How do I negotiate salary within the government? I have a tentative offer out of state and HR has offered a bare minimum base salary.
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- Tell them you have another offer and you’d love to work for them. Then ask if there’s any way they can match your OOS offer.LikeReply21
- They will offer you step1 pay by default. Look up the steps for the job classification and tell them which one you need to be at to accept the job. Factor in locality pay too.LikeReply15
- Ask them for a current salary match, something you can prove. Or plead unique KSA - knowledge, skills, abilities showcasing why your the best candidate. Feds will match if the manager has the budget and the desire to get you more so than another. The basic and most important is don’t accept an offer just to make them happy, if you accept it’s procedurally binding and they will absolutely refuse to negotiate per policy, as long as you counter and they counter you’re in the drivers seat.LikeReply20
- Also you can negotiate well beyond salary, ask about sign on bonus, future performance bonus, a set of paid leave like, up to 40 hours. Maybe education stipend, moving expenses up to a cap most do 5-15k basically required a distance greater than 50 miles and usually easier to achieve the greater distance. Regardless good luck, and remember the whole world is short staffed and hiring quality employees don’t assume out of desperation make sure you earn what’s necessary up front. Life costs more…..LikeReply23
- Once you accept there is no negotiation of compensation for that position. Definitely ask for what you need now before accepting the position.LikeReply18
- It is hard to do, often you need to show you were paid a higher amount before and when you accept the job add that information on the USA Jobs request info button when they send you the offer, say you want to accept but interested in getting paid higher then the lowest step since you were paid higher before and you have skill. Some HR people will work with you others will not.LikeReply11
- If you have a higher level of education than the minimum required, than it isn’t unreasonable for you to request the fourth step (possibly D step) and then they counter with the third step, such as C step. If you don’t have strong arguments, it doesn’t still hurt to ask for the third step and see if they give you the second step in pay.LikeReply7
- Normally government jobs have defined salaries. What they will be asking is to see if you have over expectations for what pay you can get. Normally the best way is to negotiate without being over-ambitious. But it helps to research first and get to know that is the range before going for the interview.LikeReply7
- If your current grade is higher than the offer, I highly recommend never accepting less than what you currently are or qualify for.LikeReply14
- From experience: they will not negotiate.LikeReply13
- I hall mail for the post office and I don’t know if it’s the same thing but they start everybody out at a certain amount at the main post office and then you work your way up from there so I don’t know if that has anything to do with this job or if that helps any. I Just thought I’d let you know.LikeReply1
