The negotiations aren’t part of the selection process. The University (more than likely an administrator) is simply being mean-spirited. The correct response was, “Thank you for the proposal regarding your salary and benefits. We would like to offer you the position based on our original salary and benefits and hope you decide to join us.”
I taught in a department just like that. And even though I was teaching 24 hours a year, AND my department chair was swinging in exactly the opposite direction, trying to make sure I could teach as close to any and every course they offered as he could throw at me, I still had no more than 5 new preps every year in years 2-4. (No less, either, and by the end of the fourth year, I was a burnout case, which is the main reason I left academia.) It wouldn’t have been that hard for my department chair to reduce my load of new preps to 3 a year - after all, there are always more sections of the lower level courses than of the upper levels. Those courses that come up once every 3 years don’t all hit in the same year, after all.
For a person who is about to start her first real job in academia, I think this is a forgivable trait. This is part of the reason that some people think that a man who did this would have been treated differently.
Yup. Apparently you get the privilege of leaning in if you are Cheryl Sandberg. But anyone else is “entitled” and deserves what she gets. Right.
I cannot believe that none of these things was covered during the interview process. She is asking for more money than was offered, and in a field where candidates with her qualifications are probably a dime a dozen. She pushed her luck and it backfired.
No doubt if she had mentioned these issues during her interview, Melchior would have said that she should have waited for an offer to negotiate.
To hit someone with rather extraordinary demands after the offer was made is just dumb. I cannot believe that the expectations for and duties of the new hire were not discussed. "We are looking for someone to start on June 10th, and teach xxx hrs per semester’ or something like that.
You get the privilege of leaning in if you start from a strong negotiating position. Sheryl Sandberg has an MBA from Harvard with Highest Distinction, if she doesn’t get a job she leans in for, there is likely someone else who will take her. Her undergrad is a summa cum laude, also from Harvard, in Economics. She worked for McKinsey, the World Bank and was Chief of Staff to Larry Summers - the worked for Google - turning AdWords into a profit center - at which point she very likely secured her financial future and can afford to walk away. Zuckerberg recruited HER, she wasn’t looking for a corporate job - she was going to go back to the World Bank. And this was happening as she was starting her family - she wasn’t worried about maternity leave when she was with the Clinton Administration. She starts from a strong negotiating position when it comes to making demands about her work life.
We don’t know much about W, but unless she is a rising star in the field of Philosophy, she isn’t starting from much of a negotiating position. Academia is a different world than the money rich world of Silicon Valley Corporate America. There are far more grads than openings for tenured positions. There are adjuncts looking for tenure roles who already have experience in teaching positions - that she is working on her postdoc indicated her PhD is still wet. She has no idea whether she was a clear first choice candidate or if the committee was already divided when they made the offer and there were already people who felt she wasn’t the best pick. She overplayed her hand. Go ahead and lean in, but push too hard and you fall on your face.
Don’t forget that someone about to start a “first real job” in academia has already been in academia for several years, as a grad student if not a postdoc. This includes close relationships with professors, teaching, and attending conferences where you talk to people from other institutions, including new hires. Sure, there’s still a learning curve, but if she’s going in that blind at this point, it’s on her.
Several posts from academics have already stated that accommodations similar to these are not unusual in academia.
Now this particular combination of accommodations in this particular context might not have been realistic, but I think that EVEN W herself has said that she knew that going in.
Her whole point was that she was taught – especially since she already had the job offer in hand – that it “doesn’t hurt to ask” and if you look at the tone if the E-mail message, it doesn’t look like she’s making “demands” at all.
It’s impossible to say that there are even any unrealistic expectations here because there’s no evidence that she expected to get any of them. (Except for the maternity leave – she was already told unofficially that she would likely get it – she just was trying to make it official.)
Her sole expectation here – I seems to me – is that “it doesn’t hurt to ask” – and, frankly, I don’t see why she should be wrong about that. Particularly in an atmosphere in which professional women are being beaten on the head with the idea that the gender gap is because women fail to ask for what they want.
Going from here to “entitled” really can’t be justified from what we know about the situation.
Not nearly as dumb as demanding that somebody make their counteroffer before the initial offer is made.
Except in CAN hurt to ask…as she has learned to her detriment. I’m sorry she learned “it can’t hurt to ask” but in job negotiations in hurts ALL THE TIME. People ask for too much money and you think “their expectations are out of whack” - they ask for vacation and you think “I can’t afford to have someone in this role who will be gone four weeks a year.” They ask about work from home and you wonder about their commitment. They ask for a late start date to finish up a project at their previous job and you think “I kind of needed you yesterday - and if I hire you, will you make a clean break or are you going to be one of those people who tries to help your former employer.”
AND it hurts for men and women. In my experience, men often over reach and torpedo themselves - I’ve had many resumes I’ve written no on over the years from people who over reach. Its a risk - sometimes there is a reward. Men are better risk takers. If you take the risk, and get what you want, there is a reward. However, being a risk, you can end up worse off.
Let’s turn this thread into something constructive. Hiring-type people: where’s the line between a reasonable request over and above the salary offered and “yeah, buddy, and here’s your company spaceship key”?
Those are all issues before you get the job offer. Once they’ve offered you the job, the “consequences” should be no more than “we cannot accommodate these terms – you’ll have to make your decision based on what we’ve already offered.” I am more and more convinced that the withdrawal of the offer was based on sexism.
Yeah, I don’t read the email as being demanding or entitled at all. To me, it seems to be more in the “can’t hurt to ask” spirit. That said–as evidenced by the responses in this thread–it can easily be misconstrued as a “list of demands,” and I’m assuming that’s partly from the line “Granting some of the following provisions would make my decision easier” which I could see being read in a much more aggressive tone than I assume was intended. However, she does end on “I know that some of these might be easier to grant than others. Let me know what you think,” which to me sounds reasonable, that she hardly expects all her points to be granted, and more in the “can’t hurt to ask” spirit.
Going public with it, though, is a really dumb move.
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.
I’m not sure I can read sexism into it. I mean, I see where you’re coming from, but I can see the same response to a male candidate, if the administrator or whoever was handling the hiring was of the “graduates these days are spoiled and entitled” mentality, like some of the posters in this thread.
Wow. I laughed out loud reading her wish list. She couldn’t start for another year and when she’s finally available she’ll want to take time off to have kids and contemplate her naval on a pre-tenure sabbatical. Oh, and when she actually shows up she doesn’t want anything complicated for the first couple of years.
The response apparently wasn’t clear enough for her. They should have ended the response with: “best of luck paying off your student loans.”
Oh, I didn’t realize this (perhaps it’s linked to earlier in this thread), but here’s W’s follow-up of her email. It seems pretty reasonable to me, and exactly what I read and felt she was going for in that email.
I think the whole controversy here is exactly because withdrawing the offer instead of simply saying “no” is what seems extraordinary. It doesn’t seem to be standard procedure at all.