How to Negotiate with Confidence – and When Not To | Missy Tuft

Should you negotiate your first job offer or just get your foot in the door? In this episode, we talk through what negotiation actually looks like early in your career, when it makes sense to speak up, and when it can hurt you more than help you.

We also get into the bigger picture, how to choose the right company, why humility and work ethic matter more than title early on, and how to build a strong foundation for long-term growth. Along the way, we touch on what it looks like to be a Christian in the workplace and how your values, attitude, and relationships shape your reputation far more than your starting salary.

If you’re navigating your first job, thinking about negotiating an offer, or trying to make smart early-career decisions, this conversation will give you a clearer perspective on what actually matters.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Well, everyone, we are joined again by Melissa Tuft.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

I have been noticing that you have called me Melissa in an email. Yes. And also, so is this a now that I'm a consultant, I need to go from adolescent Missy to That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

I feel like when I'm introducing you to high power clients, Missy seems childish. So now I've been saying Melissa, parentheses, Missy.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I have noticed this. And let me just tell you, actually, when I first started out in my career, I was the youngest hospital administrator for project management for a hospital here in the Med Center. Okay. And I was so insecure of the name Missy because I felt that it was too young. Well, it is. That I forced people to call me Melissa. It actually caused kind of an identity crisis for me because I started thinking, am I not serious enough as a person? And all these different things. So it was really an interesting experience, but I totally understand what you're saying. And I like both names. My dad called me Melissa. What is your middle name?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Let's pivot. We're just going to pivot to Kelly. Kelly. You actually do look like a Kelly. You know what? We'll go with it. Hi, I'm Kelly. I'm Kelly, you're dead. Today's episode with Kelly Tuft is about negotiation. So specifically about negotiating a job offer. And a lot of our listeners are younger, maybe first career, second career, and they haven't had to negotiate an offer before. Maybe they've never even received a job offer. So today we're just going to talk about negotiating an offer, what that looks like, if you should do it, what are the situations in which you would, what are the situations in which you wouldn't do it? Um, and talk about basically our experiences with negotiation. Absolutely. So my first job out of college, let me think. Oh, I remember. The chocolate store? Oh, the cho Missy, great remembrance. Uh my chocolate store experience was while I was in college. Okay. So my first job after my first job afterwards was at Banana Republic. Oh, yeah. Yep. Banana Republic. But that was an hourly job. So I'm not sure that that's really you don't really negotiate. Oh, yeah, you could. I did not. Did you so I did not negotiate my first job after college, which was Banana Republic. Yep. And then after that, I got a full-time job at a bank. Did I negotiate that? I don't know that I did. Did you negotiate? What was your first job out and did you negotiate? We'll talk about job career experiences.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Like that I was just saying was for a hospital administrator role. And uh my husband um is a lawyer and he was like, you will negotiate. And so he helped run some comp things for me. And so I went in with a number, and they basically laughed because they were like, Oh, this is really an experienced person. Like, this is you, you are 22 years old. You don't need to be making this much money. Um, but they still did give me a significant increase, and it helped me to earn a little bit of like, hey, I'll go toe to I'll go toe-to-toe with you. I can sit at the table.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Um I think there's a couple of different things to think of. So now as I'm hiring a lot of people, and over my career for the past 20, 25 years, 20 years, I've been hiring people. So I can see it both from the employees' perspective and from the hiring managers or the owner's bosses' perspective. And I think the ability to negotiate is a valuable skill. So do you need to learn how to negotiate? Yes, you do. You don't want to get walked all over. And negotiating can be very scary if you haven't done it before. So, first piece of advice for the young people is practice negotiating in situations that have low, um, low stress levels. Yep. Like practice with your friend, practice with your mom, practice at a flea market. Like practice negotiating when it doesn't really matter. So then you get the confidence and the skills and you can use it when it does really matter. In terms of negotiating for a job, I from the hiring manager's perspective, if you start out your career with a company being hard-nosed and doing a lot of negotiation, you already raise a bit of a red flag to the hiring manager that you might be difficult to work with. So I would say my advice in general when you're accepting a job offer is be super gracious. Make sure you say thankful. Make sure you say thank you and that you're really thankful. I offered a job to someone the other day under very odd circumstances, but he was like, explain to me all the reasons why you think I would be good for this job. So you don't want to do that. You don't want to do that. You need to be able to do that. Okay. Something to keep in mind is that the person that is offering you the job oftentimes is very busy and doesn't have a lot of time and energy and doesn't want to take up a lot of time and energy in this portion of what's occurring. They've got other things that they're working that they're dealing with. So confident, like confidently say thank you. Make sure you're very gracious, whether or not you choose to accept the job. You can always ask for some time. I think that's very reasonable. So thank you so much for this offer. Please give me 48 hours to think about it. I would say anything more than 48 hours is a bit long. I would say maybe two to three days. If you're asking for a week or two, that makes it seem like you haven't thought about it before. So a short period of time asking for extra time, that also allows you to collect your thoughts, weigh the offer, and see if that's the right offer for you. So that's a that's a good tip. You can negotiate for things other than salary. You and I talked about that before this. If you are negotiating on salary, I would advise you to not do it unless you are, unless the offer is significantly less than what you were told or were expecting. So let's say you were told that the job is is going to be paying around $60,000 and the offer comes in at $50, well then, excuse me, you can definitely ask, you can definitely mention, oh, I thought the base pay was $60,000 for this role, then something changed. You can definitely ask that. But if the offer is $60 and you say, can I do $62, that just kind of makes you seem petty.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yes. Especially when you're looking at what does $2,000 a year over 12 months really give you when you could put in the year, work hard, negotiate maybe for an extra remote day or an extra accrual of PTO, right? Um, and then at that year ask for a $5,000 raise, right? That's where you're actually making a difference.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

