Did this college fail to negotiate in good faith or did this applicant deserve what she got?

[Learjeff]

Quick answer to the OP: Neither. This is normal negotiation. You’re allowed to make a counteroffer, but any answer other than “Yes” leaves the offering party free to rescind it. However, I suspect that the college lost a good candidate due to their reaction. She made it quite clear that her terms were negotiable.

W’s letter is simple and matter-of-fact. I see nothing of “entitlement” in it. It’s simply a counteroffer: that’s what negotiation involves. A couple points could have been covered better; for example, the maternity leave: “You mentioned a maternity policy. Can I please have that in writing?”

For another, 3 new classes per semester: I interpret that as pretty obviously meaning three subjects per semester. I shudder to think of handling many more new subjects at a time. Is it really normal to be expected to teach four or more new subjects? I have a hard time imagining anyone doing a very good job of it. Is it possible that they interpreted her to mean she didn’t want to teach more than 3 classes? In any case, she should have said “subjects” to avoid such a silly mistake.

@IvoryTowerDenizen

I think that’s a very good insight. Interviews are usually 1-2 days long and would involve those very questions.

Maybe, maybe not.

I’ve done some job hunting through headhunters, and have gotten some excellent education on the process from them.

During job interviews, you have a primary goal: to get an offer. Once you have the offer, you can negotiate. Before you get the offer, don’t bring up any limitations or negatives or make any demands or requests. Get that offer. Once you have the offer, you begin negotiation. Once you have the offer, they’ve made at least some level of commitment to you, and your requests are put in a much better light than if they come up earlier in the process, and you could lose out to another candidate who didn’t. [Of course, you also have another primary goal which is to figure out whether this job is right for you. But that should focus on the nature of the work, not the terms and conditions of the employment contract.]

I admit that’s against my nature: I’m naturally very open. But I have to admit that it’s great advice.

@ReticulatingSplines

I disagree. Any counteroffer constitutes a rejection of the first offer and the formation of a new one. The school is not dumping anyone in a “sour grapes” fashion; they are merely refusing to meet the terms of the new offer and the existing one is already null and void.

Right. “It can’t hurt to ask” is incorrect. “It usually doesn’t hurt to ask” is closer, but maybe not in cases where you know there are many applicants for each position.

@Melchior

It sounds to me as though they need someone to start right away and be productive in the classroom, and put in a lot of hours. She wants to do other things that would interfere with that. End of story.

Right, though the reasonable response to this would be “No, we’d need you to start by xxxx.” However, they’re within their rights to say “Sorry, we’re no longer interested.” I think it’s a foolish response, but it’s their right.

@Dr.Drake

Okay, maybe I don’t understand the gender issues. I’m a male academic (PhD, non-tenure track) and I have never, ever been told to negotiate anything. I’ve always been told “don’t rock the boat, be grateful for any job you’re given.” When I’ve had postdocs and visiting professorships, I was given a salary with a take-it-or-leave it finality. Maybe I’m just a crap negotiator, but I was under the impression that this was standard.

In academia, it might be. If so, that was W’s mistake. It’s pretty sad, though, if no negotiation is acceptable. It’s far better to have clear terms of employment than to hope for things that were casually mentioned but are not specific in the offer, especially if any of them might be deal-breakers for you.

@Hector_St_Clare

I strongly think there should be a norm of fixed pay scales, with no negotiation. (I also think pay scales should be public knowledge, as they are for public universities- you can look up any employee of a public university in Michigan, for example, and find out what they make). Having people ‘negotiate’ their salaries results in unjustly favouring people who are more assertive/aggressive over those who aren’t.

I’m glad you’re not making the rules. I’m not a particularly good negotiator; I’m sure I’ve overpaid for cars, for example. But I’d far rather speak for myself and have the ability to craft the agreement with the employer that suits us both, than to be stuffed into a pigeonhole.

Actually, I did once work for a University with pigeonholes, none of which fit. The guy I worked for told me the rules with a nudge and a wink and then said what would really happen. I hated that, but I went along with it – fortunately for a short period.

@Melchior

In common parlance, ‘research’ is used mostly to describe activity that produces new discoveries, in fields such as medicine or physics, and is ‘experiment-based’. The secondary sense of ‘research’ is simply ‘looking up stuff’, and legal research comes to mind. That is the sense you mean, of course. It’s a ‘weak’ sense of ‘research’.

