<p>I recently got a job offer (Electrical Eng.-Control systems) from a small company (~50 employees).</p>
<p>The base salary offered is 60k. ($30/hr, based on 2000 work hours in a year excluding 2 week paid vacation).</p>
<p>Other benefits are pretty average (exactly what everyone in this field/stage gets).</p>
<p>6 month internship exp (extremely useful and directly relevant to job) + 4 month assistantship exp.</p>
<p>based on salary research on payscale.com, the salary for this job (@ zero years of experience) is 56k at 50th percentile.</p>
<p>however, using glassdoor.com and going through the surveys conducted by career center of my university and other universities in my state, the median salary of an entry-level graduate electrical engineer is ~67k (Standard deviation of ~10k).</p>
<p>So the questions are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Should I negotiate the salary offered?</p></li>
<li><p>If yes, then how much salary should I quote?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Also, please provide tips or what things to say to an employer while salary negotiation.</p>
<p>Note: I won't turn down the offer no matter they negotiate or not. The work seems to be very interesting and this what I was looking for.</p>
<p>You’ve done your research and that’s great! I think it’s worth a conversation. They’re a small company so their resources might be limited or fixed, but if that’s several thousand dollars lower on average for people with your experience and educational qualifications, it’s worth bringing up.</p>
<p>Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, Google, and Harvard Business School fame presented lots of great suggestions in her book Lean In which, though directed at women, is largely applicable across the board (summarized here):</p>
<p>As you can see, one of the points she makes is to justify negotiations. In this case, you would do so by pointing to the industry standard for salaries based on your qualifications, so the more search you’ve done into this the better.</p>
<p>It is sometimes “dicey” to negotiate if they did not come in ridiculously low. You want to start on a positive note with your new employer. One thing I suggest (and I am an executive recruiter for the past 19 years!) is to ask for a 6 month compensatory review. You can tell them about your research and ask if they would be willing to review your work and compensation after 6 months.</p>
<p>A smaller company is going to start you out a little lower than a bigger company, as every new hire they take on is a bigger risk than a new hire for a bigger company. With that in mind, it isn’t surprising that your initial offer is a little lower than the median for your school in your field. On the other hand, a smaller company may have more leeway in salary offers - whereas some big companies have a standard starting salary nationwide, you might be able to negotiate a bit with the smaller ones.</p>
<p>The biggest factor in negotiations is leverage. If you have another offer in hand, you can use that for higher salary; even if they aren’t paying you a higher salary, apples to apples, you can still use that offer and any ancillary benefits as leverage. If you do not have another offer in hand, you have basically no leverage. </p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind is your pay type. Is the offer $60,000 salary, or is it $30/hr? If it is the latter, you have less room to negotiate because I can almost guarantee that you’ll be working some overtime at some point. For example, if you work 41 hours a week on average, you can expect your salary to jump to $62,250 if you are non-exempt. That said, it looks like you just extrapolated your hourly salary from an annual salary amount. </p>
<p>Do you have bonuses? Relocation? All of these things factor in.</p>
<p>I do like the idea of requesting an early compensation review. Often, you will get your review at your anniversary point, but if you think you can prove that you should command a higher salary before then, it can’t hurt to ask.</p>
<p>I negotiated my salary for my first job. I had the gusto to and it paid off. I didn’t get what I wanted, but I did get a $5000 increase. Don’t leave money on the table. At least try. Your company went through the trouble to give you an offer. You beat out many other candidates to get to this point. And, after a year, with a bit more experience under your belt, don’t be afraid to move jobs if the situation isn’t to your liking. I’m currently in the process of doing so myself, and I’m finding that the salary range I’m getting is about $10000 more than what was offered at my first job. In this economy, yes, it is important to be diplomatic and cautious, but don’t sell yourself for less, because I guarantee the company isn’t looking out for your self-interests either.</p>
<p>From your previous posts I infer you are an international student from Pakistan. Can you please tell me what company offered you that much as an entry level non-US educated person? I don’t know what others say but 60k for an entry level sounds pretty good to me.</p>