And you also know that it's not a lot. You've also, excuse me, Missy, sorry for interrupting. You've also shown at that point that you've added that additional value. So asking for a big chunk of extra money right up front when you haven't even proven yourself in that career or in that job, is a little bit um, it's just a little bit arrogant. It just comes across as a little bit arrogant. Whereas if you do the job well for a year and you're working for a good company, they will reward you. So I'm not saying go in, you know, completely undervalued, but I really like with it. Bohe had you pull comps. Your husband really had you pull the comps. And we do that at Vanderblumen now every other year. We pull comps for all the positions, years worked, location, that type of thing. And then we are sure and we share this with the employees, and we're sure that we're paying market rate. Yep. So negotiating an offer, I would just use, I would very much tread lightly. Yep. And probably here's another really good piece of advice during the interview process, set your expectations for salary then and use that interview process as a point of negotiation. Like we interviewed people today, and I said the base pay for this position is 60. And one of the ladies said, Well, I was expecting 80. How could I, how could this role be 80? And then we kind of talked that through. And now when I offer her the role, there's not going to be that difficult conversation. So setting the expectations during the interview process with what you're expecting is a lot easier and makes you look a lot more maybe balanced and easy to work with. Once you get to the offer point, if you're asking a bunch of questions or asking for a bunch of other things from the employer, it does kind of make the employer think that you're being a bit difficult.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Especially now, salary discussions, the way that they are approached are completely different. I mean, states now have laws where job postings have to have the salary on the job board posting, right? So I don't think that it's so taboo anymore for you're on a phone screen and you ask, hey, what's the salary range? Because that does two things. One, it's not gonna waste your time as a hiring manager anymore. And two, that the person going in, they're on clear boundaries. They either know that they're within that range or they're not within that range, but they're gonna set aside expectations because they want to be at the company.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Missy, that's a great point. As early as possible in the process, have the conversation about salary. The later that you wait, the more awkward it gets. Right. So early, I mean, that's like a lot of things in life. When there's good communication and good expectations from the beginning, everyone is on the same page all the way throughout.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Absolutely. And like we were mentioning earlier, it's not just dollar amount, right? You can discuss, okay, I only get uh 10 hour, 10 PTO days per year, but you're moving states away and your family is in another state, and you say, hey, quarterly, I would like a Friday and a Monday, right? You can pay me this base base level, but quarterly, I want a four-day weekend so that I can go and see my family. And if they see value on your resume, it would be a high to a hiring manager's discredit, right? To not make that offer with you because that costs them nothing in the grand scheme of things.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

