Negotiating an offer when you've never done it before

Say this, out loud, when the offer comes: "Thank you, I'm really pleased. Could you send that over in writing? I'd like to look at the whole package and come back to you by Thursday."

That one sentence does most of the work. You haven't accepted, you haven't refused, you haven't given a number, and you've bought yourself two days to think while sounding entirely delighted. Almost everyone who regrets a negotiation regrets what they said in the first ninety seconds on the phone.

The rest is craft, and craft can be learned in an afternoon.

They're not going to pull the offer

This is the fear that stops most first-timers, so deal with it now. A company that has interviewed you four times, checked your references and got sign-off on a headcount doesn't throw all of that away because you asked whether the base is flexible. Recruiters and hiring managers negotiate constantly. It's a line item in their week.

Offers do get withdrawn, but for identifiable reasons: someone was rude, someone haggled over the same point five times after being told no, someone accepted and then tried to reopen it, someone made a demand they clearly couldn't back up. Notice what isn't on that list. Asking once, politely, with a reason attached, isn't on it.

If a company treats a single professional question as an insult, you've learned something about how they'll treat you in year two.

Get the whole thing on paper first

Base salary is one number out of eight or nine. Before you decide anything, you want the written offer to state:

• Base salary and pay frequency
• Bonus, and whether it's discretionary, formulaic or guaranteed in year one
• Equity or profit share, the vesting schedule, and what happens if you leave
• Job title and who you report to
• Start date
• Holiday entitlement, and whether it rises with tenure
• Pension or retirement contribution, including any match
• Remote or hybrid arrangement, in writing, not "we're flexible"
• Notice period and any probation terms
• Signing bonus or relocation, if relevant

Read it twice. The gap between what someone said warmly in an interview and what's written in the contract is where most unpleasant surprises live. "We do reviews every six months" means nothing unless it's on the page with a date.

Work out your number before you talk

You need three figures in your head, and none of them should be a range you say out loud.

Your target. What the role genuinely pays for someone with your scope, in your city, in this sector. Find it by reading advertised bands for the same title at comparable companies, checking whether your country or state requires pay ranges in job ads, asking a specialist recruiter in your field what they're placing people at, and talking to anyone you know who's left that employer recently. Professional bodies and unions often publish sector salary guidance. Former colleagues are usually franker than current ones.

Your ask. Above your target, but defensible. You want room to land where you actually wanted to be.

Your walk-away. The number below which you take the other job, stay put, or keep looking. Decide this while you're calm, not while someone's waiting on the phone.

If the research comes back thin, that's still information. It usually means the band is wide and the manager has discretion.

The ask itself

One conversation. One clear number. A reason based on the job, not on your life.

Something like: "I'm excited about this and I want to accept. Based on the scope we discussed, particularly owning the reporting line for the northern accounts, and what I'm seeing for comparable roles, I was hoping we could get the base to 68. Is there room there?"

That's it. Then stop talking.

The silence after your number will feel about four times longer than it's. Let it sit. The most expensive habit first-timers have is filling the pause by negotiating against themselves: "but obviously I'm flexible", "I mean, anything close to that", "it's not really about the money". You've just handed back everything you asked for before they've said a word.

Name a specific figure, not a range. If you say "somewhere between 62 and 68", you have offered to work for 62.

And keep the reason external. "The market rate for this scope" is an argument they can take to their finance director. "My rent's gone up" is one they can't.

If the base genuinely won't move

Sometimes it won't. Public sector grades, banded structures, a startup that's pre-revenue. Say "understood", then move to everything else, because the same manager who can't touch the band often has real latitude elsewhere.

Ask for a signing bonus to bridge the gap. Ask for a written review at six months with the criteria stated rather than a vague promise of "we'll look at it". Ask for a higher title if the work supports it, because your next employer will price you off it. Ask for a training or conference budget, extra holiday, a later start date so you get two clear weeks between jobs, or an additional remote day.

One of these is usually available. Ask for the one you'd actually use, not all of them in a shopping list.

The mistakes that cost the most

Giving your current salary too early. In some places it's unlawful for an employer to ask; in others it's routine. Either way you can deflect once, warmly: "I'd rather focus on what the role's worth. What's the band you've set for it?" If you're unsure of the rules where you live, an employment solicitor or your local labor authority will tell you in a phone call.

Inventing a competing offer. People do check, and the sector is smaller than you think.

Apologising. "Sorry to be difficult" teaches them that a normal question is difficult.

Reopening after you've accepted. Once you say yes, you're done. Get everything sorted before that word.

Resigning before the signed contract arrives. Never. Not even if they seem lovely.

On sounding "difficult"

Plenty of women worry that asking will make them look grabby, and the worry isn't imaginary. The fix isn't to ask for less. It's to make the ask sound like what it's: a collaborative problem, solved together, in one conversation.

"Is there room" beats "I need". "Can we get there" beats "I want". Warm tone, firm number, no wobble in the middle. You can be extremely pleasant and completely immovable at the same time, and the combination is unusually effective.

Then hold the number. Warmth is the delivery. It isn't the concession.

The base you accept on Thursday is the figure every percentage rise for the next several years gets calculated from, and it's the figure the next employer will anchor to. Six thousand now isn't six thousand. It's six thousand, compounding, for as long as you work.

Ask on Thursday.