First job offer

One week ago I got an interview with a finance director over Skype, I'm in Singapore and the FD was in UK. They need someone to manage their accounts and administrative works as they have decided to set up its own accounting function which was used to outsourced, the reason according to the FD was that the external accountancy firm was making a mess.

2 days after the interview a guy(Mr.F) from the recruitment agency phoned me to check whether I'm interested for the role and told me that the FD was very impressed with my interview and convinced that I'm able to work independently. He also asked me about my expected salary, I indirectly quoted $2,800 and I said its hard for me to give an exact figure unless I have more information such as bonus.

The very next day Ms.AL contacted me to fix an appointment which ended on the afternoon. During the interview she asked me whether I'm interested for the role which I replied yes, as I see it as a great opportunity for learning. She than asked my expected salary, again I didn't give an exact figure. Finally she told me the offer was $2700. I was disappointed which thinking back I realized I'm over optimistic, I anticipated the offer would start from $2900 where I could negotiate higher. My "model answer" did not include the offer she gave me.

I responded "The offer is lower than what I have expected, I would like to ask what flexibility there is", she said she will get back to the FD and mentioned that they had tried to ask for $3000 but according to the FD due to my inexperience in accounts role they had anticipated that training had to be given, as a result they would offer $2700. But nevertheless Ms.AL will let the FD know my concern and get back to me by Monday as the day of interview was on Friday.

Monday morning the time they usually called me, no call received. Evening as well no call received.
Tuesday no call received. I did sense something wrong but could not figure out as I thought that the worst would be the offer remain the same.

Wednesday, just 20mins before my interview I received a call from MS.AL. From the start of our conversation she wasn't sound clear explaining about the current situation as she tried to be as tactful as possible. I came to realize that the offer remain at $2,700 if you still call it an offer and unexpectedly my salary negotiation has led to the offer being jeopardized.Therefore the offer did not exist anymore!

She said the FD felt that candidate like me who negotiated salary would not last in the company for long and I would constantly seeking for other job that pay more. Additionally she did not want to underpay me. In the end I told MS.AL that I'm interested on the offer.

So what have I learned? not to negotiate if this is what you are thinking. No! I don't think it this way. and yes, salary negotiating entail risk of offer being jeopardized. This is the risk I chose to undertake and the degree of risk associated will largely depend on my negotiating skill. I'm of the opinion that the loss I suffered by not negotiating will by far exceed the loss resultant in salary negotiation like the above.

Who am I

I shall do a short introduction of myself. I'm 25 this year, just finished the last four papers of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants(ACCA), so at present I'm on the job search. Before that I had worked in a healthcare organization for account receivable, decided to leave the company after 2 years of my contribution to pursue my remaining papers for the next 1.5years.


The purpose of this blog is for my self-reflection on the things that I have learned, it could be anythings from study to interview and to work. Personal finance will also be part of it once I got a job. So at present you may expect me to post topic around things that I've leaned from interview, this will include answering call from hiring manager, script that I have used for interview and lastly salary negotiation.