A long time friend called the other day to discuss his latest job offer.The friend was quite satisfied and ready to accept the offer until we ran through the details together.After a few questions about the process I learned that my friend was about to accept the employer’s first offer.Now this wouldn’t have been the end of the world…the offer did meet the basic compensation requirements.
Negotiating legend Chester Karrass likes to point out that we should rarely, (OK he uses never), accept the first offer.His premise is two fold:
1. First offers are usually built with the expectation that there will be a negotiation so there is something “held back”.
2. The party making the offer will often feel badly about the deal if it is accepted right away….they’ll wonder if perhaps the offer was stronger than it had to be.
Great points of course.
I’ll add another thought… Over the years as a hiring manager and a “student of the game” of negotiating, especially jobs and job offers I often ask the question:
What is the single largest mistake a candidate makes in a job/compensation negotiation?
By far the most dominate answer is that the candidate fails to negotiate!
This leaves the hiring manager not only with the feelings as described above but in some vocations there’s perhaps a bit of remorse or concern about having made the offer at all. Imagine if you are hiring for a sales or customer facing vocation where negotiations are a part of your everyday job function. The hiring manager might be concerned if the candidate cannot show a bit of negotiating tenacity in a dialogue where personal motivation ought to be quite high.
It is lightning strike rare for an offer to be pulled back simply because a professional request for improvement was made.
The vast majority of the time you’ll end up like my friend. We looked at a few aspects of the offer that could be part of a counter….and today he has a new job with a larger signing bonus and more stock options than he would’ve received if he had said yes before he said no!
© 2007 Burt Hadlock
tags:
first offer,
job offer,
Negotiating,
counter offer
