The Offer

Apparently meet the group means getting an offer barring someone recognizing me as a stripper or something other instant disqualifying fact like that. I got the offer.

Before going in, I did some thinking regarding salary. Because it seems like that is the hiccup both from talking to the manager and my friend. Basically I had some numbers in mind to gauge whether they are low balling me, or they have tried their best to balance between their budget limitations and my range. I’ve decided that they’ve done their best in terms of salary based on a couple of things.

First, my friend told me what he got two years ago (he doesn’t know my offer). If I account for salary keeping up with inflation (I assumed 5%), my starting is a bit higher than his two years ago.

Second, they did not expect negotiations, which lead me to believe they came with their best offer. Why do I think they didn’t expect negotiations? It’s a long twisted story but take my word for it, through bits and pieces I gathered from different sources I deducted they didn’t expect negotiations. Confirmation of my deductions? My friend told me they were surprised I didn’t sign on the dotted line right after they explained the compensation package. Who does that!? Someone did.

Now benefits are a little hard to describe. Health is the better (100% instead of 80%). However, RRSP is different. Basically as a newbie it sucks compared to what I’m getting now. However, the longer I stay the better it gets, and by my second year anniversary it will be way better than what I have now. I think it’s structured to reward loyalty, makes sense.

Overall, I will be taking a cut. However, I thought long and hard, and talked to my HR friend, my friend from the company, Sis, and Dad, and decided against negotiating. They gave me a very short time to think about the offer (end of Friday), therefore, hardly any time for negotiations. If I did, it would most likely move a couple thousand at most. For that I’d anticipate several conversations with career coach and the hiring manager within the next day, all the while trying to do my job. I guess it’s the inexperienced side of me showing. I’m a person who’s pretty straight forward. All this “discreetness” in the past weeks is draining.

I like the job, and most importantly the career path it puts me on. I like the atmosphere of the company. Also, I feel they’ve given me a fair offer. Taking all this into consideration I’m going to accept the offer.