This is exactly right. As many things as you can, well, you don't want to ask for a ton of things, but if you can negotiate with things that are easy for the hiring manager to give to you, then it's a win-win. Right. Vacation day is one of is exactly like that. Potentially remote options, that's another thing that you can negotiate for. Um, let me think what else. Oh, yeah, that's good. Anything that's a tax write-off for your company. What about what? Oh, that's good, Missy. What about moving expenses? So if you are out of town, then that gives you $2,000 to move early on. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Uh continuing education, um, loan repayment, right? Those are all things that your company can write off and or get a credit for.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

I will make the young, younger people feel feel better though. Like if you are really trying hard to get a job and you finally get a job and you get it and you get an offer and you feel like it's kind of low, take the job anyway.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

You've got to start out on the bottom of the ladder, and then if you're a good employee, you it is gonna pay for itself. You are gonna get a raise. You do not need to worry about that. It's better to take the offer rather than to negotiate and have the chance of losing the offer when you're desperate or when you've been unemployed for a while.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Get in the door.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yes, get in the door. That is the best advice for someone straight out of college is get in the door. Get in the door. You uh most of the time, I'll speak generally, but I I know that there's always an exception to the rule. Most of the time you are not married right out of college. You are on, you're single, independent, and your salary needs are so much lower, right? Um, get in the door, get experience. It's all about making connections and building relationships when you first get hired. It is not about excelling in all the projects. Those things are so important. But what is going to get you the promotion? What is going to get you recognized? What is going to get you the next role? It is about how you were received, what people's experience was with you, what they see in you, um, and your relatability.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

The other thing to think about when you're applying for jobs straight out of college or when you're young is so we you need to get in the door, pick your company wisely. So I would say it's more important straight out of college to pick the company that you want to work for than to get the specific role with a specific title that you're looking for. That's interesting. Someone give me a piece of advice. I don't know if I'm gonna get it right, but it's better to start on the bottom of a ladder that you want to get to the top of than the middle of a ladder that is not where you want to get to the top of. Get in with the company because internal promotions, the state, the statistics are showing these days that internal promotions happen a lot more frequently than external, you know, external hires. So if you get in at the ground level of a really good company, you have a lot more trajectory toward your future career path.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

This is so true. I'm actually remembering a girl that I grew up with from elementary school in college. She worked in a shop, the Kendra Scott store in Austin on South Congress, and she was just someone who would go and get jewelry. Um, she's now worked there for almost 20 years, and she is the VP of marketing globally, but she started as the store, a store clerk.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

It's the same thing that happened with me at Lush. I started as a lower level. So that's that's exactly right. So pick the company and also young people like just do not be entitled. God will get you to where you're supposed to be. Get in with a good company, get a position that is solid, that is stable, and then prove yourself and work your way up. Good work is always rewarded. I have never, in all my years of work, seen someone that's a really hard worker that, you know, is respectful and does a good job. I've never seen that person not succeed. Maybe it's not the company that they're currently at, but they will always rise to the top if you have humility, if you're a hard worker, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

So, what happens if you do accept a job because you wanted that the title and the salary was right, but it was not the right company? How long do you stay in? Because that's your first job experience. You're trying to build your resume. Can I answer a different question that's kind of similar? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

So, were you here when we had we had an employee maybe three years ago in the marketing, in the marketing area? And the person was not, the person presented as someone that was more qualified than they were. And so the person got in the role and was really in over over her head. And it was a huge struggle for her. There's a lot of shame and embarrassment, and it was also really bad for the company. So, in that type of situation, when let's say you get into a role that's you're in over your head, the best advice in that situation would be to talk directly to your boss about it and see if there can be any development, coaching, mentorship to get you to where it needs to go. But trust me, young people, you do not want to end up in that situation. It's so much better to start lower, learn everything, get all the tools so that when you get in a role, you're gonna be successful. Okay, what was the specific question that you asked, Miss?

