I flubbed a salary expectation

October 16, 2023 4:21 PM

And now I have to give paystubs to ask for more money :( Is there a way I can fix this?

I finally finished rounds of interviews, did my intel, and determined that I might want to work at a company. I'm on the fence though, so I thought "I'll just see what they offer and ask for a lot of money and see what happens."

WELL. I got nervous (because they asked me about my salary history, which is not legal anymore in this specific state with the transparency laws) and flubbed, and asked for less than I wanted. I gave a range that had a 10k scope and said it would be dependent on the compensation package. For example, I asked for 55-65k, (but really I wanted 60-70k). They said oh, yes we can work with that. They came back and offered me 55.1k.

Obviously, if I wasn't a dummy and gave them the wrong range, I'd be happy. But I still would try to negotiate. Unfortunately, the offer says that in order to negotiate, I need to provide paystubs to justify the ask. For context, this is a US government role. Extra unfortunately, my current pay does not reflect what is accurate for the job I wants responsibility, the market pay, and the average pay in that area for someone with my background. I also am partially self-employed, so I'm not even employed full time right now.

I feel like I should just...reject it? Should I even try for negotiations knowing that I'd have to prove it with paystubs and lose? Honestly I am lucky to be in a position that I don't have to take the job, but scarcity mindset--knowing how bad the job market is--maybe I should suck it up and do it. There are other things that keep me on the fence, but if I could negotiate it to 62k, I'd accept. But I messed up the first step in just offering my expectations. Are there any ways to salvage under these circumstances?

Thank you~

posted by socky bottoms to Work & Money (14 answers total)

I would suggest you listen only to people who understand how U.S. federal jobs work, because that is going to be the main thing at play here. The employer is likely to be constrained in ways that private employers are not.
posted by lapis at 4:45 PM on October 16, 2023 [34 favorites]

Have you ever had a home appraisal? The appraiser finds comparable homes and then adjusts the price of each of the comps up or down compared the target house.

If you want to put some energy into seeing if you can get a better offer, I would create a spreadsheet comparing the two jobs and assigning +/- dollars to each of the differences that would impact the market value of the job. So, start with your current salary and add $ for increased scope of responsibility, add $ for loss of freelance income, add or subtract for differences in benefits (vacation days, 401k contributions) and maybe adjustment for current market rates. Provide as much documentation as you can - pay ranges for comparable jobs (old and new), differences between pay for similar jobs within the organization, reference an article telling people to expect a pay bump when they change jobs. Anything to make it look quantified and well documented. Obviously it is not actually that scientific but the idea is give them a logical basis for paying you more.

Also, do you know the grade and salary range for the job? You are not going to get more than that and they will probably not want to bring you in too high in the range because it limits their ability to give you raises. So, this assumes that the salary that you want is actually within the realm of possibility for the job.
posted by metahawk at 4:52 PM on October 16, 2023

How is the compensation package (by which I assume you mean benefits)? You may still have room to negotiate here. Nothing obligates you to follow their "rules" about providing paystubs, especially considering that their "rules" are illegal.
posted by heatherlogan at 5:03 PM on October 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think OP is saying that they are currently working for the federal government...
posted by praemunire at 5:04 PM on October 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

You need to find pay information for what comparable companies pay for comparable roles.

To find comparable companies:

If they are a public company, look at their annual financial reports, and they will identify the companies they compare executive compensation against. This will give you 5-10 companies.

If they are a private company, you'll need to spend some time logically determining who their competitors are. Look at those who sell similar products or services, to similar markets, at similar price points.

Once you have some comparable companies, you need to get salary data for comparable roles.

Start by looking at H1B visa data, which includes base salary, job title, and location. Lots of websites offer this, but I find https://h1bdata.info/ to be the easiest to use. You can search specific companies (the ones you identified earlier) and then specific job titles to get base salary data.

If that doesn't work, search for open positions at these companies where the employee location is a place with salary transparency laws (easiest are California, New York City, and Colorado). The job listings should include reasonable estimates for starting salaries.

You then need to take your data and put it together to tell a simple story: I make $X but in a government job that does not pay market rate. Your direct competitors pay $Y for similar roles. I'm aiming for a salary of $Z to be able to accept this role.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:14 PM on October 16, 2023

Nothing obligates you to follow their "rules" about providing paystubs, especially considering that their "rules" are illegal.

AFAICT federal government guidelines would force them to document why they employee should be paid more than the minimum starting point for a grade; documented salary or competing offer are things that can let them do that. Not the only things, but one option. (IIUC laws in some states about asking for pay couldn't override federal regulations about how pay is set.)

