Sometime in late 2023, a recruiter told me something I’ve repeated probably 47 times since: “We make the offer we think you’ll accept. We almost never make the offer we’d be willing to make.” She wasn’t being cynical. She was describing how comp decisions actually get made: hiring managers sandbag their asks to hold budget in reserve, and initial offers get approved at conservative numbers because that’s what the system optimizes for. The room to move is usually there. Most candidates don’t ask.
The window right after the offer arrives
The few days between when you receive an offer and when you respond are the highest-use moment of the entire hiring process. Before that point you have no offer. After you accept, the use is gone. That window is when negotiation actually happens.
Don’t respond to an offer on the same day it arrives. Even if you want the job badly. Even if the number is already good. Request time: “This looks exciting, I’d love a couple days to review the full package before responding.” That’s a normal, professional request. Nobody has rescinded an offer for asking for 48 hours.
In those 48 hours, look up market data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook gives median salary ranges by occupation category. Levels.fyi covers verified tech compensation at named companies. Cross-reference both with LinkedIn Salary and you’ll have a defensible range.
What most people get wrong about framing
The framing of a counter-offer matters almost as much as the number. There’s a version of this conversation that feels adversarial and a version that doesn’t, and the difference is mostly word choice.
“I was hoping for more” is weak. It doesn’t give the recruiter anything to take back to the hiring manager.
“Based on my research and what I’m seeing for comparable roles, I was expecting a base closer to $X. Is there flexibility there?” is better. It’s specific. It frames the request as data-based rather than desire-based. It asks a question rather than making a demand.
The specificity of the number matters too. Asking for $163,000 reads more like you’ve done real research than asking for $160,000. Odd numbers signal precision. Round numbers signal guess.
Everything is negotiable, not just base salary
This is, I think, the thing most people figure out too late. By the time you’re on offer number three or four, you’ve usually learned that sign-on bonuses exist and can be substantial, that equity grant sizes flex, that start dates can move, that remote work arrangements are often negotiable even when not advertised, and that professional development budgets are frequently available if you ask. None of these show up in the initial offer unless you bring them up.
At some companies, base salary is genuinely locked to a band and cannot move. At those companies, you can often move equity, sign-on, or the annual bonus target percentage. It’s worth asking specifically: “If base salary is fixed to the band, is there flexibility on the sign-on or equity grant?” That question does not threaten the offer. It opens a conversation that’s completely normal in a hiring context.
Competing offers change the math
If you have a competing offer, use it. Not as a threat, but as honest context. “I have another offer at $Y and I’m trying to make the right decision. If you could get to $X, this would be an easy call for me.” That framing works because it’s true (assuming it is, don’t fabricate this), because it gives the recruiter a concrete target, and because it makes the counter feel collaborative rather than confrontational.
The LinkedIn Economic Graph research has consistently shown that job switchers receive meaningfully higher salary increases than internal promotions, often 10-20% higher over equivalent time periods. The use you have at the point of a new offer is materially higher than at annual review time. Use it.
After they say yes (or no)
If they come up, great. Get the revised offer in writing before you do anything else. Verbal commitments in hiring processes have a way of getting “misremembered” once a new offer letter is being generated.
If they say no and can’t move anywhere, you’ve lost nothing by asking. The offer is still the offer. Some people find this hard to believe until they’ve done it a few times and watched the process play out without consequence. The fear that negotiating will cost you the job is mostly unfounded and is, in my experience, more common in people early in their careers than in people who have been through the process a dozen times.
Worth saying clearly: I don’t have data on whether this fear is correlated with gender or background. I suspect it is, based on what I’ve read, but I can’t point to a rigorous study in this specific context.
One last thing
The negotiation conversation itself is a skill. You can research the numbers and still fumble the delivery, either by over-explaining, by softening the counter into meaninglessness, or by immediately offering to “meet in the middle” before the recruiter has even responded to your first ask. Practicing the conversation out loud, including using Craqly or any other interview prep tool to run through a mock negotiation, makes the real thing feel less like a confrontation and more like a normal professional discussion. Which is what it is.
The worst realistic outcome is they say no. Companies don’t rescind offers for polite, grounded counter-offers. The person who asks will sometimes get a no. The person who doesn’t ask will always get the first number.