Started new job, have a better offer. Renegotiate or leave early?

Question

After working for a small ski resort for 3 years with no room for advancement I decided it was time to move on. I searched for a couple of months for something that I would enjoy as much and ultimately couldn't find something for another resort. Instead, I accepted a job for a hotel company (job A). The hotel group is great and theres a ton of potential to make this role really awesome. Unfortunately the salary came in 6k under what I was hoping for but after a lot of negotiations back and forth they agreed to a 6 month review to bump my salary up a little bit They also don't offer health insurance so while they agreed to pay a small insurance stipend, I am still taking a hit to my bottom line pay.

The day before I started job A I was approached by a ski resort with a job opening that was slightly better than my previous resort job. I decided to interview just in case and found out the job B could pay a good amount more than job A, possibly up to 15K more and they offer health insurance. It seems pretty promising that I will get an offer and I really thought I wanted to stay in the ski industry.

Now I am torn on what to do - I really like job A despite it not being a ski resort. The people seem awesome and I get a good vibe already. I will have a lot of freedom in this role plus there is a lot of potential with this company to grow and likely a good future for advancing my career. On the other hand, Job B would pay more immediately, and would keep me in the ski industry but there's nowhere to move up in the company so I would likely be capped on what I could do.

If I get this offer should I say anything to job A? Is it too late to negotiate my salary more and stay? If I do decide to leave for job B, what should I tell job A? I don't want to be unprofessional but it would be hard to turn down 15k more a year...

Answer 1

One of the big sticking points for me on this is that you had attempted to negotiate with Job A to get a salary that worked better for you and, more or less, accepted less than you wanted. I suspect you had no other offers at the time and thus were mostly negotiating from a weaker position.

One of my big peeves on salary is that employees should be paid what they're worth based upon their level of experience and the responsibilities they will take on. This includes benefits like health insurance. The notion that you needed to negotiate for a health insurance stipend is a red flag to me (assuming you are in the US, that sort of benefit is mandatory by the ACA). It's also a red flag to me that you're seeing a significant pay cut, which I assume was something you negotiated about.

So to your original question:

If I get this offer should I say anything to job A? Is it too late to negotiate my salary more and stay? If I do decide to leave for job B, what should I tell job A? I don't want to be unprofessional but it would be hard to turn down 15k more a year...

• Negotiations on the matter with Job A are closed, you can't pit them against each other and look professional in any way that I can see.
• Barring some contract you signed upon accepting Job A, you can say whatever you'd like. You can be honest and inform them that you received a much better offer (no specific details, you don't want to passively suggest that you want to bring them back to negotiations); this can be helpful to let them know the costs associated with low-balling with pay and benefits. You can also choose to be more evasive and simply say whatever's conducive to suggest you need to leave. I would still recommend being professional with 2 weeks notice.

Personally, I don't feel that your leaving is unprofessional. I feel like Job A low-balled you with pay and there are costs inherent in doing that; mainly higher turnover. Provided you don't overtly burn bridges on leaving, you may be able to return to the company should Job B not work out for you.

Answer 2

It is too late to negotiate an higher salary with job A (and I think you will not get the same amount of job B even after the six months review) and given that you just started I'd leave early and take the job B if you are willing to fall back in the same situation of the first ski resort (so, again, no room for advancement) but with an higher pay.

I don't think you need to tell anything to job A about job B if you decide to stay with job A, but if you decide to leave job A the you can leave easily if you have a working trial period in which both you and the employer can rescind the contract for any reason and without any notice period: just sign for job B, go to your boss and say that this is your last day. If he ask why, just state that you don't see you fit well in the position.
This however depend on where you work, the local law and the contract you signed.

Else you just hand your notice period and if they ask why and you don't want to tell the truth (the higher pay), you can simply state unexpected personal problems made you change your priorities without adding any more details.

And since the employer has no right to ask about your personal problems, if he ask about them, a "I don't want to talk about this" is a valid answer. Or you can use any excuses you can think of as far as you don't make up a story stupidly complicated and not credible. Even a "I will work closer to home" is a good way to answer to the question.