Job Offer Negotiations
I have yet to have real "serious" job interview that I really needed to prepare for and make sure I was completely ready to go before I walked into the interview. I am sure this will change in the coming months as I graduate and go out into the world looking for a career. For the purpose of this blog assignment I am going to talk about one job interview I had a few summers ago that I was able to negotiate with the boss and get more for me out of it. This job was at a nursing home and I was applying to work as a sort of janitor cleaning floors. My mom works at this same nursing home in an administration position and the director of house keeping had come to her and asked if she knew anyone that could fill a position as a floor cleaner because they were in desperate need of one. Going into the interview being a 19 year old kid with minimal work experience and only being able to work for the summer I knew the ZOPA for my wage was going to pretty much be minimum wage and not much more, with no benefits or anything included. I did know however, how desperatly they needed someone to fill this position because the state health inspectors were coming in in a few weeks and no one had been cleaning the floors for a few months. I was able to use this need on the part of the interviewer to create more value for myself. I was able to talk them from a wage of 7.25 to 8.25 just because I was able to start the next day. I was also able to negotiate a week of paid vacation because I made up that I had another job offer I was heavily considering and I would need something to convince me to choose this one. I was able to get the paid vacation and extra wages by using a need the other side of the negotiation had and created more value for myself. The employer was willing to give because they needed someone ASAP and I was able to get more for myself by knowing this.
