Can I try to negotiate via counter-offer even if I'm bluffing?

May 20, 2018 2:24 AM

I'm expecting a job offer sometime next week for a job that I'm pretty sure I would be happy to take on the terms that I expect they'll offer me. Now is the time to be a little selfish though, so if I can get a better compensation package then I want to do that. Can I still try to use a counter-offer to drive up my starting pay?

I am expecting that sometime next week I'll get a formal job offer from NewCorp, and if the package they offer is in line with what we discussed in the interview then it's something I would definitely accept. I'm not very happy at OldCorp (my current employer) and I think I would be much happier at NewCorp (someone I know who works for them vouches for them, and I got a great vibe at the onsite interview). I'm expecting a package that will keep my pay and vacation time pretty much the same as what they are now, but with much better benefits in terms of healthcare, retirement savings, schedule flexibility, opportunities for professional growth, and work-life balance. So even without any further negotiation, I would pretty definitely take this job.

But it would be great to push the pay up a little bit, right? Every dollar-per-hour increase works out to about $2,000 per year, and that's nothing to sneeze at. We've already verbally settled on a base pay that was within my pre-determined range of acceptability (albeit at the low end) so it's not like I'd be putting myself in a bad spot by taking this job, but I'd still like to start as high as I can so if I can find any leverage to push that number up a bit, I want to use it. I feel like if there was ever a time to advocate for myself and drive a hard bargain, this is it. This is the first time in my career that I've felt like I had a significant opportunity to negotiate with a prospective employer, by the way.

What I want to do, assuming that the expected offer from NewCorp actually materializes, is to give OldCorp an opportunity to make a counter offer and then if they do so, bring it back to NewCorp and see if they're willing to increase my pay at all on that basis. I'd be OK if it didn't work (as long as it doesn't somehow torpedo the whole offer!) but I would like to give it a shot. My plan is to send OldCorp an email saying something like, "Another company has recently offered me a job, and I am inclined to accept. However, I also wanted to give OldCorp an opportunity to keep me by making a counter-offer. NewCorp is offering me X, Y, and Z. If OldCorp wants to keep me on board then I'm prepared to wait 24 hours for a counter-offer; otherwise, please consider this message my two weeks' notice."

At that point, if OldCorp bites and sends out a counter offer (which I expect would probably involve an offer of a pay increase) I would bring it back to NewCorp and tell them, "Hey, I am still strongly considering your offer and am excited about the idea of working for NewCorp, but OldCorp is now offering me $money to stay on board with them. In light of this, would NewCorp be willing to revise their original offer at a higher rate of pay? Doing so would make this decision much easier for me."

And then, whatever happens, I will almost certainly just end up taking the job at NewCorp with no hard feelings.

Can anyone think of a reason I shouldn't at least give this a shot? Is it likely to backfire in some way? I have been told that there are not any other applicants being seriously considered for this position at NewCorp, so it's not like they're just going to immediately going to jump to someone cheaper. My main goal here is to get the job at NewCorp; gaming the negotiation process is secondary, but if I can do both then I definitely will. Do you have any advice for how I can maximize my chance of success here?

Thanks very much!

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (19 answers total)

What I want to do, assuming that the expected offer from NewCorp actually materializes, is to give OldCorp an opportunity to make a counter offer and then if they do so, bring it back to NewCorp and see if they're willing to increase my pay at all on that basis. I'd be OK if it didn't work (as long as it doesn't somehow torpedo the whole offer!) but I would like to give it a shot.

I get seriously annoyed, fwiw, when candidates do this to me. I'm happy to negotiate if there's room to do so, but I don't get into bidding wars for coworkers. If they want me to fight with their old company, then I generally cut them loose. We're likely in different industries, but just so you hear from one hiring manager how she would react to this strategy. (I look at it this way because I've learned from past experience that if I need to convince someone to work for me, it usually doesn't work out well in the long run anyhow.)

When you say "we've already settled at a base pay", does that mean you already negotiated and agreed to a number? If so, I'd be doubly annoyed if you were coming back again. If it was just an indicative conversation "our range is xxx" and you said "something like that is the right ballpark!" then there's more wriggle room.
posted by frumiousb at 3:00 AM on May 20, 2018 [25 favorites]

We've already verbally settled on a base pay that was within my pre-determined range of acceptability...I feel like if there was ever a time to advocate for myself and drive a hard bargain, this is it.

No... The time to do that was before you verbally accepted their base pay. If I was the hiring manager and someone pulled this, I'd think twice about hiring them.

I'm all for people negotiating the best salary they can, but if the hiring team made the decision to hire you with your verbal agreement, you're putting them in a bad spot by trying to ratchet the amount up now. Where I work, reqs have a salary amount attached and if someone exceeds it then there's a lot of work a manger and others have to do to move budget and make that happen. And sometimes the answer is "no."