I'd generally echo lapis' first post that federal agencies can have much stricter rules than people are used to. These sorts of things are designed at least in part as anti fraud and grift measures.
posted by mark k at 5:39 PM on October 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: Sorry, I should clarify! I am not currently working for the feds. This offer is from a government job (but is not federal, at a different level.) Sorry to be a bit vague, trying to keep it vague-r in case.
posted by socky bottoms at 6:01 PM on October 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: And to answer (last one)--I do know the grade and scale! They offered me on the lower end of the scale, there's quite a few more steps above that.
posted by socky bottoms at 6:03 PM on October 16, 2023

I don't think anyone can tell you whether an unspecified state or municipal government will be able to negotiate initial salary. Some can, some have policies against it. I do know, though, that claiming a particular salary history and not being able to prove it is unlikely to be good for your chances of being hired.
posted by praemunire at 6:56 PM on October 16, 2023

I work for local government and it's usually pretty hard to get anything other than the first step as a new hire, unless it's a hard-to-fill position or the applicant was making more money previously in a comparable job. One of the advantages to being a manager in civil service, though, is that I have so little control over my employees' pay -- it's all based on Civil Service Rules and MOUs and such -- that it doesn't feel at all personal to talk about pay in the ways that it did in private industry. Can you just talk to the hiring manager and explain that previous paystubs are not really workable given your situation because of the self-employment, and ask if there's another route for negotiating it?
posted by lapis at 6:59 PM on October 16, 2023 [12 favorites]

Provide the stubs and ask for more (even though it is more than the stubs show) instead of preemptively rejecting it. The worst that can happen is they say no to the new amount and then you reject it.

I'm not even employed full time right now.
If your hourly rate was applied to a full time job, would you be in the range you're looking for? I would be clear about that with them, that these stubs are not for 40 hours.
posted by soelo at 8:55 PM on October 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

I’m speaking as a fed so my advice may not be fully applicable to other levels of government, but if you can’t negotiate I would look at two things before I rejected the offer. First, what is the pay ladder like? How quickly will you move up steps? Or potentially even to the next grade? And does this level of government normally give COLA adjustments? If you were a fed hiring on at 55k now, you’d likely be close to 58k in January.

And secondly, how are the retirement and health benefits? If the health insurance is better/more affordable, that could make up a chunk of the difference from your desired salary.
posted by tinymojo at 9:05 PM on October 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

Blech: I just did a little more poking and found this:

A new GS employee is usually hired at step one of the applicable GS grade. However, in special circumstances, agencies may authorize a higher step rate for a newly-appointed Federal employee based on a special need of the agency or superior qualifications of the prospective employee. Current Federal employees who move to a GS position and are not considered newly appointed may have pay set above step 1 based only on a previous Federal civilian rate of pay (i.e., maximum payable rate rule) under the gaining agency’s policies.

If that, or a rule like that, is applying to you, I think I'd do my best to convince them of their special need (for me!) or my superior qualifications, but I wouldn't have much hope of winning.

What I originally wrote, which still might help for special need or superior qualifications arguments: Are your qualifications a match for the lowest grade in that band? Does the rate they're offering match location adjustments?

You could look for matching positions at a grade comparable to the salary you're looking for on whatever the equivalent of USAJobs would be for this kind of position, and respond to the team pointing out how your competencies match the high end of the band. (I probably wouldn't directly reference another job *ad* in negotiations, but that might be because my one long governmentish job gave me wicked salary stress. Others, including you, may know better if directly referencing a comparable job ad in your response could help.)

If you're already discussing government pay grades and steps, you could also get more specific info on the GS salary and position standards for this pay range. Even if this current job isn't a GS job, they're a set of standards, and can help make sure you're negotiating for yourself at the right level.

socky bottoms writes: "While this offer is indeed a GS-10 Step 7 equivalent for the base scale, you can see that the location adjustment for Dallas-Ft. Worth is X%, or $Z in base pay. I'm glad we were able to discuss my facilitation and leadership skills on our last call: the particular GS-10 Step 7 competencies I will bring to the team are Facilitation A, Leadership B, and C."
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:52 PM on October 16, 2023

Since you clarified that it's not federal, I'll mention that Minnesota government jobs also pay at the first step of the scale unless you come in with supporting evidence that you had previously made more. I don't recall if you can submit a mix of pay stubs and tax returns if you were partially self employed, I had pay statements I could use.
posted by advicepig at 6:51 AM on October 17, 2023