learn-co-curriculum / how-to-approach-offer-negotiations

How to Approach Offer Negotiations

In reviewing your offer letter, take note of any questions or clarifications that arise. To address these questions (including any questions about compensation), you should request a call with the hiring manager to discuss them verbally. Talk to your Career Coach about how to approach this conversation in a practical way! If you would like to negotiate any items in the offer, such as the salary, start date, or some upcoming time off, make your request(s) in a polite and professional way, and provide the reason(s) why you are asking for these concessions. For example, if you had pre-planned a vacation prior to receiving this job offer, now is the time to ask for that time off, not after you’ve accepted their offer.

Example:

In reviewing your job offer, you may wish to negotiate some of the details (such as compensation). Remember to take into account the value that the job brings to you other than salary and benefits. Jobs can provide great opportunities to learn about certain technologies, as well as a particular industry. The cultural “fit” or the mission of the company may be a compelling value-add and inform how much you ask for and/or how assertive you are in the negotiation.

As a new professional in your field without much hands-on experience, expect a salary within the average range of a junior level practitioner. This will vary depending on where you are living and the average market rate for the role. In addition to checking in with your coach, please review the Salary Question content a few lessons ahead to help determine if the salary being offered is competitive, whether you will accept it, and/or decide if you would like to negotiate. Before you can confidently make this determination, you should also review any fringe benefits that may be part of the offer. These can include:

· Health Insurance Benefits/Health Plan

· Paid holidays and vacation, sick and personal days

· Profit sharing and bonuses

· Retirement savings matching plans/401k plans

· Perks such as free meals, vendor discounts, gym memberships, etc.

Fringe benefits such as these typically add anywhere from 15-28% to workers’ salaries.

For example, if an employee receives a $1,500 salary per week, the fringe benefits are worth another $225 to $420 per week. So beyond the offer of salary, you should decide what benefits offered by this company are particularly important to you.

how-to-approach-offer-negotiations's Issues

Link to Salary Question content goes no where

Hi, the link in the 3rd paragraph for the Salary Question content does not go anywhere. Just directs back to the same page.

Missing example email

After reading over this lesson and the next one about salary negotiations, I think there's an example email that was moved from this lesson to the next one.

Here's the example email in question:

Example:
 
> Hi John -

> I wanted to thank you again for the incredible offer to work for Giant Machines. I had some time to review the offer letter in detail, and had a few clarification questions. Would you be available at some point this afternoon for a quick call to review the specifics?

> I appreciate your time!

> Nicole

I go into more detail on this issue here. I'll go ahead and open a PR to fix this.