Hiring managers usually leave some wiggle room in their initial offer anticipating you to ask for more. If you take the first offer, you could be leaving thousands of dollars on the table. And if you don’t negotiate when you first get a job offer, it could be harder to earn more down the line.
If your new employer only typically increases salaries by 2 or 3 percent per year, it could take years for your salary to catch up to the point you could have started at in the first place. And if you sell yourself short, your salary could suffer not just in this job, but in future ones too. If you can’t negotiate monetary compensation, ask about vacation days, remote work, or other add-ons that could make the role worth it for you even if you can’t max out the salary range for the job.