Should I negotiate my salary with new employers

有位求职者在告诉新雇主希望加薪后，一直未得回复，担心新雇主收回offer。以下是我的一点忠告。

I hope it comes out OK for you, but it ought to be a valuable lesson everybody should learn from: it's not always a good idea to negotiate your salary with potential employers and it can be dangerous when you blindly follow some people's advices here without carefully weighing your own situation.

First of all, it's naive to think that the tricks you learn from this forum actually work. Don't you realize that those HR people, who do salary negotiations for a living, know all about these tricks? For example, you may lie about your current salary, but they can find out the true number through your references or background checks, or they can simply ask you to provide a current pay stub. Same thing about telling them you have a better offer elsewhere. When they tell you"show us the offer letter and we'll match it", you'll look like an idiot. The bottom line is, once you come across as being greedy and/or disingenuous to your potential employer, it's all over.

Even if you have been truthful and sincere in your negotiation, you need to realize that anything can happen before you receive the written offer. For example, you might not be their best candidate, but the person ahead of you wanted to take another offer so they had to give this offer to you. What if that person changed his/her mind and wanted this job after all? For another example, their top management may happen to impose a hiring freeze while you are going back and forth with the salary negotiations. The second scenario actually happened to me twice, although not because of prolonged salary negotiations. I had an offer withdrawn when they had a re-org and the open position was eliminated. In another instance I had an offer put on hold for 6 months because they had a hiring freeze, even though every detail of the offer had been verbally agreed upon and the reference/background checks had been completed.

I'm not saying you should never negotiate your salary. Recently I myself accepted a Sr. Architect position at a software company and negotiated a 10% increase above a good offer. How did I do it? I have over 12 years of industrial experience; my qualifications are a perfect match for the new job and I know they are very unlikely to find a better person than me; I made the case that I'll take on important responsibilities and need to be compensated accordingly; and lastly, I have another equally good offer to fall back on.

So exactly when should you negotiate your salary? In my opinion you need to answer yes to all these questions:

1. Do I sincerely believe that the offer is low?
2. Can I make a good case for a better offer?
3. Can I afford to lose this offer?

You need also prepare your response in case they say no. Would you walk away? You may reluctantly accept it as is, but the last thing your new employer wants is someone who thinks he/she is underpaid from day 1. Alternatively you may request that they give you a salary review after3 to 6 months, but in any case be very careful. Remember, you are making an important decision with your career. Don't play games with it.

If you come to this forum for advices, chances are you are in the early stage of your professional career. You have to realize that you need this job more than they need you. The most important thing for you would be a good job where you can grow a lot. If you have a good offer from a company you like, grab it before it slips away. Just gratefully accept it and tell your new employer how excited you are with the new opportunity.