Loyalty or Leverage? How to Use Another Job Offer to Negotiate Your Salary

Listen & follow The Money with Katie Show: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

In this week’s Rich Girl Roundup, Rich Girl Kelly S. asks, “Any resources for using a job offer to leverage more money in your current position? Is this a thing?” Katie and Henah share some suggestions, considerations, and a template for how to approach the conversation.

Rich Girl Roundup is Money with Katie’s weekly segment where Katie and her Executive Producer Henah answer your burning money questions. Each month, we’ll put out a call for questions on her Instagram (@moneywithkatie). New episodes every week.

RICH GIRL NATION IS HERE. GRAB YOUR COPY.

THE 2025 MONEY WITH KATIE WEALTH PLANNER IS LIVE—GET YOURS NOW.

Our show is a production of Morning Brew and is produced by Henah Velez and Katie Gatti Tassin, with our audio engineering and sound design from Nick Torres. Devin Emery is President of Morning Brew content and additional fact checking comes from Scott Wilson.

—

Mentioned in the Episode

• The Money with Katie Show episode on negotiation with Kathryn Valentine

• “How to use a new job offer to re-negotiate your current salary” (Glassdoor)

• Katie’s recommended script “Hi, [Boss]. Thanks for meeting with me. I wanted to share that [Company Here, if interested] had reached out to me and were interested in talking, so I heard them out. I was super surprised, but they offered me $[XYZ Big Gurl Money] to come work for them—funny enough, the experience and job title are pretty much identical. But between you and me, honestly, I’d rather stay here because I see a lot of growth potential and I love the work I’m doing here, and I can see myself being here for a long time. But I also have to be realistic and this is a [XYZ]% pay bump that feels silly to turn down. What do you think?”

• The Money with Katie Show episode on “How We Make Working in America Better”

• UnitedHealth CEO made $142m last year (Minnesota Star Tribune)

Subscribe to the Money with Katie newsletter

Katie:

Welcome back to the Rich Girl Roundup weekly discussion of the Money with Katie Show. I’m Katie Gatti Tassin, and on Mondays my executive producer, Henah, and I use this segment to talk through listener questions, money stories, and more right after a quick break.

Before we get into it, this week’s upcoming main episode is about money anxiety, so fun, and how sometimes paradoxically, you’ll actually have more money anxiety as you earn more. I even met with a therapist and interviewed this person who works exclusively with ultra-high net worth clients to understand what unique patterns accompany excessive wealth. And I think the parallels between both his patients and just like the everyday person who is accumulating income and wealth at a rate that they might be unprepared for are illuminating. But okay, onto the roundup Henah, what are we talking about today?

Henah:

So this week’s question came from Rich Girl Kelly S. She said, quote, “Do you have any resources for using a job offer to leverage more money in your current position? This is a thing. Has anyone successfully pulled this off without pissing off your superior regardless of the income?”

Katie:

No. Just kidding.

Henah:

“I have a potential offer coming in for upwards of 50% more (heyo) than what I’m currently making in my position. Job title, skills, and experience are virtually the same. I like where I currently work, but I know that I’m underpaid and I want to stay where I’m at. But loyalty doesn’t pay the bills as you already know. I already have a four-page overview of why I’m worth this amount, which I’ll use in conjunction with the offer once I receive it.”

So we often talk about getting a higher income as one of the levers in our control on the show. So this felt really worthwhile to pair with this week’s topic. So Katie, where did you want to start?

Katie:

Well, I personally love this approach. I think—

Henah:

Duly noted, Katie.

Katie:

It acts as like a force simplifier of the issue. So Kelly mentioned that she has this four page document where she’s outlined all the reasons that she is worth the extra money, which obviously is great, but as soon as you have another offer from an outside source, it’s like you kind of don’t even have to build the complicated case anymore, because you just have proof that you deserve to be paid more. So it’s a little bit like a corporate equivalent of a thinly veiled threat, which I think is fun.

Henah:

Has this ever happened to you?

