# Offer



## EdinNO (Sep 19, 2006)

If someone offered you a job over the phone (after several interviews) and matched your present salary, but stated "I'm very flexible", then, when you went in to discuss it told you he couldn't come up on the offer, how would you handle that? Why would someone do that? Any thoughts?

Ed


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## Road Guy (Sep 19, 2006)

the person who made you an offer is now stating that they can no longer pay that amount???

just want to make sure i have that part right first?


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## EdinNO (Sep 19, 2006)

Deleted


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## redrum (Sep 19, 2006)

let them know you have the other options, I dont know why people would do that?

maybe the guy used to sell cars and figured you would jump at it?

it doesnt make sense, because a few percent here and there shouldnt matter.


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## EdinNO (Sep 19, 2006)

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## Road Guy (Sep 19, 2006)

how is your industry set up billing wise?

are most jobs lump sum or cost +fixed fee? If most of your work is lump sum, then thats why they want to low ball, because they get to keep the rest.

If its fixed fee it shouldnt matter, so long as you can be billable. In our work we may show a Senior Engineer rate of $50/hour, but we can only invoice the client for the actual salary.

Shouldnt there be a relative large amount of work in NO due to katrina clean up? or is most of that work pure infastructure?

But if the cost isnt too bad, doing something new and or challenging can have its own benefits, see if they can write into the offer letter something else, such as a bonus, or something..


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## EdinNO (Sep 19, 2006)

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## Road Guy (Sep 19, 2006)

sorry...

When we do fee estimates for a client on a cost+fixed fee contract, we use an average company rate (includes people in NY making much more than say me in Georgia)for each engineer. So the rates we use are a little higher than what the people in our office make, so for the $50/hour we might use for a senior engineer, that $50 goes into the "spreadsheet" with the # of hours associated with the task. But in our office the guy actually doing the work might only make $30/ hour. We can only bill what they actually make, the $30 / hour.

What it does is give us more hours that we can charge to that task, but the total contract amount stays the same.

Alot of times govt's use the cost + fixed fee, for us, it would be the "Cost" $30/hour plus most DOT's fixed fee is around 10% to 12%. So we can at most only make a 12% profit on what the emplyee is getting billed out at. Usually we build into the cost an overhead rate which is also audited and that is reimbursed as well.

I have had one lump sum project so far, where we could bill a "rate table" and say we had 5 engineers working who make an average of $50/hour, and thats what we would invoice, we consider them to be "gravy trains" because if you are efficient you can make above the 12% profit, off course if your not, then you ultimatly dont get to be a PM anymore :true:


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## EdinNO (Sep 19, 2006)

RG,

I went back and edited my post, probably while you wrote yours because I thought I understood. Now I'm not sure.

Let's say the overhead of a person is considered 30% above his hourly rate. So, if he makes $35 per hour, his actual cost is $45.50. Does that mean you bill $45.50 plus 12% above that (the fee) which comes out to $50.96 per hour?

Are these realistic numbers? Man, are rates that low? Are fixed fees that low? I need to vacate this line of work if so. No offense intended, but auto mechanics make more money.

Ed


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## Road Guy (Sep 19, 2006)

our "aprox" overhead is around 190% so if an engineer makes:

$30/hour

We bill at around $87.6 / hour.

Then we add the 12% fixed fee.

So thats why engineering office managers try and minimize actual overhead , because thats the only real tool they have to make extra money.

reminds me I need to go visit the supply cabinet.....


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## EdinNO (Sep 19, 2006)

Good points sapper- except for the one about the boss. The only person he answers to is God. The guy I am dealing with owns the company.

I hadn't considered that maybe his flexibility reference was to benefits and/or working hours. That's why I posted the question- because I thought there could be other ways of looking at it.

Thanks for the ideas.

Ed


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## FusionWhite (Sep 19, 2006)

To be honest after what you've told us about this encounter I would be a little leary. If this guy is flaking out on you during the interview process and hes the owner of the company that doesnt leave you much room to manuver if this doesnt work out.


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## EdinNO (Sep 19, 2006)

Deleted


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## TouchDown (Sep 19, 2006)

Are there other tangibles that could be up for "flexibility"?

ie. more vacation, option to be partner in company after 2 years, etc. which would make it more lucritive over time.

If you are really into this, tell him that you are taking the job, because it's what you want, but that you're interested in more if you prove yourself. Back up your talk and see where it leads you.

If it's a small company, you might be able to work your way up in rank over time, but he may want to see what you've got before stepping up to the bar with $$$.

The whole "flexible" comment is quite confusing. Maybe he rethought it after he said it (because he was impressed with you in the interview), but then wanted to pull back to see how it worked out, since you are new to it.

If that's the case, then after you have worked there for a short time, he may be more willing to discuss down the road, but you might want to know what the opportunity is in the future for raises / etc. I think that's a reasonable question.


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## EdinNO (Sep 19, 2006)

Deleted


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## Slugger926 (Sep 20, 2006)

Be sure that you get everything in writing. I failed to do that with my second job out of school, and was low balled by $10K, no benifits such as 401K that was promised, and the work hours expected was 16 hours per day/7days per week. That was 10 years ago, and I am still at my 3rd job.

My first job was with a small firm that couldn't afford anything over burger flipping wages, and they were upfront about giving out jobs to recent college grads while they kept looking for a long term job. Everyone benifted since the bigger jobs always want at least a year of experience.


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## Road Guy (Sep 20, 2006)

well congrats and good luck

it stil wont help the Saints out this coming Monday Night though :BK:


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## EdinNO (Sep 20, 2006)

I'm excited about the game! It will be awesome! Too bad I didn't get around to buying tickets.

The Saints are so hard to figure. They like to give teams who are 0 and something their first win most years, yet they can also hang with the best of teams on a given day.

Hopefully it will be an exciting hard-played game!

Ed


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## Road Guy (Sep 20, 2006)

I hope they lay down like the dogs that they are B)

just kidding, yeah, yeah good close game, no injuries, good sportsmanlikeness and all that jazz.......


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