You’ve Got the Job, Now What?

You’ve spent months applying and interviewing for jobs, and now you’ve landed one. Congratulations! Before you accept the offer, negotiating is the last part of the job search process. In most circumstances, negotiating is expected and welcomed by prospective employers. It is particularly important because once you accept an offer, you will unfortunately have less leverage to negotiate for your needs and priorities. In many ways, negotiating is a conversation about your long-term success and well-being, which should be of interest to you and your employer. 

Approach negotiations as a collaborative endeavor, where both you and the employer have opportunities and constraints, and a goal of finding common ground. This article provides a starting point for understanding the negotiation process. Andrew Green, Associate Director for Graduate Students and Special Projects at Berkeley Career Engagement, helped to inform the content.

Throughout the interview process, gather information on what salary and benefits people with your education and experience earn at that institution or in that industry. Also, learn about what others in the field have successfully gained through negotiations.

Academia

The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes salaries for professors at any four-year institution, but it should be noted that the data is not disaggregated by discipline. Another source for salaries is the American Association of University Professors, as well as professional and academic associations related to your field of study. 

Before entering any negotiation, consult your faculty adviser and trusted alumni; they are your most valuable resource in this process. For the academic job market, negotiation is a delicate undertaking, and your adviser is best positioned to help you identify what requests are reasonable to make, how to research the institution’s culture and constraints, and who the appropriate people are to speak with as you learn more. With that guidance in hand, if you met someone during the interview process with whom you built a connection, your adviser can help you determine whether and how to approach them with questions about negotiating norms. For example, they may be able to tell you whether a union limits salary negotiation or whether there is a precedent for negotiating summer research grants. Similarly, if you encountered someone who graduated from Cal or attended your undergraduate institution, your adviser can help you assess whether reaching out to that person would be appropriate and what to ask.

Some common requests during the negotiation process include the following:

Financial support

• Starting salary 
• Moving expenses
• Sabbaticals and vacation
• Tuition reimbursement for your partner and children
• Summer research stipends
• Patent rights

Research support 

• Research assistants
• Conference and travel funds
• Intramural research funds
• Grant-writing support
• Office and lab space
• Computing and software tools
• Journal subscriptions and books

Teaching Support

• Reduction in teaching load
• Teaching assistants
• Course relief for the first year 

Other priorities

• Work schedule 
• Faculty housing
• Employment assistance for your spouse or partner
• On-site childcare
• Parking 

Industry

Glassdoor is a starting point to identify salary ranges in your industry. In the private and government sectors, understanding what is common, both in the industry broadly and at the specific company or agency, is the foundation of an effective negotiation. Before engaging in any negotiation, start by researching industry salary norms through websites with aggregated salary data, and consult your career center, which can provide benchmarks and guidance specific to your field and experience level. From there, seek out individuals who can give you a more textured picture of what is typical at that particular organization. Alumni who have worked there are an especially valuable resource, as are mentors with experience in the field. A trusted recruiter can also be a useful source of insight. Once an employer has extended an offer, the recruiter has an incentive to help the process succeed and may be able to tell you what salary range is reasonable for a candidate with your background, or even act as a go-between in conveying your requests to the hiring team. The more informed you are about what is common in practice, the more confidently and effectively you can advocate for yourself. 

Beyond base salary, the following areas are common and worth negotiating:

Starting Your Role

• Start date (e.g., delaying to allow for relocation or transition)
• Relocation assistance or stipend
• Use of vacation time before the job officially begins
• Signing bonus

Day-to-Day Work Life

• Paid time off and vacation accrual
• Flexible scheduling or compressed workweeks
• Remote or hybrid work arrangements
• Early performance review (which can accelerate your first raise)

Financial Compensation

• Stock options or restricted stock units (RSUs)
• Equity
• Retention bonuses
• Retirement contributions or employer matching

Benefits & Wellbeing

• Health and dental insurance coverage (including for domestic partners)
• Parental or family leave
• Student loan repayment assistance
• Tuition reimbursement or educational stipends

Professional Growth

• Professional development stipends (for conferences, coaching, or continuing education)
• Industry certifications or training
• Mentorship programs or access to professional networks

Note: Some of these conversations are best had directly with your hiring manager, while others, such as parental leave, loan repayment, and insurance, may be best addressed with human resources if you need detailed information about an employer’s benefits program.

As you negotiate, it is pivotal to understand why you were extended an offer. The institution or company is offering you a job; they have selected you because you have skills and capabilities that have separated you from others. This often means you also have leverage in negotiating. For example, your publications or work experiences may warrant a higher starting salary. Because there are several actors in the hiring process, you should tell them why you deserve a stated salary with other benefits as part of the compensation package. This may feel repetitive, but it is important because the person making the hiring and financial decisions may not be the people who interviewed you. 

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, each side has opportunities and constraints, so rank your priorities based on which ones you deem the most important to you and make these priorities clear during negotiations.

After ranking your priorities, engage in a thoughtful conversation and recognize that negotiation is not a zero-sum game with a good employer. The institution or company will do what they can to bring you on board, while you will make sure you have the tools to do the job. If an employer cannot offer your top priorities, then move on to your next priorities or brainstorm alternatives. Similarly, if they cannot fund one request, then ask if they can improve their offer elsewhere. For example, if the institution does not have a lab for you, they might cover all costs for travel to an archive or other research site. Ultimately, both sides want the same thing – for you to accept the offer. As you make progress in the negotiation process, be sure to get everything in writing. 

Negotiation is a skill that can be developed, and the more prepared you are, the more confidently you can advocate for yourself. Graduate students are encouraged to treat negotiation as a learnable stage of the job search process rather than a stressful one-time event. A great place to start is by making an appointment with a Career Counselor at  Berkeley Career Engagement, who can provide personalized guidance on evaluating offers, understanding your market value, and preparing for negotiation conversations. Berkeley Career Engagement also provides resources on negotiation and offer evaluation, which offers an opportunity to practice strategies, hear from alumni and professionals, and build confidence before entering the process. For additional reading, the American Political Science Association’s Strategies for Navigating Graduate School and Beyond offers valuable guidance for graduate students at all stages of their career development, and the University of California, San Francisco has published a helpful resource specifically on Negotiating a Startup Package for researchers entering new positions.

To get started with personalized support, make an appointment with Berkeley Career Engagement today.