Something to readCompensation
Ten rules for negotiating a job offer
A 22-minute essay on treating a job offer as a deal, from the very first call
Why it’s worth your time
Haseeb Qureshi's essay is for the moment an offer call feels like the finish line of a search, which is often when it's easiest to give away your position. He lays out how to keep the door open, protect what you know and buy time, with lines you can borrow. A first negotiation can feel much less like asking for a favor afterwards.
What to say on the first offer call
The essay · 22 min · Free
How to get it
Opens their site. We don’t copy it here; we’d rather they get the read.
- Read the essay.
Look for the section on protecting information, which includes the words he suggests for the moment the recruiter asks what you think, and the part on exploding offers if you've been given a day or two to answer.
- Write your first-call reply before the phone rings.
Two or three sentences: thanks, real enthusiasm for the team or the problem, and that you'd like to look over the full details before discussing them. After the call, send a short email confirming everything you heard.
Good moments for this: the day an offer call gets bookedwhen an offer comes with a 48-hour deadlinebefore you reply to a recruiter's number
Keep going with Truest
Small actions add up. Truest helps you find the next thing worth doing, make the space to do it, and keep a record of your progress. It’s a private place to work on your career, and it’s yours, not your employer’s.
- It actually happensWe’ll put it on your calendar and remind you before it starts.
- A living page in your VaultKeep it as one page you add to, next to your reviews and your files.
- It’s yours to keepEach thing you do is saved to your private record, there when your next review or job search comes around.
Anything else we can help you with this week?
Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Qureshi writes from a tech hiring market where he was juggling several offers at once. With one offer and a slow market, protecting information and staying positive still help; you just have less behind you when you push.
What might make this harder
Qureshi's advice is to avoid sharing it. A number of US states and cities restrict employers from asking, so check the rules where you live. If you do answer, give the whole package and say you're looking for a step up.
Questions people ask
What are Haseeb Qureshi's ten rules for negotiating?
Getting everything in writing, keeping the door open, protecting information, staying positive, not being the only decision maker and having alternatives come first. The rest, in his second part, are giving reasons, caring about more than money, understanding what the company values and being winnable.
Should you always negotiate a job offer?
Qureshi says yes, and that across hundreds of offers he saw at App Academy, only once or twice was one rescinded during a negotiation. Being polite and specific tends to keep the risk low.
What do I say when a recruiter asks what I think of the offer?
Thank them, say you're excited about the team, and say you'd like to review the details before discussing them, without reacting to the number. Then confirm what you heard by email.
Is there a second part?
Yes. How Not to Bomb Your Offer Negotiation, on the same site, covers the back-and-forth and the remaining rules.
What it says, and how it holds up
Haseeb Qureshi objects early on to the phrase “getting a job”, which he says casts the company as a gatekeeper. His frame instead is that you're selling your labor and companies are bidding for it, so an offer is the start of a deal rather than a prize. Nearly everything in it is about not giving away your position before that deal is done.
He wrote it in 2016, after a post about his own search, which ended with eight offers and a job at Airbnb, spread widely. He had been a professional poker player and then an instructor at App Academy, a coding school, and the essay sounds like both: punchy, profane in places, full of lines to say out loud. He's also upfront about its limits. He says he isn't an expert, that advice for an Asian man in Silicon Valley may not suit a Black woman in Birmingham, Alabama, and that negotiation rewards people for being good at negotiating, which he calls absurd but real. He also warns against letting fear of discrimination stop you negotiating at all.
Some of it reads as its moment. The essay comes out of US tech hiring in 2016, and its examples come from that market, though he offers the rules as something anyone can learn. Its advice not to reveal your current pay meets a question that some US states and cities now limit employers from asking. The tone assumes a candidate with options, and you may want to soften the scripts for a smaller company or a first job. What holds up best is the closing turn, where he asks you to work out what drives employers and to care about what they want. If you'll be working with the people across the table for years, that part may matter as much as the number.
Raises and promotions inside your current job tend to run on different logic. There's no auction to run, and other offers can sour a relationship you'll keep. There, it often helps more to understand how pay decisions get made where you are, and to ask your manager what your work would need to look like for the company to be glad to pay you more. This explains how things usually work; it isn't financial, tax or legal advice for your situation.
You might like
More in Compensation
See allRead this alongside your role page
Tell Truest what you’re dealing with
We read every one, and we write guides for the things that come up most. Leave your email if you’d like to hear when we do.
Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.