Negotiating an Offer

You have been through all the interviews and presentations. You have met everyone and have maybe done some presentations to large crowds. You get a call from Human Resources or your recruiter that you are getting an offer. This can be very stressful or easy and should have speci!c areas of negotiation depending on how you go into this stage.

A few things to realize:

• You need to want the job to negotiate; if you are seeing what is offered and are not really interested. Just stop and decline the job.
• Benefits are company policy and non-negotiable.
• Budgets are created for open positions with caps on compensation and bonus.
• Position budgets have room for growth built in. If you take up the entire budget, you may be losing out on a raise potential.
• Sometimes, titles can be negotiated, IE Director to Executive Director or Manager to Senior Manager, which could impact a budget.
• Know what your minimum is for taking the job and be realistic. This should fall into the pay range that was stated before you interviewed.
• You should also know what you will not accept.
• Write everything down; memory fails when it comes to all the specifics.
• At some point, negotiations stop, and decisions need to be made.
• Get it all in writing.

Once the negotiations are completed, and you are satisfied with everything, accept the role and prepare for resignation and your new job. As stated in guidance before, do not say anything to anyone at work of your new position until it's time to resign.