Host: What if an employer reacts negatively when I start the salary negotiation?
Karen James Chopra: As soon as you ask, "Do you have any flexibility on the salary or can you do better on the salary? I was really hoping to make X amount," and they react very negatively and say, "Well, gosh we absolutely never negotiate on job offers and there is just nothing we can do here.
"Then you say, "Thank you. That's good to know. I appreciate you are telling me that and on that basis can you give me a little bit more time to evaluate the offer? I wasn't sure what the parameters were going to be and I wanted to see if you had any flexibility, but now that I understand what the situation is I will go back and take a look at this in its current form and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
"So you step right back away from it. You don't want to lose the offer, you may not accept it at the end of the day but you don't want to lose it right now so if they react negatively, you just very gently tiptoe right back from that edge and tell them that you will get back to them later. Then you go back to your home or your apartment or wherever you are going to do your thinking and ask yourself, was that reaction something is going to be a problem with the company overall? Is this somebody that you really want to work for? But if it just seems like it was the human resources person who was a little stressed out that day, then you can go ahead and accept the offer and figure that you got the best deal that they were going to be offering.
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