Negotiating your wage

Bandit Bill · Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 5:20 pm Post subject: Negotiating your wage

I will be returning to oilfield computer networking/instrumentation work on Monday. However, now I will be working for the competition.

After doing a little reading on wage negotiation, I ended up getting more money than the company initially offered me.

I was a little scared to counter offer, but I'm very glad I did. I went to check my email for their response and my 17" CRT monitor blew up on me. Upon hooking up an even older 14", I found out they had accepted my counter offer. The wage difference paid for the new 20" Cinema display now sitting on my desk, plus a few years worth of internet access Very Happy

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WC3_Gamer · Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:19 pm Post subject:

Congrats!
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Gone.

greg · Veteran Member Joined: 01 May 2005 Posts: 613

Congratulations!
I've never accepted an initial offer from any of my civilian employers (Air Force wasn't into negotiating Wink

). In fact, you should feel free to negotiate benefits as well (things like training and annual leave). It really adds up. I try to research a company before going in and usually have a pretty good idea what my peers are making there and what kind of benefits they are pulling. For example, if all new employees receive 10 days of annual leave but I know that my peers there with equivalent levels of experience typically get 20 days due to tenure, I'll ask for 20 days. I've never had anyone say "No". And if they did, maybe they aren't the sort of flexible organization I would want to work for.

Another thing I try to avoid is discussing money up front. When some employers ask what I make or what I want to make I suggest we talk about my qualificatons and about their business and if we are both still interested then we can discuss money. Seems to work.
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