Vacation Negotiation during Job Offer

During my discussion and interview with Anna and Omar, I found it challenging to broach the topic of requesting time off. While I understand that it may not have been the most opportune moment to bring up vacation plans, I took a moment to compose myself and strategize what and when to communicate with them.

Word: Negotiation

It’s important to note that many of the candidates we interviewed were found to be lacking in essential negotiation skills, particularly when it came to discussing salary raises, promotions, and other employment benefits. It’s crucial for every candidate to focus on honing their negotiation skills, especially with the holiday season approaching. Without strong negotiation skills, individuals may find themselves at a disadvantage in various aspects of their lives, potentially impacting their overall well-being and ability to thrive.

Take an example from my friend, Tracy*. She is a 2013 Penn State graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Computer science. In October 2013, she got a job offer at Almac as a system developer. She had her interview following her Brazilian vacation from January to May 2014. She then negotiates her upcoming Brazilian trip to the Almac CEO and Managers, and she then lets her go after she researches the benefits of time off. Afterward, she successfully took her time off confidently and properly negotiated with the job manager and the CEO. So, let’s take a closer look.

In sum, most companies understand the upcoming trip plan by letting their managers and CEO know. Depending on how soon your trip is, some companies will require at least 3-6 months from the 1st day of the job before taking off your vacation. Others (such as government or federal jobs) will require you to complete a 12 to 24-month probationary period.

Back to my peer interview at Temple, I realized that I had just purchased an airline ticket to California for August for educational and recreational purposes. The night before my Tuesday interview, I saw “California Flight Itinerary” in my email inbox, and I was blown away by the company’s culture. Wow! It was time to research.

Here I do it the correct way to negotiate vacation time.

• Do not let the interviewer know your vacation plan until you get the job letter (in early April). Wait until the subsequent progress.
• Do not discuss benefits, including vacation or PTO, during the interview (interviewer, peer, webcam, etc.). This can interfere with your job’s seriousness instead of break or (benefits) time.
• Please, politely write a letter once you get a job acceptance letter, including a vacation plan. Double or triple-check your sentence, punctuation, spelling, and others before hitting send. A poor letter means the managers discard the letter or email for grammatical errors. That means that employers did not take this seriously.

Example of a good and bad email sent to Anna, Omar, and Devon (the CEO) after offering me a job acceptance letter.

Good email example:

Bad email example:

Why this email is bad:

• Telling the CEO and manager about the vacation plan with excitement.
  • I asked, “You are too excited for a vacation, instead of focusing on work, huh?”
  • It is not the time to be excited for a vacation to the CEO and manager until the time comes and to properly accrue vacation days.
• Passive voice, “My flight has been confirmed.” is a no-no in professorial email. Say, “I confirmed my flight.” is an active voice.
  • Passive voice in a professorial email is hard to read and is confusing.
• Too much detailed plan can waste their manager’s plan.
  • Better to have a schedule to talk about a vacation in person, not on an email.
• The phrase, “WooHoo!!!” is an another unprofessional expression, along with the exclamation mark. The exclamation mark is generally refers to exaggerate someone. Save them in your personal email and to chat with friends/family.
  • Co-workers, managers, and CEO doesn’t like the overused over exaggerative expression, such as “WooHoo!!!” Sounds weird.
• The message, “…I will appreciate it. Will you be okay for me to accrue 5 days off, please? I have to.” is utterly insulting to both employees and employers. Why?
  • “I have to…” refers to pressuring into the fun-filled events you loved. It is unprofessional phrase, isn’t it?
  • It is forcing the manager/co-workers to overwork and to feeling sorry/bad about “perform something” without the manager’s expressed permission.
  • It is like asking for time off. Don’t ask me for your time off either.
  • Mostly than not, I would like to deny it and instead opt for a request by letting me know.
• The proper noun, “grand canyon” must be capitalized.
  • Proper noun is a specific place, person, thing, individual.
  • Examples: Grand Canyon, California, San Francisco, Uncle John, United Airlines, Acer, Septa, August.
• The detail of itinerary, “see the grand canyon, Los Angeles, San Francisco, shopping, seeing tours” are both vague and are confusing (Grammar errors).
  • Keep it general, such as a time frame of your vacation days and talk in person about vacation plans.
  • “Seeing tours” doesn’t make sense. “Tours” are verbs, not nouns. Better to say, “We will tour at Grand Canyon.”
  • “See” and “Shopping” are faulty parallelism. Better to write “Seeing” and “Shopping” at the same sentence.
• Asking for time off is bad for both the manager and the CEO.
  • It gave employers a negative impression. It is better to let them know in advance and to find a good time to talk in person about upcoming plans.

Tips:

• Always sent thank you letters within 24 hours after the interview.
• When discussing vacation plans, don’t include them in the thank you letter. The thank-you letter should note that you generally received an excellent intention/overall work culture and the workday in the company you applied.
  • Wait until you receive a job offer.
  • Schedule a time to talk to the managers, etc.
• Don’t give out detailed vacation plans. Better to stick with the general plan until the time comes.
• This leaves co-workers will have a back-up plans when they are available to rotate.
• Be patient and think of alternatives rather than expectation. There are some situations in which the job offer, start date, and probationary period can change.
• Remember: Do not write a bad email example (or similar) above for vacation request, salary raise, promotion, benefits, etc. Always, write a positive email example on the 1st example above.

Warnings:

• Do not complain about offers you did not receive. Negotiate both politely and professionally, state that you did all your work/research to show appreciation.

Why negotiation?

Negotiation skills are something everyone must include in the skills you need not only for the jobs, but you will also use them at home, parents, friendships, relationships, lawyers, managers, others. Without negotiation skills, life will suffer and doesn’t exist.