Rick Maher’s Professional Notes

This is the second of a three part series. Check out all three posts regarding the post interview job hunt process:

1. How To: Compare Job Offers
2. How To: Negotiate Salary Out Of College
3. How To: Accept and Decline Job Offers

Great, you are graduating from college soon and have a (some?) job offers already lined up.Do you feel like because you are getting a job straight out of college and have limited experience that you are a dime a dozen? If so, I think I can convince you otherwise and prove to you that you can (and should) be demanding a top rate in terms of your job offers.

The key to being able to actually do this is to be prepared. Here are a few things that helped me increase my offers by an average of 19% on first year salary + signing bonus alone!

First, know “how it works.”
In my recent experiences, all four of my job offers came in a very similar fashion and followed a common process. I would interview on campus or over the phone, then be asked to interview on site often including travel to their corporate headquarters and some whine/dine, then be called with general details of an offer and a promise that I would be receiving in either the mail or e-mail the full details of the offer. *Be sure to have a pen and paper ready when this call comes in! During my recruiting periods if I wasn’t at home I carried a note card and pen in my pocket.

Second, know “what to say.”
It is very important on this phone call to be careful with what you say. Here is a fairly common sample of how it generally flows, and how you should try to approach it:

Recruiter: Hi, I wanted to call to let you know that we are excited to make you an offer!

You: Excellent! That’s great…

Be excited! They will appreciate that you are still interested in the position. But at the same time do not go into your victory dance here! Be fairly short and leave it hanging as if you are waiting for the recruiter to go on with the details of the offer.

Recruiter: Yeah, well I will be overnighting the official offer to you today, so look out for that tomorrow, but to summarize, we have an opportunity which we think fits you great in (some location). Your first year salary will be $tt,hhh.00.

What you say next is key!

You: OK…

Again, leave it hanging as if you are expecting them to continue on. I have read and heard that recruiters will start off with the base salary as the offer then depending on the reaction include a signing bonus or stock options or other benefits if you make them feel it is necessary and you expect it.

What they say next can start to vary a bit, but the main point here is to make them feel like you are genuinely interested in the offer, but that you are definitely going to have to think it over… they didn’t offer you enough to make you jump for joy and accept right then and there. There is a possibility that they will try to get you to show some of your cards here, but with careful word choice you can easily buy yourself some time.

Recruiter: Does that sound like a great opportunity or what?

You: Well, thank you so much for calling, I am going to have to think this over and decide what my best option is, when do you need to know by?

Here you have to make a decision. If you are still waiting for other offers, you will want to take whatever date they tell you and say OK, and hang up as quickly as possible. This will buy you a few days at least because you can call back (BEFORE the date given) and say you need some more time to make the best decision. On the other hand, if you already have all the offers that you are expecting, this is a good time to test the negotiating waters without diving straight in.

Whether you decide to test right then or if you decide to wait, a great way to “test the negotiating waters” is to say:

You: I am very interested in your opportunity, but am hoping that I can give you my final answer a little later (give a date if possible) which better aligns with my other offers.

This serves numerous purposes. First, based on their reaction you can get a feeling if they are flexible at all. If the recruiter says, “sorry we blahblahblah so we need to know by (date)” then you can probably bet they will be fairly rigid in their salary/compensation negotiations. On the other hand if the recruiter says “yes, of course” or starts asking about your other offers, there is a good chance that you have a bit of an upper hand! This leads to another purpose that this specific line accomplishes, that of making the recruiter aware that you are entertaining other offers. In fact, the recruiter will very likely ask about your other offers.

Recruiter: Would you mind if I asked about your other offers?
(some recruiters may be much more direct by jumping right to “Who else has made you offers?” or similar… Either way, you will want to sound very accommodating, but give out as little information as possible)

You: Sure, I will gladly tell you as much as I can, but like you they have all asked that I keep details confidential.

Recruiter: Of course, I was really just wondering who else you have offers from and what types of positions they are for.

You: Well actually, I think they would rather I not name them specifically, but they are all very respectable firms for positions that match my skills in many of the same ways your position does.

Recruiter: Okay, I appreciate you telling me that blahblahblah, how many other offers do you have?

This one sometimes takes some embellishing… generally if you have 3 or more offers, just be honest with them, if you have theirs plus one, or only theirs, remember that you always have an offer to not take a job at all, and you might also have an offer to stay at your current part time job as a waiter or whatever…

You: Three.

