What to do when you are offered a low salary

Hello world!  I hope you are all doing well.  Things are great here in Iowa.  The weather is hot, the pools are open, and the corn is growing.  I’m proud to say that I successfully completed my first year as a soccer coach and that I successfully achieved getting each of my five year old a goal!  I rock!  Today I wanted to talk about a situation that recently encountered.  I was working with a candidate that did everything right.  They were up front about their salary needs, they discussed it with the client, they discussed it with us.  They covered all of their bases and the company still came in way low. 

A lower salary might make you do this...

 Now – I’ve talked about why a company sometimes comes in low and what you can do – you can read about this here:

Dealing with a Lowball Offer

Everything I shared in this past blog is accurate.  However, in some cases asking for more money can be problematic.  Why?  Because sometimes the company will just walk away.  This is what happened in the situation I described above.  My candidate was devastated.  They needed the job and would have accepted at the lower level.  So what’s the point of this?  Do I think that you should just suck it up and accept a low offer?  Definitely not.  Instead, today I want to share other things you can negotiate on other than money if you are afraid of risking losing the job.  Here are some things you negotiate on :

Vacation

Vacation is a great thing to negotiate on.  Just remember two things.  Some companies have a policy about how much vacation you get and can’t do it.  More importantly, remember that it is only valuable to negotiate for more vacation if you actually use it. 

Schedule

So you are going to take a paycut… would it be worth it if you left every Friday at noon?  What about if you could drop your kids off at school every morning?  The key here is to think of tradeoffs  that increase your quality of life.  It never hurts to ask!

Future Raises

Alright, there is no guarantee that if a company promises you a future raise that you will actually get it.  However, what you could negotiate is a review of your work at a predetermined time in the future – something like 90 days or six months.  Work your tail off until then and be prepared to state your case.  It works!

Variable Income

Often times when people are offered lower salaries it is accompanied by bonus potential that gives them the opportunity “to be made whole.”  If they are asking you to take a risk, why not try to push the potential bonus higher.  From their perspective it seems more palatable because they aren’t actually giving you anything today – then when you work really hard you both win.

So what do you think?  Please remember that I don’t condone taking a salary that is too low just to get a job.  At the end of the day, the first measuring stick should be if you can pay your bills.  However, if you can – you may want to look at other options when negotiating.  Have a great week!  As always I can be reached at 515-216-5455 or by email at sthompson@csgrecruiting.com