You’re wrong about common parlance, and you obviously have a bias towards empirical work and against theoretical work. You’re right that “research” has two levels: novel research versus study of existing work. However, novel research isn’t limited to empirical work! Philosophers do more than merely chew their intellectual cud: they actually think new thoughts (at least, ideally – I’m sure academia is full of cud-chewers, and that’s not limited to philosophy).

@Chronos

The course load, she’s basically saying that she wants to do only half of the work she’s being hired to do. Absolutely unacceptable.

Where do you get that idea? Are teachers expected to teach 6 different subjects?

And the late start date makes no sense at all.

My guess is that one was a bad judgment call on W’s part.

@Crafter_Man

If I was looking to hire someone, and I received a letter like that, I would say to myself, “Uh oh. This one would be a problem.” And quickly move onto the next one.

If so, you’d pass on a lot of great candidates. My response would be “This person knows how to articulate what they want, and might be more aggressive at achieving results, than all those meek replies.”

@Melchior

It should not even be brought up. Maternity leave is a standard thing.

Evidently not, or the reply would be "Here is our standard maternity leave policy. Where is it a standard thing? It’s common in industry, but every company has their own policy. I don’t know of any state or federal regulations, do you? What is the standard? Who defines this standard? Or are you guessing?

@Green_Bean

So I’m thinking what would happen if we made the current top candidate an offer and he replied with this:

…

He’d be laughed out of town.

And before you say “what’s wrong with #3?” - Nothing is inherently wrong with it, except that it’s just not done where I work, and would not be a good fit for the position even if it were.

Then it’s a good thing the guy put it in the counteroffer, rather than assuming it would “just work out” because the job would have been a bad fit! Thanks for pointing out the value of a good counteroffer.

@Melchior

The sense of entitlement just drips from her message.

For you maybe. I think you’re a sexist.

@Dr.Drake

I think, for most people going for their first tenure-track job in the Humanities, the answer is:

Reasonable: “Thank you very much.”
Optional: “May I lick your boots, Sir / Madam?”
Unreasonable: Everything else.

I suspect it’s different in the sciences.

Unfortunately, you’re probably right.

@Chronos

Personally, I don’t think that it’s her tone that makes her sound entitled; I think that the content of her requests does that just fine on its own. What she’s saying basically amounts to “I want the paycheck, but I don’t want to do the work”.

No it doesn’t.

If she had an offer from another school, she should have said so. “I have another offer” always strengthens your position, even if it’s one you’d prefer not to take.

Hmmm, maybe, but I don’t think I would. That’s something that could be taken very differently by different parties. I’d rather let my merits speak, and let them figure out that I have or will be getting other offers. This is a difficult card to play, but no doubt it has its moments.

@Melchior

Well academia is a different world, but what I saw in her message showed a lack of respect and consideration. She did not even give lip service to her teaching responsibilities. ‘Me, me, me, me, me…’

Where is the lack of respect? Where is a lack of consideration? This is a COUNTEROFFER, which is precisely intended to define what you expect in addition to what was already offered. Have you actually negotiated new job positions much?

@Melchior

Exactly. This particular woman was not playing a strong hand.

I think that’s the real issue.

@StusBlues

I concur. Remaining anonymous while fingering the institution for something like this (as opposed to something like corruption) is a little gutless.

I agree.

@Melchior

I doubt that a man would have made the same sorts of mistakes. But who knows.

Yup, I was right. You’re a sexist.

[dofe]

@Learjeff

W’s letter is simple and matter-of-fact. I see nothing of “entitlement” in it. It’s simply a counteroffer: that’s what negotiation involves. A couple points could have been covered better; for example, the maternity leave: “You mentioned a maternity policy. Can I please have that in writing?”

I, and several other posters, disagree, so there is at least the question of whether W did a good enough job of drafting her counteroffer.

She was not in a position of strength to negotiate, and the language in her letter should have been more sensitive to this fact. In a situation like hers, a matter-of-fact letter is a deficient one.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Learjeff

For another, 3 new classes per semester: I interpret that as pretty obviously meaning three subjects per semester. I shudder to think of handling many more new subjects at a time. Is it really normal to be expected to teach four or more new subjects? I have a hard time imagining anyone doing a very good job of it. Is it possible that they interpreted her to mean she didn’t want to teach more than 3 classes?

The exact wording was “No more than three new class preps per year [not semester] for the first three years.” “Class preps” refers to how many different classes, as opposed to different sections of the same class, she’d be teaching. What’s not entirely clear to me is whether by “new class preps” she meant “classes I’ve never taught before” (which seems the most obvious, and reasonable, interpretation) or just different classes for that semester/year.

