New Job Offer
So... I have been offered a new job. It is always a trying situation for me to switch jobs. On one perspective, I truly enjoy the "stress reset" of a new job, as I tend to build up more stress over time at my jobs as I gain increasing responsibilities. From the other perspective, I am a creature of structure (within my mind, for the most part... you wouldn't probably tell by observation), and switching jobs has been gut wrenching for me in the past; however, when I do switch jobs, it is usually for an extremely clear benefit to me.
I had a call from a recruiter the middle of last week and scheduled a phone interview with his client on Friday. It went well enough and the client told me that I was a top candidate before we ended the call and to expect a face-to-face interview later this week. I called the recruiter back up to let him know how it went and left a message asking him to call me back, as I had a couple of questions for him. Now, I am trying to not come off as pompous, but I was concerned when I did not hear back from him that same day, let alone Monday... I usually get immediate calls back from recruiters because things tend to go well (I turned down four good jobs last year). I was talking with my wife about it this morning and then I got a text from the recruiter within two minutes that the client wanted to proceed immediately without a face-to-face interview. Score! So, I met with the recruiter today to go over some of the particulars and finally meet each other. He was very confident about the benefits that his company offers (they run a consulting company for which I would be an employee), but I felt rather reserved about it because I know good benefits already. So, we got to talking about dollars and I broke one of my own rules... let's just say that I didn't get my starting number out there. He wasn't shocked by the working number I put out there but he did say that he would have to renegotiate with the client for more money and it likely wouldn't be an issue. He said what is great about the company is all of the other incentives that they have... which are pretty good... they would add up to about $5k worth of salary for me. Then, he mentioned the bonus structure, which is done quarterly by extra billable hours. This about got me to accept right away. The other benefits are not as good as what I have, but they are pretty good. So, the number I threw out there... I think I am going to need more based on the bonus structure... effectively, to get the maximum bonus (which is the same nominal value for each employee and not a percentage of salary), I would need to work an extra 150 hours in a quarter... and the rate would come out to less than half of my salary converted to an hourly figure... so, that is NOT a good thing. I could work a few extra hours in the quarter and get a smaller bonus that would be equivalent to almost twice my hourly salary, though... so I would go that route.
How do you guys negotiate when you already have an "agreed" figure out there? Effectively, I need extra money to make up for the following benefits: retirement matching, PTO, fewer paid holidays, insurance premiums, and potentially issues related to life insurance (I am currently covered 1x my salary by my employer and have a supplemental 4x that I pay, plus AD&D that actually puts me at a total of 15x my salary... this is a big deal for as my dad died when I was a kid in an accident and I want my family covered if the same were to happen to me)... they only offer $25k flat per employee. Now, I have only seen a benefits summary... I haven't seen all of the supplement coverage broken down. I figure that the total loss to me in benefits may be between $15-20k.... which makes this a wash assuming I take my additional salary and pickup the lower benefits myself. I am certainly not willing to make this move for lateral pay... inflation is killing me lately.
The other big issue for me, as some of you may know, is that I finished my MS in December and my present employer covered a significant amount. Let's just say that the difference between me quitting, right now, and if my employer fired me would be about $30k. Now some of this is based on standard severance package (3 weeks), plus my current PTO balance, and then not having to pay back any of my tuition reimbursement. If I quit, I would walk away nearly clean as my PTO would nearly cover what I would owe.
After writing this out... it does make me feel like I shouldn't move... so maybe I answered my own question. Nevertheless, I have the opportunity to try an negotiate this out. I can ask for additional PTO easy enough (I negotiated 5 additional days with each of my previous two employers and negotiated 5 additional days on a couple of the jobs that I turned down). I could ask for 7% more to cover some of the loss of my retirement matching. The bonus pretty much means almost nothing to me as I could spend my extra time as I see fit or making more money on the side at a much higher rate.
How would you approach this. I have a feeling he is going to just tell me that he cannot move any more since he has already gone back to the client to ask for more money.
