I have no experience negotiating salary as the job I’m in now is the job I got out of college. I just received an offer from a PE firm (I have finance experience but none related to PE) as an entry level analyst.
Do I even have room to negotiateif I feel I am worth more? Quite frankly, I’d take a slight paycut for the experience in PE and 100% plan on accepting the offer. The last thing I want to do is risk blowing the opportunity.
Any advice is appreciated.
how much experience do you have? junior folks generally have lower ability to negotiate since entry level pay is usu. not that variable. if you get too greedy, you come off as an entitled brat which could raise a big red flag.
If you have say 3+ years of experience, you probably do have some leeway to ask for more
Thanks for the advice itera, this is my concern.
PE can be pretty tough to get into so if it’s something you are passionate about and have your heart set on, then my view would be “why blow it for the chance at an extra few grand per year”.
If the position really is entry level, then I think you need to value the experience you will get far more than any additional pay you can twist out of them. Even if they do agree to your higher counter offer, it may well leave a bad taste in their mouth.
If they came in and really low-balled you then fair enough, you could push back a little - but if your intention is to take it anyway and would even take a pay-cut as you mentioned, then my view is just be happy and accept the offer. Don’t get too greedy…the worst case scenario is you end up with nothing.
Go in there, smash it up for a few years and then you can think about negotiating a bit harder on future offers.
If the offer feels fair, go for it.