Using a new job offer to negotiate with current employer

Factual Questions
41

The only thing I’d add to the excellent advice already provided is to make sure you have a reaction planned for whatever response management might give.

By that, I mean that, in my experience in the corporate world, a request such as yours is rarely answered by senior management with a straight “yes” or “no”. I don’t know what size company you work for, and obviously mileage may vary even among corporate giants, but my employer’s management training program warns strongly against making ill-considered promises under pressure. As a result, phrases such as “that may be a possibility” and “there are some good opportunities coming up in the future” are often bandied about in response to raise requests, especially when the request is delivered as an ultimatum.

As such, it would serve you to be prepared to interpret some Managese. An informal poll of five managers with whom I work reveals, for example, that the phrase “that may be a possibility” can mean (paraphrased):

  • No, but I can’t tell you that right now
  • Yes, but I’m not allowed to promise it
  • Probably yes, but I have to see if there’s money for it
  • I need some time to think about it
  • Yes, but not the amount you asked for

…depending on who’s doing the talking. Yes, it’s weaselly – I personally hate it and refuse to do it; I have no problem saying any of the above to an employee directly – but it’s something you should be prepared to deal with.

If you walk in tomorrow and ask for the raise, and your boss starts in with doubletalk about future opportunities or some similar nonanswer…will you stay or will you go?

42

Hey, this situation just happened to me.

Once I had the offer in writing (they gave me a verbal offer at first, and then FedEx’d the written offer once I said I would consider it), I went to my boss, who I get along well with, and said basically: “I love working here, and although you’ve given me aggressive pay raises in the past, my salary is just not up to market value. I have an offer for $X at another company doing similar work as here. Because I like this company, I want to give you an opportunity to respond.”

The written offer gave me seven days to respond. I talked with that company’s HR contact, and they were happy to extend it another week. In general, everything is negotiable. If something’s important, ask them. After all, they want you or they wouldn’t have made the offer.

Because of ongoing projects, of which I’m an essential component, I wouldn’t have started at the new company for at least six weeks. But the new company already knew that because I’d told them while interviewing. Showing a reasonable amount of loyalty to your current company reflects well on you. Never burn bridges, from either side–be friendly, polite, and up-front to all parties in the negotiation.

As others have said, avoid bidding wars. Each side gets one offer; that’s it. Any more can build resentment.

At least in my industry (aerospace/defense) moving between companies is basically the only way to get large pay increases. It’s standard procedure for anyone of value to send feelers out to contacts from time to time. And the way people skip around, it’s very easy to know people in all the major companies and half the minors.

43

I’ve had enough cases where something happened so that I couldn’t make an offer to someone I would have loved to make an offer to to not consider this weaselly. First and even second level managers have no controls over hiring freezes and other disasters. If you promise, you may be setting someone up for a big problem.

When I was at Bell Labs, I was a campus recruiter, and one time of the four groups who wanted to interview someone, three dropped out a day before he came. That’s the kind of thing that can happen. I quit doing recruiting because I didn’t want it to happen again to me.

In my experience, if someone says there is a possibility, they’re interested. But it can’t translate into a certainty until, as everyone has said, it is in writing. And I think Intel backed out of even that once.

44

Sure, most people find it really hard to get off their butt and look for a job. They spend months going back and forth trying to convince themselves to look or to stay – at least that has been my observations. It is like watching someone tip over a fridge. Seems like a “heartbreaking process” to me. Welcome to Crazytown; the vistor center is located on Nutty Avenue.

45

Used to be a manager for a government contractor, lots of hire and fire decisions.

A lot of it depends on what business you are in. In contracting, the standard was get what you could when you came in, because decent raises would be few and far between. Moving between companies was almost the only way to get back to market value after a while.

So I had this situation presented to me several times. If the person was decent, and what they were asking for wasn’t outrageous, and especially if they had new responsibilities, we virtually always made an offer. It is a real pain to hire, and worth a lot not to do it and take a chance on someone new.

I’ve known managers to make counter offers just out of a sort of possessiveness or else to screw the new company, where they didn’t like someone. These things happen.

Once in a while, if we couldn’t for financial reasons, we’d promise to remember them at regular raise time, and then made sure we did so.

Once in a while, we’d tell the person the company that made them the offer was probably out of line, and unlikely to be there a year from now. When we said this, we believed it to be true, and either it was, or the new company took the extra pay out of the employee’s hide by hideous overtime requirements that they needed because they overpaid everyone and needed to make a profit.

I never held it against anyone for trying–this is business, and employees are in business just like the company is. Those that were clearly faking it, well, we usually didn’t counter, and it just added to my knowledge of them. If they still worked, that’s all I really cared about.

If you have a good relationship with your two immediate superiors, and you say you do, I would go say that you may be getting such an offer and see what they say. You don’t owe them more information, such as if you’ve been looking, and there is nothing wrong about making it sound as if it came from the blue – that does happen. Just say you’ve been contacted, and the money’s tempting, but there are other pluses and minues, and you are weighing the options.

Again depending on the type of company you are at, this may be a one-time thing for you, but your superiors may encounter this all the time. They are not usually in the position of giving people more than they can get away with–as little as possible means more profit. But that is different from saying they can’t give any more if asked by a decent employee who deserves it.