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Oh, you're building your resume out and you have accepted a place because of the title or it was the right job, but it wasn't the right company. You're miserable, you want to leave, but you're trying to build your resume. It's only been two months, three months. When you really want out, what do you do? And that there's no questions. You quit the job and don't put it on your resume. Oh, okay. So you're opening a whole another can. I have a short stint that I don't put on my resume.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Don't put it on your resume. But short stint all these red flags on resumes. If you um if you move around a lot or if you've been someplace, I would say six months or less, don't even put on your resume. It causes more questions than answers.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Okay, and I hope you guys are knowing that um Jen has her master's in ethics. So lots of times people have that um just cognitive dissonance of is this unethical? Am I not being forthcoming? I had this role, it was just really bad. They couldn't be a reference. It was not who I was in that role. They didn't see me and who I really am. Relationships.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

A resume is not a background, a legal background check that like says everything that you did for every five minutes of your life. No, it's you telling the story of your life and you are okay to say, it's like if I asked you to tell me about yourself and you felt like you had to reveal something so private. No, you can just do the high points. Right. And if you're somewhere shorter than that period of time, you don't need to put it in there. The other thing I will advise the young people is if you start with a company or in an industry that you're not really interested in, but you do stay there a couple of years to build your resume, well, that's not even gonna actually help you build your resume anyway, because companies are looking for people who've done a role similar in an industry similar. So even though you might be, I don't know what would be a high-level role, maybe you're a director of marketing, but it's at a produce company and you want to work at Louis Vuitton, they're not gonna see that you were the director of marketing as something that is equatable to what they're looking for in their marketing team. That's why the industry or the type of industry is much more important to get in with than the title in a potentially industry that you're not interested in.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

So basically, if you can market a tangerine, um, maybe you wouldn't be the best to market a Louis Vuitton.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Even though you might be. You might be. But I'm just saying they're not gonna translate that because they're a tangerine person is not what they're looking for. Absolutely. I mean, devil wears Prada.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

It's an iconic scene. Devil wears tangerine. Where she's like, you're not dressing, the guy pulls her to the side, and he's like, Why would anyone take you seriously when you don't even look like you respect what you're doing? Right?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Mic drops. So boom.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

I don't know how to tell you about that one. Thank you, devil's Prada. Negotiation.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

So we kind of we kind of have have strayed from the negotiation part of it, but we're just giving so much priceless advice here. This is fantastic. I really love it. Um, on the negotiation side of it, so we talked about practicing some negotiation. We talked about maybe not negotiating on the salary at the beginning. Right. Negotiating, I think our our takeaway was negotiate at the beginning of the interview process rather than at the end. Yes. I guess maybe that's enough to talk about. We don't have to necessarily talk about negotiating in other areas. Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

And I think and I think to add one more thing is even if you aren't going to negotiate, which I think if you're straight out and you're just trying to get in the door, great. But it is also okay at that time to say what you're working towards. So I will accept this offer. This is my expectation for how I want to grow. And we can revisit this discussion at my annual review. Like setting the tone, right? Setting the tone and just being honest and forthcoming. So no one's blindsided. They all know. You everyone knows.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

It's all about setting the expectation. I think you can do that in terms of this is eventually where I want my salary to be, but also this is the career end. Like we interviewed a girl that we're hiring for the ops team, and she made it clear that she eventually does want to be on the HR side of things. And that was really good that she was forthcoming about that because now as we coach and develop her, we can help steer her into that area. That's fantastic. So she's saying, I'm totally happy to work for this amount that you're paying me for this role. And I really would like to get this at this other place down the line. See, I think that that is executed really well. I think so too. Yep. Do we have any questions for the audience from the audience on this one, Alex? Do we have any questions? Alex, why don't you ask a question? Oh.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