You’re right that prepapring to teach new classes is difficult and time-consuming. On the other hand, a full-time faculty member might be expected to teach from two to five classes (not necessarily different) per semester, depending on what other duties she also had. At a college focused on teaching, let’s say three or four per semester, so six to eight per year. At a small college, there might well not be enough multiple sections of the same class in the same year to allow her to be limited to three new class preps per year, especially when the needs and desires of the other faculty members and student schedules are taken into account.

How many new class preps are reasonable to expect of a new faculty member depends on how much time she’d be expected to spend on them vs. on other things like her own research. Hence, the fact that she made the request may have indicated that she misunderstood the nature of the job. Still, it seems odd to me that she would have gotten that far in the process without being given a pretty good idea what to expect in terms of teaching load and expectations.

[Melchior]

@Learjeff

Quick answer to the OP: Neither. This is normal negotiation. You’re allowed to make a counteroffer, but any answer other than “Yes” leaves the offering party free to rescind it. However, I suspect that the college lost a good candidate due to their reaction. She made it quite clear that her terms were negotiable.

W’s letter is simple and matter-of-fact. I see nothing of “entitlement” in it. It’s simply a counteroffer: that’s what negotiation involves. A couple points could have been covered better; for example, the maternity leave: “You mentioned a maternity policy. Can I please have that in writing?”

Where is the lack of respect? Where is a lack of consideration? This is a COUNTEROFFER, which is precisely intended to define what you expect in addition to what was already offered. Have you actually negotiated new job positions much?

Saying ‘I don’t want to work very much and I don’t want to start for another year because I have this other stuff I wanna do’ is not a counteroffer. It’s an insult, frankly.

I see ‘entitlement’ in the fact that she *expected *them to agree to this. She must be used to getting everything she asks for, having all of her ridiculous demands met. She is not accustomed yet to the real world.

[Melchior]

@dofe

I, and several other posters, disagree, so there is at least the question of whether W did a good enough job of drafting her counteroffer.

She was not in a position of strength to negotiate, and the language in her letter should have been more sensitive to this fact. In a situation like hers, a matter-of-fact letter is a deficient one.

Yes, and this is what I have said all along.

[Melchior]

@Thudlow_Boink

The exact wording was “No more than three new class preps per year [not semester] for the first three years.” “Class preps” refers to how many different classes, as opposed to different sections of the same class, she’d be teaching. What’s not entirely clear to me is whether by “new class preps” she meant “classes I’ve never taught before” (which seems the most obvious, and reasonable, interpretation) or just different classes for that semester/year.

You’re right that prepapring to teach new classes is difficult and time-consuming. On the other hand, a full-time faculty member might be expected to teach from two to five classes (not necessarily different) per semester, depending on what other duties she also had. At a college focused on teaching, let’s say three or four per semester, so six to eight per year. At a small college, there might well not be enough multiple sections of the same class in the same year to allow her to be limited to three new class preps per year, especially when the needs and desires of the other faculty members and student schedules are taken into account.

How many new class preps are reasonable to expect of a new faculty member depends on how much time she’d be expected to spend on them vs. on other things like her own research. Hence, the fact that she made the request may have indicated that she misunderstood the nature of the job. Still, it seems odd to me that she would have gotten that far in the process without being given a pretty good idea what to expect in terms of teaching load and expectations.

Yes, something is fishy there. I don’t understand how she could be mentioning these things. What the hell did they talk about in the interviews?

[usedtobe]

One thing I’ve havn’t seen addressed:

What, exactly, is a Post-Doc?

I was under the impression it was more or less “busy work” to keep mac & cheese on the table whie job-hunting, and it terminates as soon as an offer is accepted.

Why would a person who is eager to teach prefer to spend another year in Post-Doc when a real, live tenure track professorship is available for the taking?

[Melchior]

@usedtobe

One thing I’ve havn’t seen addressed:

What, exactly, is a Post-Doc?

I was under the impression it was more or less “busy work” to keep mac & cheese on the table whie job-hunting, and it terminates as soon as an offer is accepted.

Why would a person who is eager to teach prefer to spend another year in Post-Doc when a real, live tenure track professorship is available for the taking?

It does raise questions, definitely.

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@usedtobe

One thing I’ve havn’t seen addressed:

What, exactly, is a Post-Doc?

I was under the impression it was more or less “busy work” to keep mac & cheese on the table whie job-hunting, and it terminates as soon as an offer is accepted.

