projects that beef up your résumé. Get some new Certs, sit on a dumb committee, chair the users group. After a year or so, attack the job search anew.

This isn't a demotion. Right now your job title is 'Unemployed.' 'Web Developer' is a big promotion from that.

If I were in your shoes, I'd definitely feel indignant and pissed off. And would have a hard time working for them. But. What I'd do is confidently/cheerfully reply to HR (even if you don't believe this was a mistake, act as though you do) saying that you're excited by the opportunity to work there but that the offer letter doesn't match what your previous negotiations indicated, and that you would instantly accept an offer at the agreed-upon rate of $$$. I would do this fully planning to find a better gig sooner rather than later. Then, I'd do some thinking about where you want your career to go, and try to learn the skills that will get you there. The way you describe yourself doesn't sound like you have a great narrative for why somebody should hire you. There's nothing wrong with just wanting to go to work and do a decent job for a paycheck, but my impression is that it'll be easier to get a job in your field if you're excited about the technology and have at least a little bit of openly-available work to back that up. (Programming is a large part of my job, but I'm in a wildly different situation than you are.)

The company offers you 15K less than you said you wanted to earn. They do that because they know you're desperate for a job after being unemployed for over a year, but with that comes the risk (for them) that you keep looking for a job that suits you better. It's just business to them, and it should be just business to you. I think having a new job offer very soon counts as a "nice problem to have" and not something to worry about at all.

Yeah, can you REALLY afford to be picky here? You refuse to move, your options are slim, and who knows if you'll ever get another offer under those circumstances. I don't see where you have any advantage to negotiate a lowball here.

Just take the job, and start earning again. You may want to figure out just why you have been out of work for a year. Is it your job market? Are dev jobs few and far between, and no one wants or needs someone at your pay grade? Is it your lack of range in terms of the projects you've worked on and the technologies you are familiar with? Is it lack of credentials and lack of keeping up to date? Is it the way you conducted your job search? Quite frankly, it sounds to me that your decision not to relocate is playing the biggest role in lack of finding a job, and that location, rather than salary, is what is most important to you. So if you don't want to relocate, you may just consider taking this job.

Jobs are not marriages. If some other better employer offers you a job after a very short tenure at a current position, it's not uncommon to just make the jump and never mention the 2 weeks you worked for X Corp unless asked directly.

> it's much more attractive position, regardless of salary, were they to make an offer. > Isn't it generally thought as pretty unprofessional to leave a position you've just recently started Yes, kinda, but at the same time, most people would consider it reasonable. Don't let that word unprofessional kneecap your long run best interests. Just make sure the better offer is rock solid before you announce your departure.