The time to ask for more money was before making an agreement.
posted by jzb at 3:16 AM on May 20, 2018 [12 favorites]

Why on earth didn't you just negotiate when you had the option, i.e. before you agreed your rate with them? While you're still mid-negotiation you have all the freedom to just negotiate on your value, the market rate, etc etc. But if you have DONE negotiating and now want to go back on what you (formally or informally) agreed already, then that's getting off to a really bad start. You don't want them to think you go back on your agreements, and you don't want them to think you still have one foot in that old job. They certainly could call your bluff and say "no, if you really want to stay with $oldjob then you should go ahead and do that", especially if it turns out you're at the top of their range and there isn't wiggle room.
posted by quacks like a duck at 3:16 AM on May 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

And then, whatever happens, I will almost certainly just end up taking the job at NewCorp with no hard feelings.

I wouldn't count on it.
posted by Gnella at 3:32 AM on May 20, 2018 [15 favorites]

A long time ago, and in a galaxy far away, I was a hiring manager...this never worked out well, even when the person in question was clearly the best candidate.

Is a possible gain of $2,000 worth risking this: "much better benefits in terms of healthcare, retirement savings, schedule flexibility, opportunities for professional growth, and work-life balance" ?

If I were you, and the offer came through, I would accept it with a great deal of grace.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 3:43 AM on May 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

I was all set to encourage you to do this, until you said you've already verbally accepted the base pay. That was your chance to negotiate.

Leveraging old and new companies to get more money instead of negotiating at the money discussion will not end up with no hard feelings for you. It might result in a rescinded offer.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 3:58 AM on May 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

I don’t want to pile on but I hire people and I sat and thought honestly about what I would do in this situation. I wouldn’t rescind the offer - good folks are hard to find - but it would leave a bad taste and it probably would color the raise I gave after the first year unless the person was incredible.
posted by ftm at 5:11 AM on May 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

In addition to the responses above, chances are that OldCorp literally cannot make you a counteroffer within 24hours, depending on their HR process. Your old boss can’t just decide to give you a raise; they have to consider their budget and their pay raise pool and get permission to do a random raise outside of the standard raise cycle, and that can’t happen immediately. They can maybe tell you “we’d like to try to make a counteroffer, please hang on for a week or so and I’ll try to get HR on board.”

So basically you’re just going to piss off everyone and get nowhere with that email.

Leave OldCorp out of this. Your best play here is to look at the total package and make any negotiation ploy purely about that. “Thanks for sending me this info, now I get to see the whole package I realize it’s not quite what I was hoping in xyz area, is there any room to (add a few vacation days, bump my salary by X) to help cover the difference in insurance prices?”. I’ve had some luck with this approach when there genuinely was a part of the benefits package that did not match up to what I was leaving behind.

This is tricky if the package is in fact great, but there may be one or two areas where it’s less so and you have a bit of leverage. But leave OldCorp out of it, don’t try to ignore the fact that you already agreed to a base salary, and if the package is genuinely great, then just accept what you already negotiated and get on with your new job.
posted by Stacey at 5:13 AM on May 20, 2018 [19 favorites]

No, don’t do this. It’s an amateur move.
posted by nikaspark at 5:53 AM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

A counter offer is the wrong way to approach this, but you may still be able to negotiate. It really depends on what your verbal agreement was like. If they gave a specific salary and you agreed to it (e.g., “The salary for this role is $56k.” “That sounds good.”), then your ability to negotiate is probably over. If you hedged (“That sounds like it is in the ballpark, I’ll need to see the entire package to know for sure”) then you have some room to ask them to come up on salary. If they gave you a range and you agreed to it, then you should also be fine to negotiate, although it will look weird if you are trying to negotiate way up out of that range.

I’m a big proponent of negotiating salary (partially because I’m a woman and I feel like I’m doing my part to normalize women negotiating salary) and have done it at every professional job I’ve taken. I used to get really worried about having a bunch of market facts or whatever to back up my request, but now I just ask for it. “I’m really excited to come work with you and this is a great offer. Any room to move up on the salary? I was looking for something more like xx.” That usually works. A few times the answer was no, but it was a polite no and asking wasn’t a problem. Usually the answer is some value less than xx but more than they originally offered. Trying to conjure up a counter offer is just making a lot of pointless work for people when all you have to do is ask (assuming you haven’t already made a pretty firm agreement).
posted by jeoc at 5:54 AM on May 20, 2018 [17 favorites]

I'm probably in a different industry, but if a candidate did that we would likely cut them loose. (And, as said above, changing an offer that fast is not something most corporate HR departments are set up to do, so it would create a huge amount of work and hassle at our end if we did try to go along.)

