It began with a surprise phone call while on vacation.
One Reddit user was a mid-level manager at a company that had just been bought by a big corporation. He was on PTO when a local business called him out of the blue. They wanted him for a role. They said they were “desperate” and asked if he could do an interview the following day. He pushed back. They volunteered to do it that evening, online, with the whole team in attendance.
That kind of urgency is not normal. The man showed up for the interview, and at the end of the call, they gave him the job on the spot. The next morning, the offer letter arrived.
Four days later, he walked into his office, handed in his notice, and showed his boss the offer letter. By the end of the day, he had a 35% pay rise, a promotion to Senior Manager and a signed agreement to become Director in a year.
“Best PTO I’ve ever had,” he wrote.
Most workers never do this, and it costs them
His story might sound like a fortunate coincidence, but the strategy he employed, using an outside offer to negotiate from within, is one of the most powerful moves available to working professionals.
According to a Pew Research Center survey of more than 5,700 U.S. workers in 2023, about 60% of employees didn't negotiate their pay the last time they were hired. They just took what they could get. Among those who pushed back, 66% received more than the original offer, either exactly what they asked for or a partial increase.
Two-thirds of the inquirers walked away with more money. But most of them remained silent.
What the research says about negotiating
Zoom out and the numbers are even more interesting.
Employees who negotiated their starting salary walked away with an average of $5,000 more than those who didn’t, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior by researchers Michelle Marks of George Mason University and Crystal Harold of Temple University. But it’s only the beginning. The researchers estimated that this one $5,000 gap, compounded over a 40-year career with a modest annual raise of 5 percent, could add up to more than $600,000 in additional lifetime earnings.
Six hundred thousand dollar left on the table because someone didn't say something.
