Negotiating a Job Offer: Step Back, Think Broadly

As the new semester begins, many soon-to-be-graduates are deeply immersed in the job search process.  Some already have job offers and are contemplating whether to accept those positions.  During this process, many students and recent graduates ask me about negotiating with their potential employers.  Can I negotiate? What should be the focus of my negotiation?  How do I make sure that I don't harm the relationship before I even start working?   For those students, I highly recommend a Harvard Business Review article by my friend Hannah Riley Bowles and her co-author Bobbi Thomason.  They write:

Although reaching agreement on pay and benefits is important, failure to think more broadly about your career could mean losing valuable opportunities for advancement. For instance, women are increasingly urged to negotiate for higher pay as a way to close the gender wage gap. However, studies have shown that women’s “80 cents on the dollar” is explained more by differences in men’s and women’s career trajectories than by differential pay for doing the exact same job. Our research and our work coaching executives suggest that negotiating your role (the scope of your authority and your developmental opportunities) is likely to benefit your career more than negotiating your pay and benefits does. And at times of work-life conflict, negotiating your workload and the conditions that affect it (including your responsibilities, your location, and travel requirements) may be critical to remaining gainfully employed and moving forward professionally.

They offer terrific advice for job-seekers.  Step back from your focus on the job offer that presents itself at the moment.  Start instead by considering your long-term career goals and aspirations.  How can this job help you achieve those longer term objectives?  What will it take to achieve those goals?  How can you craft the opportunity in front of you to help fulfill those aspirations?  Work backward from this focus on career goals to the more immediate issue of the potential job you are considering.  Most importantly, think broadly about all aspects of the opportunity, rather than simply about compensation.  I find this last point so important, particularly for new graduates.  An extra $5,000 may sound enticing to a student with very little remaining in their bank account at the end of college.  However, taking the long view is so critical in that situation.  Investments in growth and development, with ample opportunities to learn, will provide a long-term payoff that far exceeds that extra compensation here and now.