Katie:

It has, but in my case, the jump from my current salary at my old employer to the new offer that I had gotten was so high that—the former company offered to bump me a little bit, but I was kind of ready to move on, so I didn’t feel all that incentivized to stay. Although I will say, I recently heard a funny money story in the wild from a friend of a friend. It kind of came to mind immediately when we got this email because I think it’s actually a perfect template for how to handle this. So this person’s story does influence my advice here.

So my friend works for this ad agency and she says that there’s a gal there who is just absurdly talented, one of those people where you kind of don’t know how they do what they do, they’re just completely gifted. And one of their clients actually tried to poach her. So they literally offered her double her current salary and the job would be fully remote. She’s currently in the office, but this individual is so, what I call pathologically ambitious, that she was so concerned about the career ramifications of not working full-time in an office with her coworkers that she just went to her boss at the ad agency and she told them what was happening and basically said, I feel like I have so much growth opportunity here. I am very happy here, but they have made me this offer that I feel like I almost can’t refuse, but I want to stay here. So what should we do? Nailed it. Mwah!

Henah:

Did they meet her?

Katie:

I don’t think they were able to do as much, because doubling is obviously pretty extreme. This client, I mean, it was a big corporate client that just has unlimited funds and then a small local ad agency. So I don’t think that they could double it, but I know that they made a good faith effort at increasing, giving her a path forward that would eventually probably be able to get her there and a salary increase in the meantime. And I think she’s pretty happy with where they landed and what ended up happening. Yeah. What about you? Have you ever leveraged a new offer successfully to stay where you were?

Henah:

So I didn’t leverage a new offer, but I did negotiate a substantial 25% raise without an offer. And to be fair, Katie helped me with this offer.

Katie:

I’m like, listener note, she was not negotiating with me, so it’s not like she was asking me for the 25%.

Henah:

Well, to be fair, actually, the first time I negotiated was with you and we talked about this story on the air where you were like, you use my own advice against me. That was a 30% increase. I was really happy about that.

Katie:

From your former, for your former job.

Henah:

From my former job, and in my current job where I’m not negotiating with you, but you were advocating for me, we were able to get another 25%, which you had one piece of advice that you said that I thought was fantastic, and it was from the Kathryn Valentine negotiation episode that we did, which you were say all of the things and then just stop talking, don’t sabotage yourself. And I remember wanting to be like, but if you can’t, you’ll need halfway. And I remember being like, no, don’t do it. Just write it down, but do not say anything.

Katie:

It’s so hard. It’s so hard. But it worked, not to start negotiating against yourself. To kind of backtrack on the Kathryn Valentine advice, this was an episode we did at the beginning of this year of 2024, about negotiation advice that factors in gender bias. And one of Kathryn’s tips was most women, because they are more likely to feel as though they need to put everyone at ease and they don’t want to be seen as ungrateful, and it’s more likely to be associated with a feminine quality that you’re kind of a people pleaser, that you want to keep the peace that you’ll make your case for why you deserve more money, or you will say, hey, I have this new offer.

Then instead of just letting it hang there and allowing the other person to fill the space and respond how they want to, you’ll start negotiating against yourself. But I totally understand that’s so unreasonable, and I would be happy with just a little bit though, or whatever we can do, but it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not a deal breaker. You just don’t go there. You just stop talking and it works. It works well. It worked for Henah.

Henah:

Yeah, I’ve never actually stayed at a former place, but it also reminded me in the question, there were reasons that I wanted to move on from previous jobs and I couldn’t tell if she had interviewed for another job or it kind of fell in her lap.

The other thing I would just ask her to think about for herself is, did she have any interest in leaving? And maybe it’s worth looking into that a little bit more to think about how your employer is going to react if they do decide to raise your compensation, but they’re not thrilled about it. So I read this piece on Glassdoor that said, don’t use an external offer as a negotiation bluff if you’re not prepared to follow through with it, because it’s kind of your tell. And then your boss knows that you’re potentially checked out that you’re looking for a new role. And then it could leave a sour taste in their mouth of like, well, now you’re here, but we’re not really thrilled to have you. So that’s the other thing.

