Great news! One of our FirstGen Ahead students was offered two positions and had four more interviews scheduled – and it’s only October of her senior year. She was in a bit of a quandary as to what she should do. Should she continue interviewing or accept one of the positions? If she accepted one of the positions, what should the decision be based on? Was there room to negotiate based on the offers?
After helping her think through what’s personally important to her – working in a safe and stable environment with opportunities for professional development – she realized one of the job offers seemed to meet these criteria best. Though the salary wasn’t the primary driver in making a decision on which offer to accept, money did matter and a strong base salary would benefit her going forward.
She compared the offer letters and the cost of living in the different cities where she could end up working. Even though one offer letter included a higher salary, when considering the cost of living, she would actually end up with a lower net income at the end of the month after paying for expenses. Knowing that she couldn’t negotiate a higher starting salary at the preferred company, she was coached on asking for a one-time signing bonus and a six-month (instead of one-year) performance review. She was successful with receiving a new offer letter that included both of these elements.
Finally, what helped her make a decision was actually visiting the city where the company was located. As a person of color, could she see herself living there? While she had talked with employees of the company who were also racial minorities, spending an afternoon in the city driving, walking around, observing, and visiting establishments gave her a calming feeling that she, indeed, could see herself living there.
This FirstGen Ahead student signed the offer letter, graciously declined the other offer letter, and responsibly let the other companies where she was scheduled for an interview know she appreciated their interest in her as a candidate but had accepted another offer.
