Job offer via company - Advice on salary negotiations

Charlotte_Ca

Exodi said:

The first thing I'd ask if this was posed to me is if the OP can get a job paying £30k+ with a competitor, why don't they?

Well, I wish the companies that I had interviews with that were paying £30K could tell me the reason they didn't want to hire me. I had the skills for each one. And they were within my industry. 

Sometimes I think they feel that the candidate is not the right fit for the team or whatever else irrelevant to the skills.

Emmia

Charlotte_Ca said:

Exodi said:

The first thing I'd ask if this was posed to me is if the OP can get a job paying £30k+ with a competitor, why don't they?

Well, I wish the companies that I had interviews with that were paying £30K could tell me the reason they didn't want to hire me. I had the skills for each one. And they were within my industry. 

Sometimes I think they feel that the candidate is not the right fit for the team or whatever else irrelevant to the skills.

Have you asked for feedback?

Elliott.T123

Charlotte_Ca said:

Well, I wish the companies that I had interviews with that were paying £30K could tell me the reason they didn't want to hire me. I had the skills for each one. And they were within my industry. 

Sometimes I think they feel that the candidate is not the right fit for the team or whatever else irrelevant to the skills.

Fit for the team is usually more important than skills. If you have an existing team of 5 and bring in someone new who is a bad fit you could have all 5 of your existing staff leave.

You can train someone who has the right fit and attitude to learn the skills. It is far harder (often impossible) to change someone's attitude or fit.

As a general rule:

Permanent hires are 60% fit 40% skills (obviously certain roles do differ, engineers are more skill focused for example) contract or temp hires are 85-90% skills 10-15% fit. A contractor is expected to hit the ground running day 1, no training, complete a project/task and move on.

Hoenir

Charlotte_Ca said:

but in the instance of bonuses these are paid based on company performance. So, they are not standard. 

 

In the best company's everyone is a team player. Those that aren't move on. 

kempiejon

I recently interviewed for a job that I was bang on qualified for, I had loads of relevant experience, the job really suited me. I had a good time at the interview, good rapport with the 2 on the panel I gave a good show of myself and left thinking that it was up to them to see if I was right. I knew they were seeing 3 other people. When I eventually got the thanks but no thanks email they did say there was another role in the organisation coming up and would I be interested in that. When I asked why I didn't make the cut for the role I applied for they said there was another candidate at a different place on their career path. I took that to mean younger and keener than me. 

Just because one is good enough for a role doesn't mean there isn't someone better. Another recent example, a chum of mine who is looking for work attended an interview and did well, they thought they had a good chance. The feedback as to why they missed the role, there was an internal candidate right for the job. My mate felt they had probably decided to give the internal candidate the job but were obliged to see if there wasn't a better prospect externally.

LinLui

Charlotte_Ca said:

Exodi said:

The first thing I'd ask if this was posed to me is if the OP can get a job paying £30k+ with a competitor, why don't they?

Well, I wish the companies that I had interviews with that were paying £30K could tell me the reason they didn't want to hire me. I had the skills for each one. And they were within my industry. 

Sometimes I think they feel that the candidate is not the right fit for the team or whatever else irrelevant to the skills.

The "right fit" is equally as important as the right skills. If it was only about ticking boxes then there would be no need for interviews. But in all honesty, part of the "whatever else" may be being unemployed. It is fairly well known that it is easier to move from one job to another, and many employers can be wary of someone who is unemployed. They may wonder if the skills are rusty, if there is some reason behind them being unemployed etc., etc. Recruitment is costly, and many employers are risk averse - if there is a candidate who ticks all the boxes, looks like a good fit, and is still in a job, they often tend to go for what looks like the safer option. It may not be the safer option, of course. But that won't be what they are thinking

kempiejon

Charlotte_Ca said:

Well, I wish the companies that I had interviews with that were paying £30K could tell me the reason they didn't want to hire me. I had the skills for each one. And they were within my industry. 

Sometimes I think they feel that the candidate is not the right fit for the team or whatever else irrelevant to the skills.

Perhaps after they interviewed you they did want to hire you, you did have the skills, there was a £30kpa contract waiting for you, later that day though they interviewed someone else who just pipped you. Just because you were good enough doesn't mean there wasn't someone better.

Of course asking for feedback following an interview is the best way of making the next interview or the one after the charm.

Charlotte_Ca

Emmia said:

Charlotte_Ca said:

Exodi said:

The first thing I'd ask if this was posed to me is if the OP can get a job paying £30k+ with a competitor, why don't they?

Well, I wish the companies that I had interviews with that were paying £30K could tell me the reason they didn't want to hire me. I had the skills for each one. And they were within my industry. 

Sometimes I think they feel that the candidate is not the right fit for the team or whatever else irrelevant to the skills.

Have you asked for feedback?

I don't tend to ask for feedback because who says they are gonna give me the true reason? 

But actually, one company gave me feedback even though I didn't ask them, but I think it didn't make any sense. They told me that they didn't hire me because on my answers I didn't use the STAR method. 

I didn't like them much anyway so I didn't bother with them.

Grumpy_chap

Charlotte_Ca said:

Emmia said:

Charlotte_Ca said:

Exodi said:

The first thing I'd ask if this was posed to me is if the OP can get a job paying £30k+ with a competitor, why don't they?

Well, I wish the companies that I had interviews with that were paying £30K could tell me the reason they didn't want to hire me. I had the skills for each one. And they were within my industry. 

Sometimes I think they feel that the candidate is not the right fit for the team or whatever else irrelevant to the skills.

Have you asked for feedback?

I don't tend to ask for feedback because who says they are gonna give me the true reason? 

But actually, one company gave me feedback even though I didn't ask them, but I think it didn't make any sense. They told me that they didn't hire me because on my answers I didn't use the STAR method. 

I didn't like them much anyway so I didn't bother with them.

That is meaningful feedback and possibly indicates that your responses to questions lacked structure and clarity.
STAR is a standard form of structuring an answer
 - Situation
 - Task
 - Action
 - Result
Other forms of standard structure are available but you may wish to consider when you next decide to move on that a structured approach to answering questions may be more amenable.