DS is an industrial engineering major focused on business analytics. He completed 3 semesters of co-op work, essentially internship, with a major company. He will graduate in December, so he has an extra summer. He has been offered another internship with a different major company in another industry. He has extensive experience for an intern, and a resume just perfect for the job. Only hiccup is the salary. It’s much lower than he earned before, very low for an engineering major. It’s not a deal breaker, he’s excited about the position, but wonders if he should negotiate for more. And if so, how?
I think he should negotiate. He can let them know that he is very interested in the position, and share salary information of other companies.
So how exactly should he ask?
He should call up the manager that offered him the job. If the job offer came from an HR person, call that person. Don’t email, call.
Discuss that he has more experience than would be typical for an intern. But don’t push it, just politely ask them to look into it.
Most large companies would have a fixed scale for interns. They may not have a lot of flexibility. I didn’t as an engineering manager when it came to interns.
Interns were paid proportionally more than what work output was expected of them. My company did it more as a means to attract the better candidates for full time employment later. It was basically a long job interview. The intern would be just figuring out what was going on when the internship ended. Most tasks in the group were longer than the internship so I had to find simple, non-critical, small timeframe tasks. That wasn’t always easy. And then HR was always “borrowing” the intern for some kind of function.
The bigger question would be: Is the company one that he would consider working for after graduation?
Ask/search on on AskaManager.org
You can’t tie this job to your previous salary.
“Do you have any flexibility on the salary? "
Does he have any bargaining power in terms of having other internship offers?