And then also just how long you’ve been at the job. I don’t think she mentioned if it’s been three years or three months. So it might feel a little bit more uncomfortable if you’re like, I’ve been in this role for three months and I think I deserve 25% more.

Katie:

Totally. That’s a really good point. I hadn’t thought about the timing of it, of if you just kind of got there. Yeah, there are a lot of factors that I think could make that feel a little bit dicey, but she did mention she’s underpaid. She did mention that she was able to put together this extensive, comprehensive document outlining all the reasons she deserves more. So I feel like I am kind of drawing, I’m connecting the dots that she’s probably been, it’s—

Henah:

Not like a three-month thing.

Katie:

Yeah. She’s probably been there for a while. She’s probably been a pretty valuable player for a while, and she now has reason to believe that she’s not being paid adequately. So to your point though about leaving a sour taste in the mouth, this is why I love that just so happened to get that anecdote from a friend. I think what I probably say, and I want to know how this strikes you, is like, hey, insert boss’s name here. Thanks for meeting with me. I wanted to share that whether you want to disclose the company or not is up to you. I probably would if it were a company that I felt like was, I don’t know, impressive or..

Henah:

Oh, that’s interesting. I feel the opposite.

Katie:

When I did this, I did say where I was considering going. It wasn’t a competitor, it was in a completely different industry, but I did disclose who I was talking about.

Henah:

I feel the opposite, but continue. I guess we could put this kind of template in the show notes, but what would be your little spiel?

Katie:

Yeah, so I would say thanks for meeting with me. I wanted to share that X, Y, Z company has reached out to me. We’re super interested in talking. So I heard them out. I was super surprised, but they offered me X, Y, z, big girl money to come work for them. And funny enough, the experience and job title are pretty much identical, but honestly, and this is where you kind of build the rapport, but honestly, between you and me, I would much rather stay here. I see a lot of growth potential here. I love the work I’m doing here. You can maybe name drop some specific things you’ve worked on, some initiatives you’re excited about, and I can see myself being here for a long time, but I also have to be realistic. And this is a 50% pay bump and it feels silly for me to not even consider that. So what do you think?

And then see what they say. And hopefully any manager who’s like worth their salt will be like, okay, let’s see what we can do. Assuming they want to keep you. Now, a couple things to highlight. You already mentioned make sure that you actually want to stay. Let’s make sure that those things are actually true, that you do see growth potential, that you are excited about working there, that you do want to stay for a long time, assuming all of those things are true. I think it’s totally fair game to play those cards, and I think that it could be potentially an opportunity if there are projects or things at work that you would like to be doing more of.

And maybe they can’t afford to give you a crazy pay bump. Obviously what Catherine Valentine would say if she was here is probably like, oh, well, can you negotiate for a one-time bonus? Or in this case, can you negotiate for changing the types of things that you work on such that you would now be in a more favorable position in the future to earn more? If you find that your time is getting sucked up right now by a lot of things that you just don’t want to be doing, can you use this as an opportunity to make your job more pleasant and give that as like, well, I understand if they tell you that they really can’t budge at all on the finances, then there are potentially some other avenues you can explore.

Henah:

There’s a couple other things that I just wanted to point out is I think a lot of times you hear an increased number and you think, oh, the opportunity is going to be so much more money, but it’s like, is the opportunity really better? It might just be easier to stay in your current role, but get more flexibility.

So for example, if I got offered $30,000, but it meant I had to go in every single day, I’d be like, no dog, I’m good. I have so much flexibility. We have unlimited PTO, it’s remote. And for me, that’s something I want, right? If she wants to be in the office to your friend’s coworker, I totally get that, but I just want to make sure that it’s something that they’re thinking through, not just the number that they’re being offered, but what are the other benefits and the flexibility that it’ll add to your life?