So Alex, our uh production manager. Manager. She is actually herself straight out of university. Texas AM. Texas AM. I can't do it. I think it goes like this. No, no, it's not true.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

If you're watching this for sure, I think do you see what I'm doing for you? So we're gonna have Alex, our production manager, ask us a question. And I may have mentioned this before, but Alex started as an intern. That's another really good way, young people, to get in the door of a company you really want to work for. Take an intern, either paid or unpaid position. Don't make a big fuss about the pay as an intern, but get in with a company that you want to get in with. Because Alex was an intern for us for a summer, maybe a year and a half ago. And now she's a really, really productive member of the marketing team. So we were able to see how well she worked, see what a team player she was, and see how quickly she learned things. And that opened the door. It made it really easy for her to get a job after graduation when some of her friends are still looking for jobs. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

At what point in the first year of your career should you start negotiating that next role, like a promotionalness? Okay. So Alex's question is at what point in your first year of the new job should you start negotiating? I have strong feelings. You want to go first? I actually need to relax for a second before I answer. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Um this is it's I'll take it. Okay, go. I mean, I have thoughts and I think I'm gonna piggyback off.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

That's too soon. A year, it is too soon. It is too soon. And young people, I love you, but you cannot ask for the moon right away. You do not have enough experience, you do not have enough emotional intelligence, self-awareness. I know you think you do, but you do not. Out of love, you do not. So you need to throughout that first year, learn your job really well, build a solid relationship with your manager. Your number, your two big focuses for your first year to do a good job and build a relationship with your manager because your manager is gonna be the one that is gonna get you to that next place. You can have open and honest conversations with them. And then after your first year, when you're in that first year review, that's a really good time to talk about where you want to go in your career, what you're looking at, and give your manager an opportunity to help you get there. People like helping other people. Yep. So if you tell your manager this is where I'm trying to get, he or she, if you're a good employee, is gonna try to help you get there. If you come across as asking for too much too soon, I just can't express it enough how big of a turnoff it is for your manager.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Yes. And this is a whole other discussion. Um, when I'm looking for jobs, I'm looking at a huge part of my decision for when I'm looking at a job is who is going to be my manager. Um, I want to know more about their experience than I even care to tell about my experience, right? Um, I'm interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing me. So a huge part of choosing your job is who is your manager? Because Jen, you nailed it on the head. The relationship with your manager, that's who's going to grow your career. If you have a good manager, you don't need to come to them and be like, hey, I want this role. They will have already sat you down and been like, I'm thinking about this for you. What are your thoughts? And that's when you're like, oh, I've actually been already thinking about that as well. I think your first year in, I would say your first two years in, be a sponge. Be like completely open to everything, experience, all that they the company has to offer because there's So much in within companies that new grads don't even understand because they aren't majors, they're not popular, they're not things that people go to school for. But then you get into the workplace and it's a whole career path, right? You aren't gonna know it until you've experienced it. So don't jump the gun because you're bored, or don't jump the gun because you're comfortable or you think that your job is too easy. It's exactly the level of where you're supposed to be straight out of college.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

And you don't want to get yourself in the situation we talked about a few minutes ago where you're in over your head. Yes. If you get into a leadership role before you are ready, you will, I'm sorry to say, you will fail, you will be miserable, you will make burn out. But you will also make other people's lives rough because everyone can remember a bad manager that they had. And the bad manager made makes their employers employees' lives not very well. Yes. So please be respectful of the employees that you will be managing at some point in the future and learn everything you can so that you're a good manager when the time comes and you're ready for it.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Absolutely. Man, we should talk about good managers and there's so much more to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

There's so much. Um, Alex, thank you so much for that question for your question. Um Melissa. Yes, Melissa Katie. Um Melissa Kelly. Uh-huh. Melissa Kelly, thank you for your time today. And I I hope we get to see you again on the podcast. Yes.