On 11/28/2011 11:39 AM, Eric Olsen wrote:
> My advice for any who have a job, in negotiating a new job, is to play
> your current employee against your potential new employee. This may not
> work for everyone, for example if you can't risk staying at your current
> place of employment, but I didn't do this and regret it now. I was
> offered slightly more than what I'm getting, not enough to make the
> change. What I should have done, but didn't, is bring the offer to my
> current employer. Often, your employer will match the offer at least.
> You can then bring that info to your potential new employer and see if
> they can raise it. If not, at the least you got a raise at your current job!

I would recommend *not* doing this.  Sure, you got a raise at your
current job, but now your current employer knows that you're not happy
there and are looking elsewhere.  They'll be making sure they have a
replacement for you as soon as possible, and at some point, most likely
when you *don't have another offer to fall back on, you'll find that
your services are no longer required.

I think you should be more up front with your prospective new employer.
Say to them "well, that's a decent offer, and I really want to work
there, but it's not quite good enough to get me to move/relocate/switch
insurance/change commute/whatever... can you make it better?  I'd really
like to see $x."  (Make sure $x is really enough for you.)  They may
come back with $x, or a planned bonus at the end of a year's employment
to get you to $x, or increase the equity (stock option) portion of the
offer, or something else if they really want you.  Or, they may come
back and say "no, that's really the best we can do" and then you at
least have all your cards on the table.

    -jan-
--
Jan L. Peterson
http://www.peterson-tech.com/~jlp/
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