And two other things would be, do you foresee staying for a substantial length of time if they do say yes, or is this going to be, I took the pay bump that they offered me, but then I want to dip two months after that? That may not leave the best taste in their mouth. But if they call your bluff so to speak, are you prepared to walk away? If they say no, are you actually going to say yes to the other offer? So it’s just something that I think only you will know. Only you, Kelly, will know if that is something that you’re able to do or your boss would understand, and hopefully your boss would advocate for you and understand that this is as much about your professional journey as it is for the company. But it’s just something I’d want to mention before you go balls to the wall of like, this is what I’m asking for.

Katie:

Anytime someone finds themself in this position, I think there are only ever two real reasons. One is that you just want to make more money. You’re happy where you are, but you want to be paid more to do the same thing. And so you can use an external offer in that way, but then there are sometimes I think that you feel like you should try to leverage an external offer to earn more in your current job without maybe really thinking through whether if they accept it, you’re going to be like, oh, well hold on though. Now I’m realizing in retrospect that I kind wanted to leave.

And so I know that you mentioned this, but I just want to double down on that fact that make sure in the ever rational weighing of pros and cons of these two things that you’re also consulting, just your intuition, your own desire, what is it that you really want to do? Because it might not be the one that on the pro list makes the most sense, but you will know, I think, in your gut, which one you are feeling more pulled to. And for me, it’s been really difficult in the past to make decisions just based on numbers because sometimes my gut is telling me I’d rather I just have an inexplicable desire to do something else, and even though it may not be the most profitable path, it’s what I know I want to do. And so I think that there’s also room for that too.

Henah:

It actually just reminded me, I have a friend who, we’ve talked about this on the show before that she wasn’t really getting an increase this year. And I said, well, do you want to look elsewhere? And she said, no, because six months from now I’m going to have a baby ideally, and they have six months of paid family leave. And I think that’s another thing that if that’s something that’s on your radar, for example, our company covers IVF, if that’s a thing that I might need in two years, that’s something to keep in mind. So again, I would just kind of emphasize the fact that it may not just be about the money that’s on the table and more about in the, what did you call it, the corporate nanny state, to think about all the things.

Katie:

U-S-A-U-S-A.

Yeah, I have a friend actually who I was talking to about this. He got offered, he works in maintenance planning and for an airline, and he was telling me that they offered him, I think his schedule right now, he doesn’t work on, I think he works Saturdays. So his weekend is Sunday, Monday. Those are the two days he has off, and he works daytime shifts. But in those types of jobs, there are night shifts they’d need people that are working overnight, and they had offered him a promotion and a raise, but with that, he would’ve had to work, I can’t remember how many nights a week, but he would have to do some overnight shifts, and we were just kind of penciling out the money. It sounded really good. The increase itself sounded like, oh, well, yeah, that’s a step up, right? That’s unquestionably a step forward in your career.

But after we talked it through, I was like, I’m not sure an extra, I don’t know what it was, 700 or $800 a month post-tax is worth permanently screwing up your sleep schedule and changing your lifestyle that radically. And so he just turned it down. He was like, appreciate it. But he kind of took it as an opportunity to be like, I actually see my career going in this direction and I am so appreciative that you considered me for this and I’m so grateful for the opportunity, but I have to keep working toward x, y, Z goal. And I don’t know that this gets me closer to that graceful ways to turn things away if you need to.

Henah:

Yeah, I was just reading a cover piece. I didn’t get to read the whole thing, just the headline that there’s a number of a growing number of people who will get offered a promotion and turn it down because the side hustle money that they have is enough for them to be like, I don’t want the extra responsibility. I’m good with where I am.

Katie:

Mmm.

Henah:

I make money on the side. I don’t need to think about that. And so that kind of reminds me of, again, balancing what you want your life to be versus your, what did you call it? Pathological aspirations. Pathologically ambitious. Oh, pathologically ambitious. There it is. You ready for a money story?

Katie:

I say that as someone who was, might still be, but working through that in therapy. Yes, I’m ready for a money story. Let’s go.

