<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>cosmicfish, what sort of message are you sending to HR and your future boss if you don’t ask for more during the hiring process? Do you think they feel they’ve gotten someone who they’ll be able to get away with giving minimal raises to in the future? Someone that isn’t necessarily willing to rock the boat? Someone who feels they aren’t more valuable than the company does?</p>
<p>The company won’t take away your job offer for you asking more. And, if they did, is that the sort of environment you’d want to be working in? You want both parties to feel upon hiring a fair agreement has been made. If you feel you’re being undercompensated, how likely will you be to work your hardest, and how likely will you be to stick around? Don’t you think your future employer would rather see those two things not happen by paying you an extra few percent?</p>
<p>A conservative amount to ask for is generally around 2-5% over what they’ve offered you. That would mean going for ~61.2-63k. Those numbers are still below the median for your cohort, so it certainly doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask.</p>
<p>RR, I’m not opposed to negotiation in general, but right now the OP does not appear to be holding ANYTHING to leverage other than batting his/her eyelashes and asking “pretty please?”. And whatever message he/she sends by taking the initial offer is going to be less of a problem than the message sent by having to take the original offer after asking for more.</p>
<p>
It’s a lot better than nothing, which appears to be the OP’s principal alternative right now. Also, bear in mind that the hiring authority may not be the same people giving raises. At my company, I was hired by HR, but my raises come straight from my managers - different people, different processes.</p>
<p>
Well, at least until he/she has a better offer, I would hope! And I should note that your suggested counteroffer is still below the mean, so he may well still feel undercompensated!</p>
<p>
Actually, the people I know in HR usually shy away from people who demand more money. Sooner or later, someone will offer you more money, and someone who says “give me $X more or I leave” is leaving within a year no matter what. They want people who are enthused about the work itself.</p>
<p>Companies only offer jobs to people that they want to hire. I know that that is an obvious statement. But what does that statement imply? It means that they have offered you a job and a pay rate that is commiserate with that job that they feel will make you want to join their company. Very few companies will “low ball” their offer for fear that you won’t take the job. It means that their job offer is probably near or at the top of what they think that job is worth. </p>
<p>Negotiating for a higher salary is hardly ever worth it. You set the tone that you are a potential “problem” employee. As a hiring manager, my first thought, if someone was asking for more money, would be to withdraw the offer. I wouldn’t really do that but I would ask why the applicant thought they were worth more money. If they could offer no concrete reason other than whining about the salary, I would just stick to the original offer. If they said they liked the job but had another higher offer, I’d call their bluff and ask them to fax me a copy of the other offer. If they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do that, then I would assume that they were lying to me and I would definitely withdraw the offer as they would be someone I couldn’t trust. (BTW, Never had this happen and I hired about 30 college grads as a manager, so it all hypothetical at this point).</p>
<p>On the other hand, I did have several experienced engineers who did want to negotiate their salary. I would also ask for a reason why they thought they were worth more money. I did get some good answers and in some cases I revised my offer, but never by a lot. If they didn’t perform at the high level that they said they would (and the reason for me upping the offer), I had a good answer why they weren’t getting a raise when it was raise time.</p>
<p>IMO, the only real situation where negotiating would be appropriate would be if you have a competing offer as leverage, but really want to work for the former company. The offers should be within 5K…any more than that, you probably won’t win.</p>
<p>Instead of negotiating salary, you might ask for some moving costs. That is a legitimate cost that they might be willing to help with. Otherwise I would agree that salary negotiation when you have no leverage is not a good idea. There are plenty of good people out there willing to work for that salary.</p>
<p>I’ve never had a “real” job but I think it would depend on where you will live.
I did a quick run down of possible monthly expenses and totaled it for the year.
