No one starts to look for a new job simply because there’s a full moon or Netflix removed your favorite show.
There’s generally a stronger reason, like you can’t stand your boss, there are no promotional opportunities at your new job, or you really, really, really deserve a raise.
All these things can mean that you are anxious to find something new, which can cloud your judgment.
Of course, if you’re unemployed that’s another story, and I’ll deal with that below.
When you’re anxious, you sometimes make bad choices and accept a low-ball salary offer. Here’s why this is problematic.
To keep reading, click here: Why You Should Never Accept a Low-Ball Salary Offer
Thank you! This is so accurate – and hard to do sometimes. I wish more HR people had your perspective on this.
I’m a textbook case for why you should never accept a low-ball salary: because it permanently locks you into a lower pay range. I was working part-time — 30-36 hours per week — in a job that was about to be abolished, when I got an opportunity to be hired into a full-time position with the same agency, that represented an 11-step promotion, from non-exempt to exempt. The salary I was offered seemed unusually low, which I told the interviewer. She said that it was set at HQ, using some kind of formula that she didn’t understand, but, that if I wasn’t willing to accept the salary, she would understand that I was rejecting the offer and would offer the job to the next-best applicant. Since I was about to lose my job anyway, I accepted. Big mistake! I wish I had called her bluff and asked to speak to someone who understood the formula. What was supposed to be a big promotion and raise turned out to be a $5K/year pay cut! It took me years — at the most generous raises they could offer, plus a lot of performance awards — to get back up to what I was making working part-time. After 12 years of being told I was the best employee they had — but being paid less than everybody — I got another big promotion, to another office in the same agency, this time with a 15% pay raise. Even so, I’m still making substantially-less than new-hires in my old position in my old office. My retirement will be based on a percentage of the average of my 3 highest years of compensation, and will be permanently depressed.
That is really awful. I’m sorry!
Well Suzanne, I have been reading your blog for many years now, at least since before you moved to Switzerland. I wish you’d written this article earlier, and that I had taken your advice.
Having been in HR many years, I took a job in a new field at a lower salary, being told I’d be considered for a large promotion in a year. I figured it’d be ridiculous to stay in my HR position, when I could move to a new field, have some short-term pain, and rocket to the top! Oh naive me…
I took the new job, and was considered for that new promotion alright, but it took two years rather than one. Considered, and rejected for a reason that I felt and feel to be BS. Instead my trainee got the promotion instead, and is now my superior. Although there are many vacancies at the level I was hoping for, my office has decided to leave them unfilled for the foreseeable future, and told me that the one promotion I missed was my one and only chance. There will be no more chances for a promotion, and no merit increases where I am either.
Now I’ve been there two years, at a much lower salary, and I’m so bitter about my office I’m unable to do my job anymore. I wake up thinking about it, and go to sleep hating it. I’m desperate to find a new position doing anything, but for a variety of reasons, it seems like I’ll be stuck there a long time.
So to conclude… this is good advice.
I am currently in this quandary. I am unemployed but doing consulting while looking for a full-time position. I was recently made an offer which is really low ($30K below my ask and market rate based on my experience and education). In addition, the title is below my past roles as is the reporting structure (reporting to a Director rather than C-suite as has been my past experience.) I could do this job easily and would add a lot of value to this small nonprofit but wouldn’t gain much, if anything, but a paycheck. In the meantime, I am in the mix for other job opportunities which would be far better. One is at the reference checking stage although they have been very, very slow in their process. The other two I am just in the beginning stages for…but they are fast tracking and seem enthused about my background.
So I’m wrestling with just declining this offer outright or accepting it with the idea of continuing to interview and quitting (which could be only a few weeks after start date or longer). I think that shows a lack of integrity so I don’t like it but not sure what to do here.
By the way, the company that made the offer has refused to negotiate. There are other red flags too. The HR person wasn’t aware of the actual offer made as a C-suite exec called me personally to make the offer. They did not send any offer letter or info about benefits until I asked (still waiting for the offer letter). Clearly, this is not an ideal company on any level and would merely be a paycheck. However, my concern is I would hurt myself in the long run with future prospects.