HOW TO USE YOUR PORTFOLIO TO IMPROVE A JOB OFFER
As noted earlier, the first offer you get from prospective employers is
usually not their best offer. Even if the position is an entry-level job
that has a locked-in, nonnegotiable salary, there are usually some other
aspects of the job offer that are negotiable. Your portfolio can give you
a big assist when negotiating for an improved offer. Here’s how.
Schedule a meeting to discuss your future with the organization.
When you first get the offer, you may feel like reacting immediately to
some of the specifics, but there’s usually more to be gained if you do not.
Try to limit your emotions to a very pleasant “Thank you for making
this offer,”unless, of course, the offer is so good or so bad, you are pre-
pared to immediately accept or reject it. In either case, you will want to
first make sure you understand exactly what the offer is. Take notes
and repeat back to them your understanding of the offer.
If you want to try to improve the offer, tell them you’d like to take
a few days to think about it, and then meet with them again to discuss
both the offer and your future with the organization. When scheduling
this meeting, you should give yourself at least several days to get pre-
pared.
Identify the key things you want to improve in their offer.Your first
task is to determine which of the things in the job offer you are most in-
terested in trying to improve. Salary and benefits are of concern to most
people, but these are not the only issues that should be discussed when
responding to a job offer. Other key issues to consider include a signing
bonus, coverage of moving costs, paying off school loans, your starting
date, the date of your first salary review, equity opportunities, profes-
sional development opportunities, the flexibility of your work hours, the
length of your vacation, your title, your level of authority, the specifics
of who you report to and who reports to you, and the resources avail-
able to you.
Some of the additional benefits of a job offer may not be even re-
motely possible for you to negotiate or bring up. The important thing is
to identify the features that you care about that you might be able to
negotiate. To know what is, in fact, negotiable you need to do a reality
check.
Do a reality check.If you have not done this already, find out as
much as you can about the employment packages that recent hires are
getting for comparable jobs in the industry. You can use Internet search
engines to get printouts of salary ranges for jobs in most established
fields, and you can use the Web to search for postings for comparable
jobs. Job ads in regional newspapers and industry publications can also
yield useful information. Articles in the press may also spell out the
kinds of deals that people in comparable jobs are getting.
To learn about aspects of employment packages that are not like-
ly to show up in job postings and publications, you need to talk to in-
dustry insiders who are in a position to know who gets what and why.
You want to know what’s the least people are getting, what’s the most
they are getting, and why some people are getting more than others.
And here “getting”refers not just to salary and benefits, but to all the
96 Part I: Building, Using, and Maintaining Your Career Portfolio