Why would a person who is eager to teach prefer to spend another year in Post-Doc when a real, live tenure track professorship is available for the taking?

A post doc is generally where someone develops the research program they are going to bring with them to their faculty position. Often, and my expertise is in the sciences, your post doc work has no (or limited) relation to your grad work. In your post doc you work under a faculty whose research is similar to what you ultimately want to pursue. You branch off something related you take with you to pursue in your faculty position. Even a teaching university often expects some scholarship, so you’re developing your own program during your post doc.

Not all post docs are like that- some can be just marking time. Some post doc advisors can be very aggressive about insisting a part doc stay longer to get another paper out etc, and that can be a real political problem to negotiate a leaving date with someone you may need for a letter or as a collaborator later on.

What may have happened is she may have been testing the waters with her application this year and ended up with an offer that she didn’t expect.

[Enginerd]

@usedtobe

One thing I’ve havn’t seen addressed:

What, exactly, is a Post-Doc?

I was under the impression it was more or less “busy work” to keep mac & cheese on the table whie job-hunting, and it terminates as soon as an offer is accepted.

Why would a person who is eager to teach prefer to spend another year in Post-Doc when a real, live tenure track professorship is available for the taking?

Post-doc is kind of a catch-all term that covers any number of different positions. The details vary discipline-by-discipline, project-by-project, and school-by-school, so there’s no simple answer. In the sciences, they’re often funded by research grants, so the post-doc has a more or less built-in project to work on. In the humanities, they’re more often independent fellowships awarded directly to the post-doc, and they’re often pretty prestigious.

Certainly the scenario ITD mentions is feasible. Another reason W might have wanted to delay the start of a TT position, especially at a teaching-intensive school, is to complete a book manuscript based on her dissertation. For a lot of humanities positions, a book is a requirement for tenure, and teaching 4 classes a semester doesn’t leave a lot of time for a new assistant professor to write. If she wants to get a manuscript ready to submit, the post-doc is probably the best opportunity to do it.

If that were the case, though, it’s another indicator of a mismatch between W and Nazareth. The schools that require a book for tenure are typically research universities, and if she’s worried about her book she’s contemplating tenure at somewhere other than Nazareth. At a research school, her request to delay her start date probably wouldn’t have raised the eyebrows it did at Nazareth - in my field, at least, it’s not unusual at all for a candidate to delay the start date a semester to wrap up some existing projects.

[astro]

@dofe

I, and several other posters, disagree, so there is at least the question of whether W did a good enough job of drafting her counteroffer.

She was not in a position of strength to negotiate, and the language in her letter should have been more sensitive to this fact. In a situation like hers, a matter-of-fact letter is a deficient one.

And that in a nutshell is the core of it. She had no negotiation strength. A lot of posting has been done in this thread about how negotiation is perfectly normal and to be expected, and her letter was not out of the ordinary in these types of back and forth. That is perfectly correct if you have a substantive power position.

The only power she had was that they had expressed interest in her, and in the context of a hugely desirable type of job that is rarely available (tenure track position in Philosophy) with oodles of qualified applicants available she had no leverage for demands whatsoever.

[Melchior]

@astro

And that in a nutshell is the core of it. She had no negotiation strength. A lot of posting has been done in this thread about how negotiation is perfectly normal and to be expected, and her letter was not out of the ordinary in these types of back and forth. That is perfectly correct if you have a substantive power position.

The only power she had was that they had expressed interest in her, and in the context of a hugely desirable type of job that is rarely available (tenure track position in Philosophy) with oodles of qualified applicants available she had no leverage for demands whatsoever.

…and showing that she did *not *know that (in her message) made her look very very bad in their eyes! This is why I have said she was flippant.

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@Melchior

…and showing that she did *not *know that (in her message) made her look very very bad in their eyes! This is why I have said she was flippant.

Naive or ignorant is not the same as flippant. She may have inadvertently come off as flippant (especially to someone who wants to see it that way), but her not understanding the power dynamics does not make her flippant.

[Melchior]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

Naive or ignorant is not the same as flippant. She may have inadvertently come off as flippant (especially to someone who wants to see it that way), but her not understanding the power dynamics does not make her flippant.

You don’t know what flippancy is, it seems. Her discussion of each of these demands was very short.

