[Tia Maria]

After such great responses from my 'Haggling for a Car 'thread, I thought I'd start one for new jobs.

When going for an interview in NZ, have you taken the first pay offer you got? Or have you tried to negotiate more money?

If you have asked for more money, what has been the response?

Have you let jobs go, if they haven't negotiated, or, taken them anyway in the hope of a pay rise later in the year?

What tactics have you used to negotiate pay in NZ?

Do you think the salary they tell you in NZ, is normally what they are prepared to pay, or, a point to start negotiating from (rather like haggling for a car)?

Cheers

Tia

[adelyn]

Hi,

I also wondering if company give us a job offer, whether I should just take it or need to negotiate? Will the company offer as per market value or only upon request or negotiate?

My aim is get a job first before applying for PR.

Adelyn

[peebles16]

OH negotiated just about all points in his offer of employment with varying success :) Managed to get good way up salary scale, couple of extra days annual leave and a commitment to flexibility in his working hours. I think his employers were hampered in that they follow public sector guidelines, salaries etc but if you don't ask you don't get :D They didn't seem surprised or offended in any way when he 'bargained', seems like the normal thing to do here given that posts are rarely advertised with salaries.

Karenx

[M-Squared]

The salary I was offered was about $10K over what I was honestly expecting, so I rather jumped at it. ;) Time off and notice period etc. are centrally set, so couldn't really do anything about that.

[cappuccino]

It is possible :nice1

[walshy]

My wife has a job offer in tauranga, was pretty happy but would have liked slightly more, had a recruitment consultant call her this morning saying that the offer she has is a rip off and she should be aiming much higher, like maybe $20k higher and that she shouldnt take the job.

Sort of left us deflated now as we were going to do eoi this weekend

[Alan]

If the recruitment consultant is that convinced have they found something that aligns with this? Talk is cheap and you need to get on with your lives.

[Bunstar]

If the recruitment consultant is that convinced have they found something that aligns with this? Talk is cheap and you need to get on with your lives.

Totally agree with Alan. When my OH was looking recruitment agencies were saying we can get you $x package, which was similar to the salary we were looking for. But it would then turn out that the 'package' would include a car (we'd just bought one), a mobile (again we'd just bought one) and a laptop (we'd brought one with us) and a really low salary!!! In the end OH went for a job and they were offering $10,000 lower than we wanted, plus car, mobile and laptop. OH turned round to them and said straight this is the salary I'm looking for, i'm not interested in the other stuff, if you won't pay it I'll look elsewhere. Anyway, they increased the offer by $10,000 and the car etc was still included!
I on the other hand went for a job similar to my old one but in a different technical field so I'd need a lot of training to be up to scratch. Didn't really feel I could negotiate. However, later in the year when I'm fully trained I should get pay rises to reflect that.

[walshy]

thanks,

we are moving to tauranga anyway and expect to earn less, we are not planning on having much of a mortgage so arent really interested in moving to auckland and working our arses off,

Although we are pretty young, we bought pretty early in the uk so can afford a decent house over there and dont want to work as hard quite frankly, i have no doubt that recruitment consultants(her job) could get $20k extra base salary in auckland but we want to be in tauranga

[Genie]

Thanks for starting this thread Tia, it's really helpful to hear of others expereinces. At an interview I had yesterday I was asked what was the least I would take in wages for the position. I stated what I would be expecting to earn in £s and they converted this to $. Then they hit me with I'd be looking to earn $10k less than my lowest!!! There was no negotation, just a flat statement.

Not really happy about the job anyway, boo sucks to you :yes:) I'm worth more than they offered bottom line.

[CJ22]

The company that offered us jobs had banded salaries per role, so there wasn't too much room to play. To be honest, we were offered jobs so early in the process (we'd only thinking about it a month or so) that we rather snatched at it, especially as the offer was $20K over our bottom line (each) and there was two offers right there. We thought we'd hit the jackpot, so we didn't push it.

Having said that, I've frankly had enough of showing loyalty to a company and being rewarded with piddling inflationary pay-rises. From now on I'm keeping to the fore-front of my mind that the best way to get a pay-rise is to change jobs, and that we only have to stick with our offered jobs for 3 months. Not that I'd leave that early (maybe after a couple of years) and job security is a big factor too when you're out on a limb on the other side of the world with little financial back-up and no family to call upon, but you get what I mean. I'll be as ruthless and acquisitive as circumstances allow.