This Candidate Negotiated The Right Way (Without Even Knowing It!)

I just worked with a candidate who put on an absolute masterclass on negotiating without even knowing it.

This week we found a job for a Sr. Data Engineer at a large consumer bank.

Long story short, we first connected about a month and a half ago. We submitted him to the role since he was pretty much spot on for the requirements. The process moved pretty smoothly.

Since he was a great candidate for our role, chances are he was a great candidate for other roles. So naturally he had other interviews going on with other recruiters & clients. That’s usually how the recruiting world works.

He kept us up to date each and every step of the way. Where he ranked our role, the deal breakers, etc.

When he finally got our offer, he received another offer, and used leverage *respectfully* to increase the one with us.

This resulted in an 18% increase from the original offer with us, plus an extra day remote.

Hard to say no to that in this market!

Now let’s break it down step by step so you can do this, too.

Step One: Credibility

When everyone thinks of negotiation, they think of Grant Cardone or Jordan Belfort on the phone going back and forth.

I’d like to argue that negotiation for a job offer starts wayyyyy before that on the very first interaction with the recruiter.

By now you’ve heard me say a million times, you need to discuss numbers & ranges up front. Which is true.

But you also need to be transparent and build rapport.

The more trust and rapport you build with your recruiter, they will be more willing to go to bat for you when it comes down to getting you more money down the road.

This candidate was extremely transparent, easy to work with, and which made me more confident to work with him and negotiate on his behalf weeks later for more $.

Step Two: Communication and Transparency

Our client thought he was a great fit, and apparently so did many other hiring managers.

He had quite a few interviews going on outside of our process, and he made sure to communicate that to us as well.

Now that he had a lot of interview activity in the pipeline, he realized he gained more leverage in his job search.

He wanted to see if we can increase the initial salary by 5% - we did - and also had some more deal breakers he wanted to discuss, and those were ironed out.

By communicating his other opportunities in real time - with respect & transparency - this further helped build our relationship which would come into play later down the road.

Step Three: Using His Leverage

Now we’re at the offer stage.

Before our final round interview, he told us he received an offer for another company. Our interview was almost a week out, and we used that to move his interview up to do it the very next day.

Attended the interview, nailed it, received offer.

Before we scheduled the interview, he did tell me the other offer was for more $$$. I decided to wait to mention that until we receive an offer here to use it as leverage (sometimes you can be up front, goes either way depending on scenario).

The other offer was 20% higher than our renegotiated salary from earlier (but onsite 4x/week). He was willing to share the offer letter to me but by this time I had enough trust in him I told him I didn’t need to see it.

Our client couldn’t match 20% from new offer. But he could do an additional 13%, totaling up to an 18% increase. On top of that, our client who is onsite 3x/week gave 1 extra day remote, so only 2x/week.

He quickly took our offer and ran with it.

Moral of the story

There’s a lot of bad advice out there telling you not to trust recruiters, don’t give them any info, communicate via email only, etc.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

Your recruiter WANTs you to get the job. It’s literally our job to get you the job. We get paid and judged by how many of you we place.

So use this to your advantage.

Build a relationship, trust, and rapport, so when you do need them to fight on your behalf, they’re more than willing to do so.