Rent $2400
food $500
car $250
gas $50
insurance $400
max out 401K $1200
expenses $800
I get a $67,500 per year. </p>
<p>In some places monthly parking fees are also something to think about…
Maybe parking (home or at work) is $200 per month then that brings it to $70,000</p>
<p>I am not in favor of negotiating the first salary …but if you will be in a high cost of living area where rents are high and parking is a problem then its possible you may have trouble making ends meet with the salary they offer. So if I had a reasonable budget set up that shows there is a mismatch in living expenses versus salary I would ask them if they could help me with a little extra salary. Moving from $60 to 67,500 for cost of living purposes may be seen as reasonable.</p>
That may well already be included - it was for me.</p>
<p>
You have provided no justification for those expenses so they are meaningless as a negotiation tool. The salary offered is more than most people in this country get, so arguing based on need is extremely difficult, especially since your expenses are not even their concern.</p>
<p>Wow, your expenses seem pretty crazy, just my opinion… If you are paying $2400 per month out of college for an apartment you need to rethink your priorities and specific location a little. You don’t need to live in the heart of downtown in a fancy highrise! $50 for gas will barely fill up one tank. Unless you are walking to work and the grocery store you will very likely have to quadruple that or more!</p>
<p>As for asking for more money up front. That seems like a poor idea with no other offers on the table. In this economy and with the number of EE’s that probably applied for the job you could quickly find yourself jobless and wishing you were making $60k. The small amount that you “might” get from asking will often not be worth the hassle you go through to get it. If you are a hard worker and someone the company wants to keep around they will increase your pay within the first 2-4 years anyways. </p>
<p>In addition, learning to live off of $60k compared to $63k or $65k shouldn’t be very difficult and you will most likely not realize the difference. Think about the frustration you will have if the offer is rescinded and you end up taking the next job that comes along at $65k but you don’t really enjoy it. In that case you will still wish you took the lower paying job that involved work that you enjoy. </p>
<p>You can always live on less money, but you can’t buy your way into enjoying your job every day!</p>
<p>I tend to believe that negotiating a salary is generally never a good idea. Like Hpuck35 said, when you negotiate, it sets the tone for your future employment at the company. At a superficial level, negotiating comes across as “Well, I think I’m worth more than what you value me at”. This puts the hiring manager in an awkward position, and potentially puts you at a disadvantage in terms of what’s expected out of you should he/she accept your counter-offer. </p>
<p>I suppose the only exception to what I’ve said above is if the hiring manager intentionally leaves the salary negotiation open-ended. For example, if he/she asks you what salary you’re looking for, or if he/she sounds very open to a counter-offer. From my experience, this type of negotiation is pretty rare though. </p>
<p>Personally, I think you have a great offer. I would be happy with it and move on. Congratulations!</p>
<p>I would ere on the side of taking the offer, rather than trying to negotiate the salary.</p>
<p>Based on the statistics you provided, you’re right on par with the median salaries for this position and considering your experience (a six month internship really isn’t that significant of an experience in the grand scheme of things, and even so, you had a 7% increase from the median salary that you found based on no experience). Considering the 10K standard deviation, you’re also around the median for an entry level graduate electrical engineer. Also, when looking at career surveys, it’s important to remember that the people who are most likely to fill out those surveys are the graduates who (1) have a job and (2) have a relatively high-paying job. Those figures may very well be skewed (either because of a small sample or because of a biased sample).</p>
<p>My question to you would be: why do you want to negotiate the offer? Is it just because you want more money? Or do you think you’re worth more than what they offered? As far as I can tell, you haven’t given any reason to warrant you receiving a higher salary. You received a very fair job offer (doing work that you’d enjoy) with a salary and benefits that are exactly what you could expect as an entry-level electrical engineer. The few K that you might be able to get don’t seem worth it in my opinion.</p>
<p>Take the job, and work hard. Instead of fighting for a higher salary now, prove that you’re a worthy employee at the company and prepare a case to negotiate a raise when you have evidence that you deserve one.</p>
<p>Our S was offered 3 jobs with his EE degree in 2/2010. He did NOT try to negotiate any of the salaries but accepted the job that was most attractive to him in terms of his personal interests and possibilities for personal growth. He did get moving expenses as well as scheduled promotions and raises, which he is receiving. He has no regrets. He did not consider negotiating and knew many engineering classmates who did not get any job offers.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a friend has a son who is very interested in earning as much as he can as quickly as he can and he DOES negotiate, but he has a very attractive skill set (finance and engineering), and a lot of experience and other offers on the table.</p>
<p>Personally, I’m not a fan of negotiating if the job offer seems pretty fair, as it does in this case, especially in light of you having no experience.</p>
<p>My company always had a “pay for performance” raise program. I was given a number of dollars to divvy out to my staff as I saw fit (within a set of company structured guidelines).</p>
<p>I would always have some employees that wanted more. There were those that tried using their expenses as their argument. I would always turn it around and show them how they could save money; cheaper apartment, consider a roommate, cheaper car, more eating at home, etc. Their performance and not their expenses was the issue at hand and they never got more money.</p>
<p>Those that came in with a list of accomplishment and their new skills that they had acquired faired much better. I couldn’t always give them more money as I just didn’t have it in the budget. But it did give me more data to go to my boss to ask for more money, and many times it did work.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t try the expenses route to negotiate ever.</p>
<p>$2400/month for rent seems way too high. I’m starting full time in January and my rent is going to be less than 1/6 of that. Are you in the Bay area or NYC? If so I would instead just find a different company. To ask them for 10K/year more seems like too much, and you’re likely just not going to come to agreeable terms there. </p>
<p>What do you think you’re worth? If you think you’re worth more than 60K then just reject the offer. A buddy of mine simply rejected an offer he got before he had any others, and has since gotten much better offers elsewhere. If you’re confident you can do better then don’t worry about this offer and find somewhere else.</p>
It is. Bear in mind that the person who posted that number was not the OP and did not offer any rationale for the numbers listed. I would not give those numbers any credence, nor waste any more time talking about them.</p>
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That is a heck of a gamble, especially in this economy and especially for a job that the OP is genuinely interested in. It is a stretch to assume that he/she can find a job that they will both be enthused about AND see a significantly better offer, and therefore not a wise choice in my opinion.</p>
<p>I know those numbers are very high for most places… $2400 rent … but I visited a school in New York called Cooper Union. Parking was next to impossible to find and when we did find it …it was something like $30 per half hour. We also looked at apartment rent in the area… since Cooper Union only guarantees Dorms for the first year… and apartments in Manhattan are REALLY expensive. I’m just saying $60,000 in Toledo is not the same as $60,000 in Manhattan.</p>