I agree with the sentiment and salary is not in my top few priorities in terms of job satisfaction. However I will also add that anecdotally I have never known anyone who had a company retract an offer because the candidate asked for more. The worst answer you will usually get is "that was our best offer". You don't have to make it a long drawn out negotiation. You can just make it a standard practice to respond to any job offer asking for at least 10% more. There is little downside and the difference will add up over a career.
I have pulled an offer before*, but it was well after the candidate accepted it (not the next day, but a week and a half later they came back asking for more; that’s not the way to start off a business dealing).
Unless you were a colossal ass about the negotiations, I’d not pull an offer while we’re negotiating; we may not find a zone of agreement, but you’re not going to hurt yourself by negotiating in good faith for your interests.
* Legally, the accepted offer may still have been valid if the candidate wanted to force that issue. They’d have to be fairly crazy to do that, though.
Don't count on that in practice. Pulling offers seems to be unusual but not unheard of, and from all I've read, when it happens it's rare for the candidate to pursue it legally, and the company may have a sneaky clause in their offer to avoid liability.
In 2020 I had two offers pulled after I had accepted them. That's without me coming back to ask for more or anything else. We were well past that stage: An offer was agreed and accepted.
So far as I can tell, neither pulled offer was caused by pandemic issues. They were both from companies doing ok.
The second time, having been burned earlier in the year, my acceptance was as clear and formal (without being rude) as I could in writing (by email), CC'ing the recruiters to be sure everyone knew.
At the point of acceptance I declined other offers, terminated other interviews in progress and negotiated the end date to a current contract.
That offer was pulled about 2 weeks after the acceptance. A strange ghosting in the interim, when I was expecting a new-employee pack in the post, caused me a creeping feeling of paranoia. It felt off, but I also felt like it must be my imagination, as we had completed and I had an official start date. I was looking forward to starting, and I wanted to feel relaxed about it.
It worked out well for me in the end, as I ended up at a much better place with a much better job, a few months later. But it was stressful both times it happened, and caused significant hardship.
In the time between acceptance and "we're closing the role", the recruiters reassured me the company was just being slow. Then when the offer was pulled, the recruiters told me they didn't understand what had happened, and would talk to the company and "sort it" - and then did nothing and ghosted me. At the time I felt they were good recruiters, "would use again", but obviously I don't think that since they ghosted. I guess they had nothing to say and needed the ongoing business with that company. But an apology, commiseration, or just telling me how unusual it is would have been welcome. These are people who had reached out to me initially, kept in touch regularly throughout the process, and done a great job helping with the application. Nope: Blanked.
I was never given a reason other than "we don't have to give a reason if it's due to change of business circumstances". I suspect high levels of BS.
Something I found really striking: The HR person giving me the bad news told me it was "their standard practice" for an executive to review job offers after they had been accepted.
My view is legally I was entitled to the signup bonus and notice-period pay because we had formed a contract by exchanging offer and acceptance. I suspect I could have sued and won, but that would have been onerous, not an easy win. I worked through several legal theories to formulate a solid claim, but in the end I wasn't up to pursuing it, and needed to focus on the remainder of the contract I still had in the hand.
So, at least in my industry (softwares development in trading) your bonus can be more than your salary, so while they won’t pull the offer, it can have longer effects.
I agree with the above poster which is, if you’re happy, take it. The great part about America and especially developed, if you become unhappy there’s 100 other jobs waiting.
That's actually fairly.cpmmom practice in finance. If you base is considered a bit high for your position, the bonus just gets docked a bit instead. It's all 100 percent discretionary so...
I’m sure it can happen if you are rude about it or if you ask for a 50% increase or something, but any company that would be offended by asking for 10% more is probably not somewhere you want to work anyway.
