Negotiating an offer: An unreasonable number of reasonable requests

You interviewed for a new job and everything went well. Now you are onto the phase of deciding whether to accept the offer or not. As part of your due diligence you’ve made a list of your top priorities but something still doesn’t make sense. You’re enthusiastic but you pause to consider your options. How do you compare those options? What requests can you ask for that might make things work?

Reasonable Requests

A CTO friend of mine shared an important concept when negotiating: make an unreasonable number of reasonable requests. Which is to say when you make fair and sensible requests, people are more likely to accept them. Making lots of reasonable requests are often better than trying to make a few big ones.

If we apply this negotiating concept to your job offer, we need to know what requests you can make.

Requests

Here is an incomplete list of requests I’ve come across, in no particular order:

1. Base Salary → The most common request. Many states in the US require publishing ranges for base salaries. This makes it easier to understand how much room you have to negotiate.
2. Bonus
   1. Regular Bonus → Based on metrics of your choosing or the company’s choosing. Or both metrics. Sometimes you add a guaranteed amount, or negotiate a percentage of all the above.
   2. Sign on → A one-time cash offer upon signing the job offer. This is especially useful for competitive individuals with multiple job offers.
   3. Clawback → If you do get a bonus, ask under what conditions it might have to be returned.
   4. Workspace setup bonus → Often used when a company doesn't have a defined budget. You need a new monitor, desk, or chair for working from home.
   5. Date of Payment
3. Start Date
4. Paid Time Off
   1. Vacation
   2. Sick
   3. Parental Leave
   4. Bereavement
5. Severance → Negotiate how many weeks of severance you get in advance.
6. Training or Professional Development Budget
   1. A set amount per year
   2. Access to a specific course or curriculum, or learning management system like Pluralsight or Ministry of Testing Pro.
   3. Support in taking a degree or certificate related to your field
   4. Conference ticket, travel reimbursement and/or allowing you to use company time to do these things.
7. Speaking Engagements → Make it part of your job that you are positioned externally and covered to speak at public events. This raises your status and the company’s status.
8. Work from Home
   1. Days, where from or how often → E.g. Once per week, every day, permanently, or perhaps only on Fridays.
   2. Working hours → Regular and extended working hours. Hours of overlap with others. Timezones you can work from. Asynchronous vs Synchronous work.
   3. Expense budget → Phone bills, internet bills, etc.
   4. Workspace setup budget → Desk, Chair, Monitor, accessories, etc.
9. Relocation → The financial and non-financial support the company is going to give you.
10. Equity → This only pertains to companies that offer equity as compensation
    1. What percentage of the company is your offer for? The biggest question. Some will know, some won’t. You can negotiate overall shares but it’s hard if you don’t know percentage.
    2. Ask for 2 different offers → one with high salary and low equity and one with low salary and high equity.
    3. Non-dilution protection → If you are an early employee or executive you can often ask for this.
    4. Future Allocation → Negotiate early for future allocation allotments at given time periods or performance levels.
    5. Vesting Period → Trying to get a faster vesting schedule is hard but sometimes doable.
    6. Change of control clause → If the company changes hands you vest immediately.

(Last updated 9/25/2023)

Important Note: This list is to help expand your view of what things you can negotiate. It's not a recommendation to negotiate on everything.

The number of requests

Make an unreasonable number of reasonable requests.

What’s an unreasonable number? There's no hard and fast rule. It's based on your circumstances. Part of your ability to negotiate is the rapport you have with the hiring manager and/or recruiter. If there's mutual interest but a few aspects of the offer don't work, it's very reasonable for them to work to change them.

On the other hand if you are in high demand or have a lot of leverage, you can make a larger number of reasonable requests. I hired for 5 software testing positions during 2020-2022 and I think the average offer had 2 reasonable requests. These were easy requests to respond to and never jeopardized offers.

Negotiation is nuanced

Negotiation is a big, nuanced and challenging topic. It's also a skill many of us could improve upon. When it comes to negotiating a job offer there are a lot of factors to consider, including:

• What leverage you have
• Experience level of the manager or recruiting helping you
• Your comfort level (how comfortable you are with the risk)
• How invested each side is in getting a deal done

When you do get into the offer phase, make a list of your top priorities and understand what you need to make things work. When it doesn't work for you, use the list above to understand what you would like to change.