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How do you negotiate a job offer?

Is it still possible to negotiate a job offer after you say you accept via e-mail (without receiving the offer letter itself)?

  • I recently received an offer for Software Development position, where the hiring manager said I cannot get the actual offer letter itself until I verbally accept. I really like the job, but I am a bit unhappy with the salary I got. I already said yes via e-mail. Is it too late to negotiate or can I still pull this off? I do want to add that I have a competing offer and they know about it.

  • Answer:

    Yes, if they're open to it. It's always hard to tell, but if the salary would make you unhappy with the position it would be best to get it straightened out before you go into an unhappy situation. It might be most effective to present this in an in-person conversation with the person who hired you into their group rather than the hiring manager, so that you can feel it out and not step on their toes. You can present it as clarifying that the person had all the information that is necessary to set the right salary, as some of the communications happened indirectly. Your goal would be to present to the company or ask the company about relevant information on any of these four factors: 1.     Past Comp – your salary and equity in current and past jobs 2.     Peer Comp – the salary and equity of others in your peer group within this company 3.     Desired Comp – what you want to get paid, regardless of other indicators 4.     Market Comp – your competitive offers in the market These are the factors that companies use to decide the right offer for you, so you'd be identifying which numbers were misinterpreted by the company in setting the salary that makes you unhappy to take the job. (For more info on these factors, based on an interview with Boris Epstein of BINC Search, see http://stockoptioncounsel.com/blog/bulls-eye-negotiating-the-right-job-offer/2013/12/20 or the long form of the interview with tons of info on these factors at http://stockoptioncounsel.com/blog/negotiatingtherightjobofferlongformqa.)

Mary Russell at Quora Visit the source

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Yes, it's possible. Rude and unprofessional though.

Dima Korolev

What's unacceptable here is that a company would withhold offer details and ask for acceptance. I would tell them that, while you want to work there and accepted on those grounds, you did not actually accept the offer they gave you because you didn't have it to accept. Since you do have a competing offer, I'd use that as leverage as much as possible while continuing to interview. I'd also question a culture that allows these kinds of hiring practices and ask yourself whether you want to work there in the first place. A recruiter pulling this kind of shady move is one thing, and judging a company by its recruiters isn't always the wisest course of action, but a hiring manager doing it is reprehensible and would be a huge red flag to me.

Aline Lerner

As long as you haven't signed the contract yet, you can still definitely negotiate the pay.This salary negotiation guide from the career and salary research site called PayScale will help you with the salary negotiation process starting from salary market research to actual negotiation, http://bitly.com/1yI0j5g .

George P. Adams

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