Henah:

Okay, great. So this was an email we received. They requested to remain anonymous, but it was in a response to the episode we did called How We Make Working in America Better. And they said that that episode really resonated with them. So we’ll link it in the show notes, not to brag, but I think it was a great episode.

So they said, I work for a Fortune 20 company, and your recent episode connected some critical dots for me. I’ve been with this company for almost three years, and every six months we go through a round of reductions in forces, which is called RIFs. Up to this point. It was always lower performing people who were let go, but we recently went through a round that was deep, widespread and unrelated to performance. I’m a mid-level white collar professional, and I consistently receive strong performance reviews, but I have been personally RIF’D by two other companies

This month when the latest round of RIFs was announced, there was no announcement or acknowledgement of any kind, and I was not impacted, and I learned about them by scrolling through Reddit. It was like leaving my house after a hurricane and surveying the damage. I worked with people across the enterprise and I know many people that are impacted. So it never made sense to me until I listen to your podcast. It’s why companies do this as a normal course of business. I understand that there are times when companies need lay people off as market conditions necessitate, but it’s always felt that my company lays people off as a way to artificially inflate the quarterly earnings. Now I understand the powerful tax incentives that reward that behavior.

So this is my favorite part. They said, I gave my notice two weeks ago and I decided to build my own consulting practice. The straw that broke—that’s what I was like, Yes! The straw that broke the camel’s back was finding out that our CEO cashed out $17 million in stock within days of laying off thousands of people.

Katie:

Seriously, I can’t deal. Nope.

Henah:

He said, thank you.

Katie:

Immediately jail.

Henah:

Thank you for your show. Thank you for connecting the dots for me. I appreciate the work that you do. What say you?

Katie:

Well, this is what say me: I will say that this is a powerful story in light of our conversation today since one of the core messages in the Hamilton Nolan interview that was in that episode where we talked about these RIFs and how they work is that workplaces without unions are basically authoritarian states. There’s nothing democratic about that. Your boss says jump, you say how high, under the threat of termination, which means you have to play these little semantics mind games that you and I just spent 20 minutes talking about, say this instead of that. So you don’t leave a bad taste in their mouth. Oh, you don’t want to piss anybody off because it’s like you have so little control. You have to really be careful to not ruffle feathers because there is an inherent power imbalance.

And I think that was the major takeaway from that episode was that unions restore some level of balance to the dynamics between the people that are in charge and the people that own everything and the people that have to labor for money.

So I think that’s really notable. The other thing that I’ll say based on this comment about finding out our CEO cashed out 17 million in stock within days of laying thousands of people off—**** that person, we can bleep that out. But respectfully **** that. Secondly, this is in a theme in the essay that I wrote for this week, which is basically about the fact that whenever we talk about things like universal basic income or universal basic services as we did with Grace Blakeley a couple of weeks ago, there is always a concern that like, oh, well people are going to be, if you give people the opportunity to be parasites, they’re going to take it. If you give people something for free, they’re going to leech off society. Dog. You want to talk about a leech off society? You’re laying off thousands of people and taking $17 million in stock. You want to ask me how much the UnitedHealthcare CEO made in 2021 at the height of a global health crisis? Ask me. You’ll never guess.

Henah:

Can I guess?

Katie:

Please.

Henah:

$150 million.

Katie:

So close.

Henah:

Really?

Katie:

Yeah. $142 million.

Henah:

Holy crap. I tried to pick the most exorbitant number.

Katie:

In the middle of a pandemic. When people are unemployed, they’re losing their healthcare, they’re dying, they’re being buried under medical bills. This guy made $140 million. I’m like, that is what it looks like to leech off society. That’s what it looks like to be a parasite.

Alright, on that note, I guess that’s all for this week’s Rich Girl roundup, but we’ll see you on Wednesday to talk about money anxiety being correlated with getting more of it.

Henah:

Unless you’re the CEO of UnitedHealthcare…

Katie:

In which case, keep your anxiety, you stupid m—no, just kidding.