Interesting choice of words, market rate. Is this a rising employment market or a declining one? Sure in the heydays of yore, if they made an offer at 9am, you could counter them with a higher figure at noon, and if they didn't accept you then and there, by 4pm they'd need to pay more for your services, they needed any warm body who could do some work. me thinks the employment report of 9%, which doesn't include those out of work for more than 6 months, isn't part of your analysis.

Its not a rising market, in fact not even a stable market yet. And what happens in declining markets, prices go down. An employer needing to prove to an applicant why they don't get more money, now that is a meeting I would love to record. It would be filed in the archives with pics of Nessie, the Yeti, and them pesky flying machines in a hangar somewhere in Nevada.

damn, there are so many mixed responses in this thread that i am getting mind-f***ed

take a few breaths, and think for a minute.

Are you the best at what you are hired for?

Why do you want the pay bump?

Answer those questions honestly to yourself, then go and meet with the firm. cuz if you don't know the answers now, you need to before you get there.

If money is the paramount thing you want, then a little life lesson here. No matter how much it is, its never enough. Next week you want more, then next year you want more, then next decade you want more. Realistically, you just need to get in the game.

if only there was a way to display trends in pay scales so we could know whether its stable/growing market or not!

PS, applying broad macro economic trends to specific areas without considering there may be a difference between professions like technology or say, construction worker, is ******ed. I'm sorry that wages are sticky and it interferes with your world views, but for the rest of us don't care and aren't going to take pay cuts for some kind of weird voodoo macro economic theory.

I guess you choose not to even read the first hand information posted in the thread, art. that would be ******ed, specifically as it pertained to the finance industry.

Don't really want to start a new thread, so I'll ask here.

Background: Company I currently work for has a few positions open. Very large company. Our website is pretty vague internally when posting job descriptions, but there are 4 I have applied for. I believe 2 are more horizontal than vertical moves, but I would most likely take either if offered to me just for experience factor + keeping my brain fresh. I've been at my job for about 2 years + current position for a year.

A. Have a first round interview tomorrow, pretty sure the interview is going to be 2 rounds...appropriate to write a thank you letter to the person interviewing me post-interview? I would do this normally, but not sure if it is necessary if: 1. job is 2 rounds and 2. it's an internal position

B. If I am fortunate enough to be offered one of these positions, any difference in negotiating strategies when it's internal?

OP, if i were you and thinking about my experience asking BFI for advice on something important to you, I would be reminded of what somone I worked with many years ago once said: "If you drop your keys into a floe of molten lava, let 'em go, just let 'em go, 'cause man, they're gone."

Consider reading no farther, forgetting everything you've seen, and seek the advice of someone you know and trust who has a lot of experience in the relevant business.

For the rest of us more disinterested parties, I've based my responses on my personal experiences - both how i've responded in similar situations and how i've observed others respond. Unfortunately, for all you know I'm making all of this up and am writing this in my dorm room while sitting in my underwear. I'm not, but no way for you to know that.


exactly

exactly wrong

This was during recruiting out of business school for a competitive position in mgmt consulting. The economy was going into the crapper, Dec 2008. I asked for the extra $5k in signing, as the company did not give relocation bonuses and I was being asked to move to SF from LA (I had initially interviewed for the LA office). So perhaps that was justified, but it really only cost me about $1k to move.

The other $10k was just asking for it. I told the HR rep that I thought the offer was a bit low and I just finished late-round interviews with a couple other companies (recruiting season at school, so all true). I was hoping to get $5k by asking for $10k, but she didn't even blink an eye and approved it. I basically said, I just finished interviewing with X (although I wasn't too optimistic about it), but I would sign with you for $10k more. There was no hostility and I never got any feeling they would renege on the offer.

I've talked to a few others in my start class and some mentioned they did negotiate and received it and others basically said they didn't think they should ask, given the economic climate and lack of other opportunities, and have regretted it. Especially after the company sent an addendum offer letter in March 09 that reduced our base salary by $8k (but paid the difference in a one-time lump sum bonus during our first year) and lengthened our signing bonus vesting time to 18 months. Always nice to do after recruiting had effectively ended and we had few options to look for something else.