Say your number and leave it at that. If you have any other legitimate questions, you can drop it in right here to try to casually get off of the subject of your other offers, but don’t force a question…
The recruiter will either give you the extra time you asked for or try to convince you right then that you should take their offer. If they try to convince you to take their offer you are at another decision. Are you ready to completely accept or completely turn down this offer? If not, tell the recruiter that you are “very interested in your offer, but coming out of school I really want to make a great informed decision.”

If you are ready, let the negotiating begin! Take a deep breath, be confident and go for it:

You: I am very interested in the opportunity with your firm, and I especially like (choose one: the location, the job content, the company values, the industry, the people you met, basically anything except the $$$), but my other offers are MUCH more competitive, and to accept your offer I would need you to at least close the gap a bit.
These are key words again. You always want to make them feel like you genuinely want to take their offer, AND that you are not just trying to be greedy and get more money. You want them only for them to increase their offer to the point where it is
Once you are in this territory every recruiter is going to be different. However, they will generally follow one of a small number of routes:

1. They will tell you sternly and flat out that they do not negotiate. To this, you can prod at them a little bit by saying something like “I think my (choose one: internship experience, excellent gpa, technical certification, etc) make me more qualified than most, and I really am interested in the opportunity with (insert company name).” Then if they still will not budge, give it one last try by saying “Are there any areas in the offer where you might be able to work on, such as (choose one… choose one that will actually sweeten the offer for you: a signing bonus, stock options, vacation days, a 6month review, a yr end bonus, etc). If they are still saying they can not negotiate, either tell them that you are unfortunately going to have to go with another option or that you appreciate their time and will get back to them as soon as possible with your decision.

2. They will ask you what your other offers are, or what would convince you, or any number of other wording that is essentially trying to get you to say a number. The key in responding to this is being prepared for it and knowing what you are worth, and what it will honestly take for that company to convince you to accept their offer right that moment. Depending on what type of job you the offer is for, there are numerous ways to get an idea of what you are worth including Salary.com, Vault.com, job boards, the campus career center, or probably the most accurate - your friends graduating with you and looking at similar jobs. What you do not want to do in response here is say one specific number. Rather, decide on your magic number (the number that if they match you will accept with them immediately) then make a range out of it. For example if they’re current offer is $45,000 and you pick $50,000 as your magic number, say “My competitive offers are in the range of $50,000-$58,000.” Notice that this is a pretty wide range. What you want here is for them to here the top number and think to themselves that the range is too big to just match the bottom number and that they will need to come somewhere into the lower-middle portion of the range.

Again, here recruiters can really vary in how they approach the situation. They may pick a number right within your range (way to go!… you should have aimed higher.), they might propose an increased offer still below your range, or they might say “let me talk to my manager and call you back,” (usually a good sign). The most common result that I encountered was them making an increased counter offer still below my range. If you have other offers and are willing to walk away from this one, this is where you can really lay it on thick.

You: I really appreciate your help in trying to balance your offer out, but it is still hard for me to justify such a significant gap. In fact, your position is of great interest to me, especially after talking in our interviews about how (my previous experience, excellent gpa, technical certifications, etc) would fit so well with your company. If you absolutely cannot increase the salary any further, can we talk about the possibility of (choose one: a (increased) signing bonus, stock options - only use stock options if you know the company does offer these and know the difference between stock options and an employee stock purchase plan, an early review - ie potential for a raise at 6months instead of a year, more vacation time, etc).

3. They will try to deflect the salary negotiation to much “softer” aspects of the job such as which location you will work at. Depending on the type and size of the company they may suddenly / conveniently have an excellent opportunity in a much lower cost of living area. Or, they may go with something like “have you compared our benefits program to your other offers, our medical insurance is great and will save you big bucks!” Use honesty in response to any of these soft benefit comparisons / counter offers and continue to bring the conversation back to what matters most to you in the negotiation… meaning, if location is a large factor in your decision, stay with it and talk it out… if location and medical insurance are much less important to you, be confident and focus the recruiter on “the first year compensation.”

Congratulations, you have negotiated your job offers!

Now the hard part, how to decide which job to take! For some pointers on how to do just that, read the final post in this series, How To: Accept and Decline Job Offers.