lying when job negotiating

I'm a little confused here.

In the first post you talked about making up a counteroffer.

That implies that the first company made an offer in the first place but you just wanted a higher salary.

But it sounds like you haven't been offered anything in the first place.

So you want to tell them that you have an offer from somewhere else not a counteroffer, correct?

This is a bluffing game.

You have to be willing to walk away from that first company if you want to do that.

Maybe they will move faster and hire you.

But if they don't or can't, but decide to call you a month later and find you didn't take that other job or never had an offer, then you certainly won't be offered this job.

I currently work in HR and do a lot of staffing work, if someone tells me they have another offer, it only makes a difference if I am planning on making that person an offer and I am ready to commit at that time. If I am planning on making an offer, I will try and work in your time schedule to get you the offer before you have to make the decision, if I am not ready to make an offer at that time, it will not persuade me to do so. Do be prepared to provide the date for which other company needs your response. It sounds like the company has already gone through one round of hiring, meaning they already sent offers to their most desired candidates. If a portion of those decline, they will begin offering to their 2nd choices, you are most likely a 2nd choice (not a bad thing, just doesn't give you a lot of leverage)

If you are using another offer to negotiate pay, be prepared to provide the company with that offer. I will not enter into pay negotiations with anyone unless I have proof of the offer, and even then it depends. Companies calcualte pay based on a number of things, the job itself, location, skills the candidate is bringing to the job, some companies pay less but offer better benefits and flexibility. If the counter offer is not for a comparable job in the industry it probably won't get you much, and if you do not provide an offer at all, it won't be taken seriously.

Thanks! Really good to know that I'll be expected to provide proof if I want to negotiate my pay. Would they want a copy of the email from the other company? I would think that would be somewhat confidential information.

Again, I'm not in the negotiation stage, and the company I'm waiting to hear back from has already told me what the salary would be if I were hired.

It's almost never up to the HR department who gets hired, though. I run a sales organisation, and who gets hired, what they get paid, etc is up to me. HR facilitate, they do not decide. If a candidate tells me they have a better offer, I tell them to take it. I don't play these games and don't hire people who do.

with the greatest respect wrote:

If a candidate tells me they have a better offer, I tell them to take it. I don't play these games and don't hire people who do.

Yet you have risen to head of a "sales organisation," so playing games for one's own sake is your game. Come on now, you wouldn't want a guy who sold himself to you, your company, and your HR Dept, using a negotiating skill to his advantage, just like your salespeople do every day to earn more money for your company. Sounds like a good candidate.

murphy winsock wrote:

with the greatest respect wrote:

If a candidate tells me they have a better offer, I tell them to take it. I don't play these games and don't hire people who do.

Yet you have risen to head of a "sales organisation," so playing games for one's own sake is your game. Come on now, you wouldn't want a guy who sold himself to you, your company, and your HR Dept, using a negotiating skill to his advantage, just like your salespeople do every day to earn more money for your company. Sounds like a good candidate.

It's true, I want good candidates - but saying "I've got a better offer" does not make you a good negotiator - it's a tired old tactic that I see as a red flag - if I can see through the BS then potential customers could, too. When a candidate can convince me that they are worth more than the original offer based on real merit, then I'm all ears; but this one is no more original than "I left my homework on the bus".

I get the whole BS detecter thing.

But if you had a candidate that you liked, who showed that he had a valid offer that could lead him to take another job, would you consider upping your offer or expediating the process to get a quality employee?

Or do you let him walk and settle for the next best guy who takes what you offer him?

I have had multiple job offers at the same time before. The job I really wanted was slow to commit. I told them my status, and said I was making a decision by the end of the week. I get the sense that they really wanted to hire me, but they needed the go-ahead from a customer prior to extending an offer. Unfortunately, the timing was not right, and it did not work out. Lying to them would not have changed anything.

Don't lie. Just be upfront and say something like "When are you going to make a decision? I need to know where things stand so I can plan my job search accordingly." If they jerk you around as a candidate, I can only imagine how poorly they treat actual employees.

If they do extend an offer my advice is to ask for more money regardless of what they offer you. Simply saying "Is that the best offer you can make?" has gotten me 5k.

Only employers can lie, not employees.

Only the cops can lie, not those they are questioning.

Only government officials can lie, not taxpayers.

Only the 1% can lie, not the 99%

We ask for a copy of the offer letter, most people email it, some fax it. You always have the option to state a case for why you think the skills and talents you are bring to the job are more valuable than the offer and make a case that way, but if you state you have another offer, chances are someone is going to ask to see it prior to deciding if they want to match it.