After the offer, before the deal: Negotiating a first academic job

Academe, Jan/Feb 1999 by Golde, Chris M

Keep in mind that the department has constraints, and that you will probably not get everything you want. Some schools work with fixed salary schedules by convention or union contract. Others simply have limited resources, and principles of equity between people and departments limit the number of special arrangements that can be made. Moreover, the money to supply certain items may be controlled by different people (the department, dean, or provost), and it may be impossible to predict which terms and conditions of the appointment are negotiable. Do not assume: ask.

While no hard and fast rules for negotiating exist, it's best to limit the number of counteroffers and requests for information you make. The department chair would prefer to go to the dean once rather than to resolve each issue separately. If asking for more money and compensation is difficult for you, enlist your closest allies. Practice what you want to say. Make your phone calls with a friend present. Send a fax if you can't stand calling. Do whatever you need to do to keep yourself focused and professional. Do not quail.

Assessing Multiple Offers. Multiple offers are both a luxury and a source of considerable tension. Offers rarely come in together, leaving the candidate holding an offer from one institution while waiting for a second institution to decide whether to make an offer. Candor is your best ally: departments understand about negotiating multiple offers and will often extend the deadline for deciding on a position. If you request an extension, however, you should be genuinely willing to accept the offer. Once you decide to turn down an offer, inform the institution immediately. Remember, other candidates are waiting.

Identifying which parts of each job best suit you simplifies the task of choosing between institutions and offers that are structured differently. Multiple offers strengthen your ability to bargain with your first-choice school. You can ask that institution to match an offer from another school. (Do this only if you are serious about the first school and only if you have such an offer from a second institution.)

Negotiating Salary

SALARY IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR JOB OFFER, ALthough a low salary can be balanced by other things. Whatever you are offered, ask for more. Remember, an institution's lifetime investment in one professor's salary and equipment will probably exceed a million dollars. So a few thousand dollars may be trivial to the institution, even though it's critical to you.

Difference in initial base salary is a big contributor to the earnings gap between men and women in academia. This difference stems partly from the fact that many men negotiate more aggressively than many women do. Moreover, disciplines that are overwhelmingly male-science and engineering, for example-are compensated at higher rates than those that include many academic women-such as education and the humanities.

Salary matters not just for the present, but also for the future. Pay increases are usually a percentage of prior salary. A faculty member earning $60,000 gets twice as much from a 2 percent across-the-board pay raise as a professor earning $30,000 ($1,200 compared with $600). Besides the salary amount, you also want to ask about the length of the contract. Is it for nine, ten, eleven, or twelve months? Can the paychecks be spread over twelve months? What is the recent history of annual salary increases?