my job offer was rescinded after I tried to negotiate

[ResidentialBusiness]

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I’ve been applying to new jobs for about six months and finally got an offer for a job that I was genuinely excited about; it’s for a position that would be a step up in both title and responsibility, would let me work on interesting projects, and even would let me use a skill I went to school for but haven’t really been able to use professionally up until now.

When they sent me the formal job offer, the salary was a bit more than I’m making now, but I’ve always heard that it’s smart to try to negotiate for more money because this is the easiest time to get it (versus after you’re already working someplace and trying to negotiate for a raise). I successfully negotiated slight salary bumps when accepting my last two positions, and I’ve seen other people do it as well, so it didn’t occur to me that this would be seen as anything other than normal and expected.

So I asked if they had room to go up (I asked for about $8,000 more, figuring that they might offer me about half that, which I would have been happy with). There’s a pretty wide range for what jobs like this pay and my request wasn’t outside of what I’ve seen other jobs like this advertised for. I also didn’t say that I wouldn’t accept if they didn’t agree and I don’t think I was pushy about it. What I wrote in response to their emai was: “I’m very excited about the position and wonder if you would you consider increasing the salary to $X.”

I would have accepted the job even if their answer was no, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if they would go up.

The next day they responded back to me and said they couldn’t match what I was requesting and so they were pulling the offer. I immediately replied and said that I would accept the job at the original salary they offered, but the HR person replied that they were going to offer the position to another candidate instead.

I’m devastated by this. I wanted the job badly, and I would have taken it at the original number they named if they had simply told me that was as high as they could go. I don’t understand what I did wrong.

You can read my answer to this letter at New York Magazine today. Head over there to read it.

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