CDPC | CEDC
CDPC | CEDC

How Negotiating Affects Job Offers

Published

October 16, 2024

Category

Tags

,

Table of Contents

What do you say when the people you serve ask if negotiating poses a risk to getting a job offer? Here’s evidence for you.

Many work seekers are very nervous about negotiating with an employer who’s just made a job offer. They worry that the offer will be withdrawn, and an opportunity will be lost. Hart, Bear, and Ren asked job candidates and hiring managers to estimate the probability of negotiating resulting in an offer being retracted.

Seven studies involving over 3,000 participants in different scenarios found that job candidates estimate the chances that negotiating will result in an offer being rescinded to be 33% higher than managers’ estimates. They also found that candidates are reluctant to negotiate at all, with about half choosing to accept offers without negotiating.

The researchers also surveyed about 1,500 managers and asked directly about how many offers were retracted due to negotiations. Most had never withdrawn an offer. Overall, 94% upheld their offers.

One reason candidates over-estimate the likelihood of losing the offer is the view that every gain for them is a loss for the manager. Candidates still over-estimate, but less so, when they see that a win for them may also be a win for the manager. For example, negotiating later start and end times at work may solve a customer service problem for customers that contact the organization after typical business hours.

Another reason candidates are reluctant to negotiate is the perception that they have very little power compared to the manager. The researchers found that candidates estimated their power in the negotiation as 20% lower than managers did.

For career development practitioners, this research provides two key pieces of information they can give to work searchers. First, managers are highly unlikely to withdraw a job offer because a candidate negotiates. Also, job seekers are less likely to be nervous about negotiating if they go into the process exploring win-win rather than win-lose possibilities. Practitioners should likely qualify that they are providing information rather than advice. Work seekers will need to make their own decisions about the probabilities they face.

Research / Original Citation

Hart, E., Bear, J.B., & Ren, Z. (2024). But what if I lose the offer? Negotiators’ inflated perception of their likelihood of jeopardizing a deal. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 181, 104319, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2024.104319

This research has strength in that it uses a series of studies to answer the questions posed and, in some of the studies, it used actual managers and candidates. The main cautions are that (a) in some cases the researchers assigned participants to be “candidate” or “manager” (i.e., these were role-play scenarios) and (b) in some cases managers were asked about past experiences (i.e., they were relying on memory). Playing a role in an experiment may produce different behaviours than real life, and relying on memory risks being inaccurate.

Fun Facts

Community Submission

Thank you Centre admin for submitting this article summary.

Your Thoughts

What have you heard from job seekers who you’ve helped re: negotiating? How likely are they to negotiate, and what success have they had?

Responses

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More from the Library

Created and powered by the Canadian Career Development Foundation in partnership with MixtMode, with funding from the Government of Canada as part of the Future Skills Centre Program.

Report

Harassment or bullying behavior
Contains mature or sensitive content
Contains misleading or false information
Contains abusive or derogatory content
Contains spam, fake content or potential malware

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

  • See blocked member's posts
  • Mention this member in posts
  • Invite this member to groups
  • Message this member
  • Add this member as a connection

Please note: This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin. Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

Report

You have already reported this .

Career Development Professional Centre

Code of Conduct

Help us cultivate a Centre we all enjoy by reviewing and following the Code of Conduct.

Our Purpose

Thank you for being a part of the Career Development Professional Centre. To ensure that all members have the best possible experience, we have a few ground rules that we ask everyone to adhere to. This code of conduct applies equally to every person in the community and is intended to foster an online space that is inclusive, safe, and welcoming to all.

Centre Rules

Be welcoming

We strive to be a place that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. We aim to be a place that promotes excellence and innovation in career and workforce development. Please extend respect to all members; we all come from different backgrounds and levels of knowledge and there is no such thing as a stupid question.

Be respectful

We won’t all agree all the time, but when we disagree don’t let those disagreements turn into personal attacks. A place where people feel uncomfortable or threatened will not be a productive one. When having discussions in the online community, commenting on a library article, or participating in other Centre activities, strive for productive conversations around the content being presented, not the person behind the content. Any comments determined to be “hate speech” towards any individual or group will be deleted, and the user account may be locked until an investigation regarding the comment has been concluded. The user may be given a written warning or removed from the CPDC platform depending on the findings of the investigation.

Hate Speech could include and is not limited to:

  • Violent threats or language directed against another person
  • Discriminatory jokes, language, or materials
  • Defamatory or abusive language or materials
  • Profane or illegal materials
  • Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior

A good rule of thumb is to never say anything that you wouldn’t be comfortable with the world seeing or that you wouldn’t want anyone knowing came from you. We ask that you keep in mind the focus of this place, which is building excellence and innovation in career and workforce development for all individuals.

Be considerate of the purpose of the Centre

The Centre focuses on building excellence and discussing innovation in the career and workforce development field. The goal of the social learning community is to communicate goals, challenges, constructive feedback, and questions in relation to career and workforce development. The Centre should be a place for continued learning and development as well as a place to discuss the future of our field (solicitation without written consent by the Project or Advisory team, is strictly prohibited). Any post or comment that is determined to be soliciting any individual or group will be deleted, and the user account may be locked until an investigation regarding the post has been concluded. The user may be given a written warning or removed from the CPDC platform depending on the findings of the investigation.

Post your discussions or documents in the most appropriate group or topic

Especially within the social learning community, make reasonable efforts to ensure that posts and materials are allocated to the appropriate group or topic. This will prevent cluttering the feed and make it easier for everyone to find the information that they are seeking. Individuals who do this repeatedly will be contacted by one of the group admins and asked to follow these guidelines.

Privacy and Release of Information

CDPC-CEDC will not release your information to any third-party agencies.

Thank you and welcome to the CDPC