Getting paid
How to negotiate a job offer
The week between the offer and your signature is the most leverage you will ever have with that company. They have chosen you, spent money doing it, and told nobody else yet. After you sign, every euro takes a year and a performance review. These are the sentences that move the number while it can still move.
Most people treat an offer as a result. It is not. It is the opening position of a negotiation that only one side knows is happening.
They have run a process, rejected other people, and spent real money getting to you. They want this closed. You are the most expensive person in the world to replace right now, and that stops being true the moment you sign.
Before anything: do not give the first number
The application form asks for salary expectations. The recruiter asks on the first call. Every instinct says answer it.
Ask back instead.
"What have you budgeted for this role?"
They usually have a band and they usually tell you. If they will not, give a range whose bottom you would accept without resentment, because the bottom is what you will be offered.
A single number said too early is the most expensive sentence in the process. It becomes the ceiling, and nothing later in this article can lift it back up.
The sentence that moves the base
Once the offer is real and in writing, this is the whole move.
"I am excited about this. Based on what I bring on [the specific thing], I was expecting something closer to €X. Is there room to get there?"
Then stop talking.
The silence is the technique. Most people ruin a good ask by filling the pause with reasons, and reasons sound like apology. Let them answer.
Notice what the sentence does not contain. It does not say you deserve more. Deserving is a feeling, nobody can approve a feeling, and nobody takes one to a finance director. It names a number and attaches it to something they can check.
What goes in place of [the specific thing]
Numbers with units on them. Their language, not yours.
"I generated €X in new revenue last year."
"I exceeded target by X percent, three years running."
"I cut acquisition cost by X percent."
"I carried X additional markets."
Not "I worked incredibly hard on the migration". Hard work is invisible in a compensation conversation. Results are the only thing that travels up to the person who signs off.
When they say the base is fixed
Sometimes it really is. Bands exist, and the person in front of you may have no room at all on that one line.
This is where most people say thank you and sign. Do this instead.
"If the base is set, can we look at the variable, the sign-on, or a six-month review with a defined number attached?"
Four doors, and they are rarely all locked. A sign-on comes from a different budget than salary. A six-month review with a figure written into the offer letter is a raise you have already negotiated, at a moment when you have leverage, instead of one you will have to fight for later without any.
The sentence worth more than the base
If any part of your pay is variable, this is the highest-value thing on the page.
"My upside is capped in practice. If I double what I produce, my pay does not really change. So the company and I are not pulling in the same direction. Could we look at a percentage of what I generate instead of a fixed bonus?"
It is also the easiest yes you will ever ask for, because you are not asking them to spend more. You are asking them to pay you more only when you produce more.
Equity, without sounding naive
Four questions. Ask all of them, in this order.
"What is the current strike price, what valuation was it set against, what is the vesting schedule, and what happens to unvested shares if I leave or if there is a secondary?"
If the answers are clear, you can value it. If they are vague, treat the equity as worth zero and negotiate the base or the variable instead.
That is not cynicism. Across fifteen years and every share option I was ever granted, the whole lot came to half a percent of my portfolio. Options are a lottery ticket attached to a job. Price them like one.
The number nobody in the room is looking at
Your salary is not what you cost. Depending on the country, your employer spends 11% to 34% more than your gross to employ you.
That gap matters in this conversation for one reason. When a company says a number is impossible, they are usually talking about their total cost, not your gross. Knowing roughly what you cost them tells you whether "we cannot go higher" means the budget is really full or the conversation is just uncomfortable.
It matters even more if the role is a contract rather than a salary. The day rate that matches a salary is far higher than the one every calculator gives you, because those divide the salary rather than the cost. Run your own number here.
Four things not to do
Do not negotiate before the offer is in writing. Verbal numbers move and nobody remembers them the same way.
Do not mention a competing offer unless it is real and you would take it. It works, and it converts a relationship into a transaction you might lose.
Do not apologise. "I know this is probably not possible, but" hands them the answer before they have thought about it.
Do not accept on the call. "Thank you, I would like to read it properly and come back tomorrow" is normal, expected, and buys you the only thinking time you will get.
What good looks like
You asked once, clearly, with a number attached to evidence. You stopped talking. You got a yes, a partial yes, or a no with a reason.
A no with a review date and a figure in writing is not a failure. It is next year's raise, negotiated while you still had leverage.
And if you are about to sign something without asking at all, work out what the difference compounds to over the years you will hold this job. That is the real size of the forty uncomfortable minutes you are avoiding.
Common questions
Should you always negotiate a job offer?
Almost always, and the risk is smaller than it feels. A company that has chosen you, run a process and made an offer does not withdraw it because you asked one question politely. What actually happens is that you get a yes, a smaller yes, or a no with a reason, and all three are better than never asking.
How much more should you ask for in a job offer?
Ask for a number your evidence supports rather than a percentage you read somewhere. Find what the role pays elsewhere, tie it to what you have produced, and name a figure at the top of that range. A number with evidence behind it is a discussion. A percentage from nowhere is a wish.
What do you say when a recruiter asks your salary expectations?
Ask what they have budgeted for the role first. If you have to answer, give a range whose bottom you would accept happily, because the bottom is what you will be offered. Naming a single number before you know theirs is the most expensive sentence in the whole process.
Can you negotiate if the salary is fixed?
Yes, and this is the part most people skip. If the base will not move, the variable pay, the sign-on, the review date and the commission structure all still can. A six-month review with a defined number attached is worth more than an extra thousand on the base.
How do you negotiate equity in a job offer?
Ask what the current strike price is, what valuation it was set against, what the vesting schedule is, and what happens to unvested shares if you leave or there is a secondary. If the answers are vague, treat the equity as worth zero and negotiate the base or the variable instead.
Will they withdraw the offer if I negotiate?
It is rare, and it tells you something useful when it happens. Hiring is expensive and slow, and you were the outcome of it. A company that pulls an offer because you asked one clear question about money has told you how the next conversation about money would have gone.
Already in the job? Different conversation.
Five sentences took my pay from €2,000 a month to €12,500 over five years, in the same seat, without an offer in my hand.
How to ask for a raise
Who wrote this
Fifteen years in sales, starting at €700 a month. Ranked first of more than 250 account executives globally at Deel in the first half of 2023. Everything you can check is on the proof page, including the parts that cannot be checked.
This is education, not advice, and I am not a licensed adviser. What that means in full is in what this is and what it is not.