5 Things You Should Never Do When You're Offered a Job

I've been hiring people for over thirty years, and it still surprises me how many applicants make the exact same mistakes over and over when they're offered a job.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the average person changes jobs twelve times in their career. That's twelve opportunities to avoid mistakes that can cost you money or impact your work/life balance.

It's an exciting time when you're offered a new job, whether with your current employer or a new one. Maybe you're ending a period of unemployment. Maybe this is the ticket to leave a job you hate. Maybe this is the dream job you've been working towards for years.

You might feel super grateful for the offer - and you should be - but here's a little secret: your employer is usually pretty grateful to get you too. Finding the right candidate for an open position can be extremely difficult, even with the high numbers of people looking for work right now.

The employer wants you, and that gives you leverage for negotiating. You will never get a second chance to start your new job, so be sure to avoid these five mistakes and set yourself up for success.

Mistake #1 - Not Negotiating Your Salary

This is by far the number one mistake I have seen over the years, particularly with women. In my experience, over 90% of women who I've hired took the first salary amount they are offered.

I'll say this as simply as I can: never, never, never take the first offer.

Your employer expects you to negotiate. Generally, the hiring manager has a salary range they can offer in, based on a person's experience and expertise. The employer will always start at the low end thinking that you will ask for more.

Yet according to a study conducted by staffing firm Robert Half, just 39 percent of workers negotiated their salary during their last job offer.

When you ask for more money, the employer may accept it and give you what you wanted, or they may come back with a lower amount than you asked for that is still higher than the original offer. In fact, that's what typically happens.

I always tell the people I mentor: ask for 10% more than you're offered, and be willing to accept 5%. It's not a hard and fast rule, but it gives you a good framework.

Even if your negotiation gets you another $1 an hour, that's another $2,080 a year added to your salary, another $2,080 added to the basis for your social security and retirement plan, another $2,080 that your future raises will be based on.

If your job is in a union environment where people earn their salary through "steps", ask to be started at a higher rate than step one. Many union contracts allow exceptions to starting at step one, especially if someone has a high level of experience, it's a difficult job to fill, or it's an internal promotion.

There are dozens of articles online with hints and tips about how to negotiate your salary but probably the most important thing is to be clear about what you're asking. "I'd like a little more than that" is not an effective negotiating strategy. Write up some talking points beforehand, express your enthusiasm for taking the position, and put out a reasonable counter offer.

Mistake #2 - Not Negotiating Your Vacation

Most new jobs start a person at a paltry two weeks of vacation a year. That can be a hard pill to swallow, especially if you are coming from a job where you had gotten to a higher accrual rate.

Be sure you ask at the time of your offer what the vacation accrual range is for your new job. I've seen people accept a job without realizing what their vacation benefit would be until they saw it in the employee handbook. By that point it's too late to get more time.

A Monster.com survey found that only 54% of people negotiated vacation time when taking a new job.

Vacation time is clearly an often-overlooked negotiation point, but it can make a big difference in your work/life balance. It can also give you an important clue to your new company's culture around taking time off.

A good negotiation strategy is to share the vacation accrual at your current job, and use that as the starting point for your negotiation.

You may get pushback when you ask for more vacation time, but you may also end up with some extra time to relax. Sure, you probably won't negotiate ten weeks of vacation at hire, but you likely can negotiate another week or two.

Changes to vacation rates may be at the discretion of the manager or the Human Resources department. Just like salary, I recommend asking for more and being willing to take a number in the middle.

Commit to yourself that you'll actually take that vacation time that you asked for.

Americans almost universally report feeling tired and overwhelmed at work. Vacation is a crucial tool for increasing productivity and improving employee satisfaction, yet the US Travel Association survey consistently finds that more than half of all Americans fail to take all their paid vacation time.

Mistake #3 - Not Understanding How Raises Work

Every employer handles salary increases differently.

Some employers have merit increases at the annual anniversary of you moving into the position. Some have annual cost of living raises. Some have step increases. Some have raises tied into company success or performance goals. Some employers will never give you a raise unless you ask for one.

Don't start a job without understanding when and how your salary might increase - and what you need to do to keep your salary as high as possible.

A 2018 Glassdoor survey found that 37% of hiring managers estimate that their employee retention rates would be significantly higher if new employees understood their compensation structure better during the hiring process.

In that same survey an estimated 45% of job seekers reported that they were leaving their job due to their salary.

I've had many employees who get to their one year anniversary and are disappointed because they had an incorrect assumption about their prospects for a raise or the amount I could offer.

Many employers cap the percentage of raise that can be given each year, generally 1–5%, or have other caps on compensation levels. Avoid future disappointment by asking up-front how raises and compensation increases are handled by your new employer.

Mistake #4 - Not Understanding When Your Benefits Kick In

It's always nice when your position comes with benefits.

For the most part, benefits are not required to be offered to employees. However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that about 83% of full-time workers at companies with 100 employees or more receive some kind of additional employer-paid benefits.

Whether it's paid time off like vacation and sick time, health insurance, retirement contributions, or tuition reimbursement, benefits really add up.

In some positions, benefits can add up to 30% or more to the value of your total compensation package.

Eligibility for benefits can be very different at different employers. Even within the same field, there may be little consistency from one job to another. Also, benefits might be different for management positions than non-management staff.

While some employers may offer benefits on your first day of work, there is typically a wait time for benefits of anywhere from one to six months. There may be a longer wait time for some benefits, like retirement plans, than for others.

If you don't understand how benefits work at your employer, you may find yourself surprised when you don't get paid for a holiday, or you don't have health insurance for six months, or you leave a lose all the money in your non-vested retirement account.

Be sure to talk to Human Resources and read your employee handbook to avoid any nasty surprises.

Mistake #5 - Being Unclear About Your Schedule

Before accepting a new job, make sure you understand what your schedule will be, and whether it's flexible or not.

Do you need to come in at 9:00 because your kid's school drop-off isn't until 8:30? Is it important for you to continue with that Tuesday morning college class you've been taking? Do you like to take an hour lunch instead of thirty minutes? Does your new job require you to attend nighttime meetings?

These are all things you should discuss with the hiring manager before you take the job.

Only 13% of employers offer flexible schedules, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, although there is some indication that this is changing in our current telework world.

I've had people take a job and then be upset with me when I told them we could not accommodate their request to work outside of expected business hours or to have an alternate schedule due to other commitments. I recently had an applicant who applied for a job with the word "weekend" in the title express surprise that the job included Sundays.

Save yourself and your employer time by making sure you understand the expectations and flexibility of your schedule before you say "yes".

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