[astro]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

Naive or ignorant is not the same as flippant. She may have inadvertently come off as flippant (especially to someone who wants to see it that way), but her not understanding the power dynamics does not make her flippant.

adjective: flippant

1. not showing a serious or respectful attitude.
   “a flippant remark”

Yeah I think you are correct, it was more ignorance of the power dynamics than any intention to be disrespectful. Her needs were perfectly valid but when someone is holding up the golden ticket for a Philosophy PhD you kind of need to dance to their tune.

And the point has been made, and it’s also valid, that expecting this very highly educated, well spoken person to have an intuitive grasp of the power balance in this scenario is not necessarily a reasonable expectation. She had negotiated hard before in academic and non-academic jobs and gotten what she wanted… at those levels. This was a different stage and she did not tune her response accordingly. It wasn’t “flippant” but she was not crafting her response with the level of deference it needed.

She didn’t “get” what they were looking for or where exactly she stood. That she made this public and embarrassed the college is further evidence (IMO) of her not quite
getting it.

[Melchior]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

Naive or ignorant is not the same as flippant. She may have inadvertently come off as flippant (especially to someone who wants to see it that way), but her not understanding the power dynamics does not make her flippant.

This may help:

http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpgframes.php?volno=03&page=496&query=flippant

She needed to be more obsequious than in casual social interactions. She needed to very formal and elaborate on what she wanted and why, all the while showing an *overabundance *of respect.

[pulykamell]

@Melchior

This may help:

http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpgframes.php?volno=03&page=496&query=flippant

She needed to be more obsequious than in casual social interactions. She needed to very formal and elaborate on what she wanted and why, all the while showing an *overabundance *of respect.

Sometimes, I feel like we’re speaking a different language. It sounds like in your mind, for her to not be characterized as “flippant,” it would require showing an “overabundance of respect.” That’s not how I characterize flippancy. “Flippancy” to me characterizes a smart-alecky sort of casual attitude and intentional disrespect. There’s none of that in this letter. It would take a rather tortured reading to make it so.

[slash2k]

If W and Nazareth’s interview committee did even a halfway decent job of interviewing, both sides already know where they stand on the teach-vs-research divide. The committee should have made it pretty clear, e.g., whether Nazareth’s tenure policy really means “we emphasize teaching above all” or “we emphasize teaching, but you won’t get tenure without a book under your belt.” They should also have elicited from her how she feels about teaching.

Either BOTH sides were tone-deaf in the previous interviews, or there’s something else going on here. Maybe it’s committee politics, or institutional politics, or something W has left out of the story. Maybe it’s something else.

I don’t read her initial email as a list of demands. She seems to be setting forth a wish list, and making it pretty clear that it IS a wish list and she doesn’t expect to get everything. I would have expected their response to be something like, “okay, here’s what we are willing to negotiate and here’s what we won’t” or maybe, “sorry, this is our best offer.”

Their response, however, seems to have the subtext of “how DARE you presume to differ from us.” It’s not just a matter that Nazareth is in the driver’s seat and has all the leverage; they come across as wanting to make sure their correspondents know Nazareth has all the leverage.

Unequal power is pretty common in negotiations, and indeed in relationships in general. However, even as a prospective student, let alone professor, this gives me pause to consider how Nazareth exerts their power in relationships.

[usedtobe]

re. flippancy:

Opening line:

As you know, I am very enthusiastic about the possibility of coming to Nazareth. Granting some of the following provisions would make my decision easier.

Maybe the word is “unacceptably coy”?

Gee, it sure would make my decision to take a once-in-a-lifetime offer easier if you’d just give me time off, time-off, reduced workload, more money, and I’ll have to finish my more important stuff before I can work you into my schedule.

I have no trouble believing that email was passed around - and quite possibly framed to remind the search committee “Don’t EVER let another one like this slip in”.

[Jragon]

@usedtobe

re. flippancy:

Opening line:
Maybe the word is “unacceptably coy”?

Gee, it sure would make my decision to take a once-in-a-lifetime offer easier if you’d just give me time off, time-off, reduced workload, more money, and I’ll have to finish my more important stuff before I can work you into my schedule.

I have no trouble believing that email was passed around - and quite possibly framed to remind the search committee “Don’t EVER let another one like this slip in”.

That’s the line that went from confidence to hubris for me. It just reeked with “I’m too good for you, but if you ask reaaaaly nicely maybe I’ll find it possible to waste my time with you peasants.”

I know she wasn’t trying to do that, but even just a simple rewording to something like “if at all possible, I’d like you to consider some of the following proposals” would have made it sound a lot more like negotiating and not like a Queen asking some random count what they’ll do for her if she sends the royal guard to defend his fief.