I realize I had leverage and work experience but, as others have mentioned, the company usually has a bit of a buffer with their first offer. Very rarely do I see people negotiating for an increase within 6 months. Most companies have a structured raise/bonus period. If you are new when this time comes (<6 months), you can usually receive a small raise at most unless you show you are a superstar very early, which is pretty tough when you are that new.

Your beginning base pay is crucial, as everything builds off of that. A lot of companies give bonuses and pay raises as max % of compensation.

I'm a bit surprised that so many in this forum are risk-averse and recommending not even broaching the subject of something as important as starting salary negotiation. Perhaps the experience you all have is limited to smaller companies. For a mid-sized investment firm, I would think it is pretty standard to negotiate salary and $5k is a drop in the bucket. For a firm that size, it will all be forgotten after the negotiations.

I'll hopefully be entering negotiations for a new job soon. Will update with those proceedings if they come to fruition.

Sidenote: My first job out of undergrad I worked as a temp-to-hire for a mid-sized company and when given the offer for full-time employment, I told the Director (notoriously tight-fisted) that I wanted $3k more (to get to a rounder number, lol). I didn't know what market rates were or if I deserved it and had no supporting evidence, but I wanted more money. He cut me off and said take it or leave it. So I shut up and took it. No harm no foul.

thank you for this piece of advice, very helpful .

for a mid-sized investment firm... do you think i am better off just asking straight up for the amount i want more ($4k), or should i first ask them if negotiating is possible (and then if they say yes, i ask for 4k more)?

I don't want to argue back and forth about this, but frankly if I was forced to choose "riverfish1 is being honest" or "riverfish1 is making stuff up" I would definitely choose the latter.

The bottom line for people actually interested in the OP: If you get a job offer, but want to try for a little bit more, just say you were hoping for a little more, would they please reconsider - and if you think you have a great reason why you should get more, go ahead and include it. There is almost no chance you will lose the job offer because of this.

Again, just make sure you can back up your claims of why you want 4k more. That is the absolute #1 thing you need to be able to answer before you start negotiating, regardless of how much you want or what industry it is in.

You can build this in to the start of negotiation as well, such as "Based on my research and in talking to colleagues of mine in similar positions the salary you are offering is a little below market rate for this area. Is the salary open to negotiation for this position?"

You are talking about management consulting, not finance. Rules of the road are different and you don't understand how this market works.

Financial companies usually don't spend a lot of time worrying about starting pay. It represents a trivial portion of their compensation expense. So, they set a number and not want to spend any more time thinking about it. In hot markets, they have to adjust it so they don't lose people they want over a number they don't care about. In bad markets, they don't want to overpay, but know their employees have bills to pay and want them focused on work. However, they always know that the starting pay isn't what anyone should be in it for, so if someone focuses on that, it's just a huge red flag. Do not assume there is a buffer.

Your beginning pay is not only not crucial, it is irrelevant. The reason that this "negotiation" won't go over well is that your management will just be mystified that you would irritate them over something so trivial.

The posters who have suggested that OP keep his mouth shut aren't being risk averse (it sure isn't our risk here), it's that we understand what the other side is thinking. Starting pay is not important. It is not standard to negotiate it. And it may not be forgotten.

Negotiating pay is difficult and personal (for both sides) and you don't want to go to that well more than a couple times in your career. I can't think of a dumber time to do that than when you are getting hired as an analyst out of college. I can't think of a time when there is less to gain.

fwiw, the way you ask for the money (confidence, tone, body language etc.) will matter more than the words you use. after several long interviews, my cousin was offered 60k for a position where the industry rate was 90k, and his counter-offer was 90k. there were times where things were getting heated, and it was only his debate skills / confidence that saved him. the end result was him getting 80k + a 6 month re-evaluation.