So… You’ve worked tirelessly to research and apply for jobs that are suited to you, gaining nothing but relentless rejection and confidence knocks. Against the odds, you’re granted a job offer, but it’s not quite the proposal you’d hoped for, what next?
As a recruitment agency, trends amongst our candidates are quite easy to spot. One of the big questions we’re asked here at Firstcall is, ‘Can I risk asking to compromise?’.
There is no answer set in stone, and like anything your job offer is entirely situational. We often encourage candidates to consider whether what you’re asking of your future employer is worth risking the opportunity itself. The harsh reality of negotiating is that job offers can, and have in the past, be retracted. So, you have to be sure you’ve fully evaluated your offer and deemed it unsatisfactory.
We will always encourage our candidates to take a long-term view and aim to see what’s missing based on already established career goals and motivations for moving jobs.
The hard work doesn’t stop at securing your job offer, if you do choose to query your proposal you have to know exactly what you’re asking for and be prepared to find a happy medium.
If your concerns are non-monetary, this may be simpler to resolve. If you have responsibilities, such as childcare, you can suggest making up for the lost amount of time in the evening or early morning for example. But this would need to be raised earlier on in the process, before the offer stage.
If your non-monetary concerns relate to benefits, such as pensions or medical insurance, these would also need to be discussed before the offer stage, and candidates should understand that these are sometimes non-negotiable.
2020 is an anomaly as it stands, so you will have to take into account that most businesses have faced financial hardship more than ever before. There are still lucrative moves that can be made in the market, some may see an enhanced offer or business going outside of their budget. But it is also a time where being purely salary driven is risky. Requesting a review when struggles have settled will secure you both a job and the opportunity to prove yourself at work.
We’ve seen individuals successfully secure excellent and appropriate career moves offering advancement, whilst taking a reduction in salary initially. By taking the overall package into account they saw what the opportunity meant to them in the long term.
We’d always encourage candidates to weigh everything up carefully; if the job is what you’ve desired, there’s no doubt you will move up within the company and eventually get what was initially lacking in the offer, if not more.
