This happened in June (2023) with a remote role I was offered. Our email chain had language explicitly telling me if I had any questions, concerns, negotiating points etc to just ask, and we’d chat about it. I got the offer letter and it was a bit low… as in 30% below my most recent salary, and a good $10k below the top of the range (given verbally) in the first interview. Hell, my offer wasn’t even at the top of their quoted range in the job posting, which was meant to apply to candidates with 2-5 years of experience (and I have 7+).
Insult to injury: their assessment for the interview process was a 900-1200 word writing assessment (blog post) about something extremely technical that no one outside of software engineering probably knows well, and I spent several hours researching and writing something that I knew was extremely solid. Unpaid and unappreciated.
On top of that, I took more than 12 hours over my WEEKEND, between interviews with this team of dunces, to earn myself a small certification that they would have wanted me to earn on their time after starting the job. Way I figured it, I’d be able to show off the cert whether I got the job or not, and it was free to get. Maybe going above and beyond would help my case, make me easier to hire? A guy can hope.
So anyway I did ask to negotiate the salary upward, they heard me out, I didn’t ask for anything crazy; their offer was way below market value for my role and experience level, but I was between jobs at the time and just needed something to get started with. My tone was highly diplomatic, and I made it clear that I didn’t want to let a slight change in numbers cause any rancor – I hoped we could have a dialogue and find a compromise. Or something.
Next day, they sent me an email saying they’d decided to rescind my offer, no further questions or negotiations. Asking for an additional $10k on top of $64k was beyond unreasonable, they said, even after offering me a salary that was lower than what they’d mentioned in interviews… and no real benefits, to boot. Startup team, you know, too small for a healthcare plan or something.
Then they proceeded to say I had asked them to break their review pattern (they only do performance reviews every 6 months, I merely offered to meet after my first 3 months just to make sure they were getting their money’s worth out of me). This, in their view, was “out of line.” Can you imagine? Instead of just saying “yeah we don’t do the 3-month thing, we’ll just sit tight and review you in 6 months like we do with everyone else,” and I would’ve said “oh okay, yeah I guess that’s fine.” Nbd.
So instead of meeting me in the middle with a counteroffer, or even saying “sorry we actually can’t budge on the salary right now, but since we already offered you the job, you get the right of first refusal,” they just torpedoed the whole thing like the baby idiots they are. I have plenty of work now to keep me busy, but my blood pressure’s climbing just thinking about it.
End result: I wrote them a few paragraphs telling them how fucked they were, and that they should probably read a book on how to effectively hire talent or they’d be even more fucked by the end of the year (which of course I would be rooting for). Felt good. I haven’t done something like that in years – now I wish I’d been even more explicit, really even wish I’d said it verbally on a zoom call so I could see their faces… but anyway, it’s this kind of bullshit bush league stuff that shouldn’t be allowed to fly. More candidates need to speak up and say, “no… no, fuck YOU.”
Any candidate worth their salt is at least going to ASK about a slightly higher number. And is going to ask about ways they can potentially prove their higher value to the company. The sorry sap (a younger me, maybe) these people ended up hiring is probably happy to be just a cog for now, or needs a job so desperately that they don’t dare question anything in the offer. It’s a pity and I wish em the good luck to GTFO at the first opportunity rather than work for those goons.