How to Negotiate a 'Best and Final’ Job Offer
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Here's your money briefing for Tuesday, May 27th. I'm Arianna Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal. After what seems like endless applications, rounds of interviews, and reference checks, you might be tempted to just take that so-called best and final job offer.

But don't be fooled. That doesn't mean that nothing is negotiable. The salary may be set in stone, but job seekers should know there may be some other things where you find a little wiggle room. We'll talk with Wall Street Journal on-the-clock columnist Callum Borshers about what you can ask for when what's spelled out in your offer letter isn't enough. Stay with us after the break.

Isn't home where we all want to be? Reba here for realtor.com, the pros number one most trusted app. Finding a home is like dating. You're searching for the one. With over 500,000 new listings every month, you can find the one today.

Download the Realtor.com app because you're nearly home. Make it real with Realtor.com. Pro's number one most trusted app based on August 2024 proprietary survey. Over 500,000 new listings every month based on average new for sale and rental listings. February 2024 through January 2025. Despite a tough job market, you might still be able to negotiate your way into a better offer. Wall Street Journal columnist Callum Borshers recently wrote about how to do it, and he joins me.

Callum, when a company tells you that this is their best and final offer, do they really mean it? Well, they might really mean it when it comes to your base salary. But as I discovered, there are sometimes other things that you can negotiate, but you might not even think to ask. And so that was part of what was interesting talking to job seekers or coaches or recruiters about saying like, yes, there are things on the margins and we can talk about what some of those things are.

Yeah, I feel like when I first started working, my understanding was that I have to negotiate, like you have to just put yourself out there and, you know, try to get the best that you can. But that seems from your story, like it's really not the case anymore. What's changed in the past few years? Well, the job market is not what it was a few years ago. I mean, look, the unemployment rate is still very low. Like by historical standards, this is still a pretty good market for workers.

It's just that a few years ago, people were able to snap their fingers and get multiple offers. Sometimes companies sort of overpaid. And I think that's part of what's happening now is that businesses sort of relish their ability to say, hey, take it or leave it. It can be useful, too, to just kind of like know what the numbers actually are, as you say. So if you're thinking, oh, everybody negotiates or I have to negotiate, that's not really the case. At the end of last year, when ZipRecruiter did its quarterly survey of new hires, they found that roughly half,

of people had been able to negotiate their job offers at that time. Now at the beginning of this year, we see a pretty steep drop though, down to 31% of new hires saying they can negotiate their job offer. So from about half to less than a third. And some of that is because they just feel like they don't have as much leverage as they did a few months ago. So those job seekers that are still pushing that, I'm going to put air quotes on it, so-called final offer,

Is it a gamble to try negotiating now? Only if you're kind of rude or a jerk about it. You know, it's funny talking to these career coaches as I worked on the story who said that's the number one thing that prevents people from actually opening a negotiation is they think, oh, I'm going to sour the relationship. They're just going to yank the offer.

One job coach who's been at this for like a decade said, I've seen that happen maybe twice in my career. And that was because somebody was just really prickly about it. So the idea is if you can convey, hey, I'm really excited about this opportunity. I've already started thinking about how I can join the team and make a difference. Are there things besides base salary that perhaps we can negotiate to help bridge the divide between the two of us?

Yeah. Your brain always goes to like the worst case scenario that you're like, I'm going to come off greedy. And especially in a job market like this, there's also the sentiment that you should be lucky to have an offer and just have anything. Absolutely. The tone really matters a lot in these conversations. What you're trying to convey too, though, is that you're a savvy business operator. And especially depending on the role that you're in, it's worth thinking about a couple of things. One is that the employer might actually see that as a positive.

That could be a useful business skill. So they might actually view you as an asset. And the other thing to remember is that the talent manager or the recruiter on the other side of the table is under some pressure, too. Their job is to bring the company's first choice candidate in the door. So they may also be sweating a little bit to close the deal. And this negotiation, like we've been talking about, is a delicate balancing act. Let's say someone's already decided, like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to go ahead and ask for something.

You spoke to people who pulled it off. I want to spill some of those negotiating secrets. How did they do it? They did it by thinking about what was really important to them and what was realistic. What could a company potentially offer, even if they said we can't really do better on salary? So, for example, Cynthia Thorpe, she told me she recently started a job as an HR executive. The base salary was really not going to move.

But she said the title was important to me. They were advertising for a director of human resources. And she said, I really want to signal to everyone at the company that I'm here to shape workplace norms. So how about we call me the director of people and culture?

And the company said, sure, we like that. She also said, this is a company that works in office. I'm fine with that. But I also want some flexibility. If I travel out of state to visit my grandkids, I want to be able to remote work on those days. Okay, fine. So maybe negotiating a work from home day or some occasional flexibility is another point that you can potentially negotiate.

And then there's the base salary, but then there may also be incentive plans or bonuses, either a signing bonus or a performance bonus down the line. Other examples include maybe a more favorable start date. So perhaps you're relocating and you say, I need a little bit more time to really get all my things together. I know you were hoping I could start on the first of the month. How about the second week? Could be something like that. It could be more vacation time. And I think that the other thing to think about, too, this came up in a few conversations, is not just what is my title role pay going to be today, but can I

to negotiate some kind of performance plan that is going to set me on a path to a promotion. So maybe it's continuing education. Perhaps it is something like student loan help. A big source of anxiety when negotiating a job offer is the actual conversation, the actual face-to-face or phone call. Let's say I'm the employer. I'm offering you this great job. You know, it's something you've been looking for, but the salary is a little bit under what you expected for this kind of role. Right.

How can you open up that dialogue? Like, what should someone say? The first conversation actually happens in your own head. So like, how far under expectations are we talking here? Some of the job seekers I spoke with said, you should know going in, what is your walking away number? If it's below that number, well, then the conversation is easier. You can say something like,

That's really less than I am able to accept for my own stage of career and my personal and professional obligations. If there's no more room for us to negotiate on this front, then, you know, I suppose we'll both have to move ahead.

If it's simply a little less than you were hoping for, but within the range of what you actually thought was reasonable, that's when maybe it's the time to open the conversation and say, are there other things besides base compensation where we might be able to bridge a gap here? Is it possible to add a signing bonus or is it possible to add some relocation assistance? What?

You're trying to do, as has been reiterated to me over and over by these career coaches, is you're trying to strike a tone that shows I'm looking to solve a problem here together. Let's do this together and see if we can bridge a divide.

Well, I feel like we've prepared whoever's listening for their next conversation about this. That's the idea, you know, and there are things that you can negotiate even when the offer is presented as non-negotiable, which more businesses are doing, by the way. They're saying right out of the gate, hey, this is really a firm offer. There are companies like Coinbase where this is sort of a widespread practice. They just say we don't negotiate job offers. But don't be fooled. That doesn't mean that nothing is negotiable. The salary may be set in stone, but job seekers should know there may be some other things where you find a little wiggle room.

That's Wall Street Journal on-the-clock columnist Callum Borschers. And that's it for your money briefing. I'm Mariana Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal. This episode was produced by me with supervising producer Melanie Roy. Thanks for listening. Isn't home where we all want to be? Reba here for Realtor.com, the pro's number one most trusted app. Finding a home is like dating. You're searching for the one. With over 500,000 new listings every month, you can find the one today.

Download the Realtor.com app because you're nearly home. Make it real with Realtor.com.