…So Chris is told he’s going to get an offer… he discusses the salary with the hiring authority and he verbally accepts the job… he is told that the paperwork will come in a day or so and he can start work on Monday…
Chris gets the offer in writing on the Friday before he is suppose to start work and decides that he wants to now “negotiate”…
He calls me up and tells him he would like to negotiate now that he has the offer in writing… I explained to him that now is not the time to negotiate… he has verbally accepted the job, he needs to stand by his word, and besides, I tell him, it’s very rare for an organization to negotiate a salary once you have accepted it and they put it in writing…
Chris decides, since he is a very experienced “professional,” he is going to negotiate anyhow…(so much for my expertise)… so he tries to get a hold of the hiring manager. He can’t find him so he writes an e-mail back to the HR director at corporate who sent him the offer, and tells her he wants $10,000 a year more in salary… she doesn’t know what to do, so instead of calling the hiring authority, she sends the e-mail requests to the vice president… he vaguely knows what’s going on, as he had spoken to Chris on the phone before Chris got hired and his natural reaction is not only “no” but “hell no”…
The VP calls the hiring authority, his subordinate, and leaves a voicemail of something along the line of, “who the hell is this guy who thinks he can or should negotiate another $10,000 in salary by e-mail with the HR department?” The VP went on to say that the hiring authority should rescend the offer immediately.
I can’t say I blame the vice president or the company… that was a very unprofessional way to try to negotiate a better offer… the lesson is: don’t try to negotiate an offer after it’s in writing and don’t negotiate by e-mail and don’t negotiate with someone in the human resources department and don’t let what you write get in the hands of a vice president who has no patience with this kind of thing…
Chris was shocked when the offer was rescinded and tried to “recoup” by telling them he’d accept the offer just as it is… sorry, the damage had already been done.
If you’re gonna negotiate, do it before a formal offer is made and do it with the hiring authority, the one who you have rapport with and the one you’re actually going to be working for… and, oh yeah, read the parts of my blog that talk about how to negotiate before you do it…
I really don’t have a lot of empathy for Chris, he screwed it up.
