Getting Them to Increase the Offer: Use the Competing Job Offer Tactic
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
The last-minute ‘I have another offer’ is a tactic that works very well, particularly with contingency recruiting firms to get an employer to up the money.
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If you’ve got an offer. It’s a little lower than you’d like. What can you do? I’m a believer, because I was on the receiving end of this as a recruiter, of what I’ll call the mythical competing offer tactic. You don’t have another offer, but they don’t know that. You say to them, ‘I’ve got another offer from another firm and it’s good. It’s about 10,000 more than yours. And, you know, I like your job better. But truthfully, money’s important these days. And I’m tempted to take theirs because financially, I can’t afford to say no to money these days. You know, it’s tough times. Inflation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’d rather join your firm, but
I’m also not an idiot. So I’d appreciate it if you increase the offer by 10,000.’
Now, they can respond in a couple of different ways. ‘What! Why don’t you tell us about this offer?’ ‘Well, I just received the offer.’ ‘You should have told us about this.’ ‘I just received the offer.’ ‘Show us the offer letter?’ ‘No, I’m not going to do that any more than you would show me a resume of a competing candidate that I had during the process. I have another offer. It’s 10,000 more.’
Now you have to be prepared to walk away from this job if that were the case. And if we’re in recessionary times, where companies are not hiring, this is not an ideal approach. You’re better off with the begging approach. ‘Please give me more. I need more money,’ than the competing offer tactic because you really want the job and you don’t have the ability to say no. But where you do have the ability to say no, where there is going to be another firm that’s going to take you on board and this money just isn’t quite enough, sometimes using the mythical competing offer tactic allows you to give them a reason to push it up.
And sometimes they’ll say, ‘could you meet us halfway?’ ‘How about 90% of the way, instead of halfway?’ See, they’re still negotiating and conceding too early. It can become expensive because remember, your next raise is predicated upon your current salary. So it all ties together.
And this also works very well if you’ve got a recruiter that you’re working with, because they’re afraid of losing the deal. And you can push them, and sometimes they’ll give up part of their fee in order to give you the money that will cause you to say yes. Don’t push them for that. Push them to get their client to increase the money for the reason I mentioned before– that is your raise is going to be predicated upon your salary. So this is a one-time spot payment from them. And you really want to have this baked into salary.
So step one, if you’re working with a recruiter is to send them back to their client to get more money. Step two, is to tell them I’m prepared to walk away and see if they’ll offer up some cash for you to take the offer.
Hope you found this helpful. I’m Jeff Altman. Visit my website, TheBigGameHunter.us There’s a ton on the blog that will help you plus you can schedule time for a free discovery call, schedule time for a coaching session, find out about my courses, that you could rent or buy, my books and guides. Like I said, there’s a lot to help you. Also connect with me on Linkedin at linkedin.com/in/TheBigGameHunter. Have a terrific day and be great!
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2400 episodes.
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