Given that you have a verbal agreement, I would say to take the offer (if it comes), possibly with one more round of low-key negotiation depending on what the exact salary conversation has been, and then at a later point potentially negotiate for a raise after a reasonable period (here that would be after a year, your industry may be different).
posted by Dip Flash at 5:59 AM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Seconding Stacy's point about OldCorp - dont know how big OldCorp is, but at my company (where I'm a hiring manager) you'd have literally zero chance of a counter in 24h hours. We do raises twice a year (and the mid-cycle raise is only for special circumstances) and to do something else would be working miracles. Even asking for it would require both me and my manager to stick our necks out and would probably need sign-off from my VP - never mind the HR stuff - and this isn't something i'd be willing to fight for if i have the slightest inking you're out the door anyway.

Back to NewCorp, It might be possible to keep negotiating other things - another week off perhaps, or a higher bonus target if you have those. If the base salary discussed was an odd number i might be temped to negotiate carefully to round it out, perhaps something like "I know we discussed $23, but I was really aiming for $25" but it depends on the situation. I really like Stacy's script above as well.
posted by geek_with_socks at 6:02 AM on May 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Asking for more vacation time is a solid way to get a little more comp without having to renegotiate the salary. Think of it as a 2% raise per week. It's also easier to get the hiring manager to agree to that instead of making them rearrange their budget.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:11 AM on May 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

I will provide you an example of how this can backfire - I interviewed two candidates who were very good for a position. I provided the salary range and, in interviews, noted that their experience was going to land them halfway through the range but there were incentives that would allow them to quickly advance on that salary. Both agreed that this was acceptable.

I ended up offering a job to one of the candidates and they came back saying "I've actually got a second offer that is at X salary - can you match that?" X was above the range of what I was able to offer, so I told him "Listen, we had agreed on an amount in your interview that you said was acceptable and a way to get a higher salary quickly. I think that's a great offer and you should take it" and offered the amount agreed upon to the second candidate who accepted immediately. The first candidate, it turns out, did not have a great offer and just lost out on this job. Even if they were a clear best choice and I held the job for them, it would've been a very negative way to start a relationship.

I have hired a number of folks, and have been open and honest about what I'm willing to offer them in the room and how they can make more. The point of this is not to drive people to a low-ball offer but to offer both parties a chance to evaluate whether this job is a good fit. Some have said "I may need to see the full offer before accepting" which is entirely okay. Some have said "yes that's fair." I much prefer a candidate who says "yes that's fair" because I have some level of validation that we are meeting each other's expectations before making an offer. If you say one thing, and later tell me that you actually meant another, it makes me question whether or not we can communicate with one another effectively which is thing #1 on my list of needs for a hire.

That's not to say you cannot negotiate at this point, because you absolutely can - a verbal agreement is not an offer and acceptance. I would just say be very prepared to take oldcorp's bigger offer if you get one because if the person hiring you values communication as much as I do, then you're giving them a pause moment on that front that communication they thought was clear is in fact not.
posted by notorious medium at 8:52 AM on May 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

However, I also wanted to give OldCorp an opportunity to keep me by making a counter-offer. NewCorp is offering me X, Y, and Z. If OldCorp wants to keep me on board then I'm prepared to wait 24 hours for a counter-offer; otherwise, please consider this message my two weeks' notice

Worst case scenario: NewCorp doesn't take the bait (as others have said). Now what happens back at OldCorp? If I was your manager at OldCorp, I'd accept your terms and give you exactly what you want as a counter-offer.

I'd then start a search for your replacement and boot you out the door the moment that person was fully trained (by you). Since you're not happy and plan to leave for greener pastures (on some random date I can't control) I would be more than happy to help you achieve your dreams, but I also have work that needs to get done. You've made the transition easier for me by not leaving a gap. Has nothing to with revenge/sour grapes/etc. It's business, especially in a job market with tight supply.

Not saying your manager would do the same, but don't be shocked if it happens.
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:03 AM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

One horse is out of the barn, and you're getting ready to shoot the other perfectly good one, being left with no horses at all. Zip your lip, take the offer, and enjoy your new job.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 10:26 AM on May 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

As hiring manager at NewCorp, if a candidate did this to me, I’d wish him/her well at OldCorp.

If a candidate just asked for a better offer based on what he/she perceives the market is, I’d be enclined to take a second look.
posted by Kwadeng at 11:04 AM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

One point I haven't seen made yet is that there's a difference between OldCorp voluntarily making you a counteroffer when they hear you're resigning vs you asking for one. It sounds like you're planning to make it sound like OldCorp volunteered a counteroffer. If NewCorp finds out you actually pushed for one (people talk a lot within many industries), I imagine they'd rescind their offer *and* you'd burn a bridge there.

(But don't do this regardless of how you phrase it, for all the reasons others have mentioned.)
posted by whitelily at 2:05 PM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was once in a similar position, and when I tried to get OldCorp to make a counter-offer they were like “congrats on the new opportunity let us know when your last day will be.”

And depending on how you talked about OldCorp in the interviews, this could be extremely transparent, even more than it already is. If OldCorp wasn’t “the right fit” or something similar, NewCorp knows you’re not going to accept whatever counteroffer OldCorp gives you.
posted by Metroid Baby at 3:17 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]