What to do when a salary negotiation doesn’t work out.

Here’s the reality, sometimes you negotiate and the company can’t meet your terms.

That’s ok. That’s information for you. You can still determine if you want to proceed.

But do not that take that personally. There’s many reasons a company can’t raise the offer.

1. They might not have the budget.
2. They use salary levels as a formula.
3. While they want to hire you, something could have happened where they aren’t 200% on you. That could be a slightly off interview or a test you did that wasn’t 100. They want you but aren’t sure of your future growth.
4. They don’t want to pay more.

All of these reasons are valid. A hire is a transactional purchase. People have freedom to decide if they want to purchase or not.

Here’s what a good company will do this in case:

Hi we’re sorry we are not able to to increase the offer. We still want you to join, will you accept?

Here’s what a horrible, no good company will do:

Sorry we are not interested in hiring you.

If a company rescinds an offer because you negotiated, you have dodged a BULLET!

An ethical company will not rescind an offer because you negotiated. You don’t want to work at any company that does this. Guaranteed they will treat you badly later.

It sucks that it happened but not all offers are good offers. It’s in your best interest to name and shame these companies. And run away from a company that rescinds offers because you negotiated.