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I worked for the same company for 15 years and was laid off after a corporate merger. After 15 years of service I had 5 weeks vacation and sick time was unlimited. I had a little bit of flexibility with my schedule. I usually worked 7-4 or 7:30 - 4:30 even though office hours were technically 8-5.
So now I am job hunting. I was just offered a new job but the pay is $20K less than what I was making, and PTO is 2 days for the rest of 2017 and then 10 days of vacation and 1 personal day until I reach 5 years of service UGH! I've worked my whole adult life and I feel like no one cares about years of experience.
I know that if you are still employed while job hunting you are in a position to negotiate more PTO or a higher salary. But I'm worried that since I was laid off they would laugh in my face if I ask for another week of vacation or higher salary. If I tell them I had worked for a long time and earned 5 weeks vacation in my previous job would that be considered valid? My gut feeling is that in todays job market employees who were laid off are viewed differently. Like........ sorry you got laid off so now you have to start over like you are an entry level employee and take whatever we offer.
20k less is a huge difference; were you overpaid in your last job? You need to know what market pay is for your position/field in your metro. Do you have the finances to withstand a job search continuing on if you don't take the offer? I've seen people go and negotiate (or try) and get their offer withdrawn so you'll need to be careful in what you do.
In most large companies - PTO/vacation are not negotiable since they are usually set by years of service with the company.
Pay is another matter- did you check glassdoor for the company and job you are looking at? The site tends to be fairly accurate; if you see a huge scale that typically means the highest portion is someone with a lot of experience with the company/role. Basically if the company you've applied at has a set budget for the job- they will likely not budge much on it; unless you give them good reasons why you are worth more (to them); they don't care what you were making at your last job.
You won't have any leverage, but you still need to try. Your best bet is to say you got another offer for the same or slightly higher. You can't go too high though because if they say they won't match it then they will wonder why you took their lower offer.
You can always negotiate-- the stakes are just higher for you if you don't have another job to fall back on (and they know it- unless they have the impression you are weighing this against another job offer). You could try talking about what you got in your last job (i.e., 5 wk vacation), but that's not really relevant to what they're willing and/or able to give you unless they want you that badly. If they do, they might compromise. If you're one of many qualified candidates, they might walk and take the person who will accept the job as is. You got to better benefits and pay after being in your other job for a long time. You haven't worked your way up to the pay and benefits in the new job, sounds like.
So negotiate if you want, but be prepared to either accept or walk away and try to find something different if negotiations don't go your way. I would say to weigh factors into your decision like how many other candidates are likely, what market pay/PTO is for the job description, and whether you have money sitting to live on lest you need to go on the job search again.
20k less is a huge difference; were you overpaid in your last job? You need to know what market pay is for your position/field in your metro. Do you have the finances to withstand a job search continuing on if you don't take the offer? I've seen people go and negotiate (or try) and get their offer withdrawn so you'll need to be careful in what you do.
In most large companies - PTO/vacation are not negotiable since they are usually set by years of service with the company.
Pay is another matter- did you check glassdoor for the company and job you are looking at? The site tends to be fairly accurate; if you see a huge scale that typically means the highest portion is someone with a lot of experience with the company/role. Basically if the company you've applied at has a set budget for the job- they will likely not budge much on it; unless you give them good reasons why you are worth more (to them); they don't care what you were making at your last job.
I wasn't overpaid, but I had worked at the company for a long time and had gotten raises and promotions. The job was pretty specific to that company so I'm willing to take a pay cut for a new job.
Sadly, my main goal is health insurance through an employer. My husband is self employed and I have a seasonal home based business that brings in a good income. I guess I'm like a lot of people these days and I don't have all my eggs in one basket. The killer is health insurance for self employed people has become way too expensive with gigantic deductibles.
I'm pretty sure that the hiring manager thought I was simply going to accept the offer. He told me to think it over and I could simply email an "acceptance" on Monday.
So I thought about the job offer over the weekend. Part of my issue was that since I would be starting the job at age 53, I could potentially work there until I was 65 and still only earn a measly 3 weeks vacation after the 5th year. The more I though about it, that really rubbed me the wrong way. I have years of work experience, have worked my whole adult life and my last job ended due to layoff. And now I have to start over like I'm 25 years old. These vacation accumulation polices were created many years ago when most people stayed at the same job for 30 years.
Anyway, we spoke on Monday and I expressed my concerns. They advised that vacation time was corporate policy and was not negotiable. But they could work with me if I needed unpaid time off.
So I told them that it simply wasn't a good fit for me at this point in time and thanked them for taking the time to interview me.
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