How much should you negotiate on a job offer?

If it’s a job you want, I would counter-offer near the top of the posted range if they come in at the mid-range but I would suggest it pretty tactfully. You want the job, you have stated before that you’re not desperate for money so don’t make it seem that you won’t take the job if they don’t meet your request.

So – practically, let’s say they offer you $54,000. I might say something like, “I was hoping to get $58,000.” But if they say, “Sorry this is a high as we can go,” I would probably say, “In that case, I accept and would hope the salary can be raised at some point in the future.”

In other words, in this job market, don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.

Is this another job submerging you in the bowels of academia?

@stanleybmanly no academia! Lol I’m especially done with nonprofit seeing as there tends to be budget cuts, lower salary, and it has a different feel to it so I want to experience another work attitude if that makes sense.

It makes a great deal of sense.

Never negotiate numbers. Negotiate based on data and then figure out percentiles.

For example if you’re a medical billing specialist in zip 99999, then you begin the negotiations about why your record of consistent performance, low error rate and years of loyalty put you in the top 25% of all other billing specialists. Get them to agree to this in principle. THEN go to salary.com, key in the position, zip code and find the 75% salary/wage for such a position and that’s what they should pay you.

Negotiate for some money and maybe extra vacation time. I did that at one job they were going to give me health and life insurance but my wife already had me on her policy, so I dropped insurance for an extra week of vacation.

Update: didn’t get the job. All that wait for nothing. They just wanted to make it a point to tell me directly that they liked me and thought I was a strong candidate but someone else was stronger and to keep in touch for future positions in case any openings come up.

@chelle21689 Boo! That sucks.

@janbb Not going to lie, it really hurt. I said I wasn’t going to get my hopes up but I thought it had to be some good news. I guess back to the drawing board.

@chelle21689 I’m sorry. That was kind of a crappy way to go about telling you that you didn’t get the job. But the fact that they thought so much about your qualifications speaks highly of you. Good luck.

Oh man. Sorry.

They might recommend you for something else. Every good interaction can lead to something we don’t expect.

For next time, I don’t think you have a lot of negotiating power since you are not working. As long as an offer is within reason in the marketplace and not below your prior salary I would probably just accept it. If it’s a low ball then yes maybe negotiate it, or other parts of the deal like vacation was suggested above.

Thanks all!

According to my short experience, I try to gather information to see if my expectations are not too high or too low in reference to similar jobs and set a bracket of high and low salary where: if too high I know I won’t be considered seriously and if too low I will have no regret not to take the offer. Worked for me so far. Don’t worry about they took someone else – this was for sure a good experience for the next opportunity.