Salary negotiations at US home institution based on overseas offer, strategy?

[tech0815]

Hi all, I am a tenured full professor in engineering at a 100+ ranked state university in the Northeastern US. I have received a job offer from a European university, I am a citizen of that country but I do not want to go back necessarily, mainly for family reasons. The offer has a very generous startup package, but lower salary than my current one (this is still a top salary compared to a typical faculty salary in that country). As my current full professor salary is one of the lowest in our department, is there a good strategy to use that offer to negotiate a higher salary at my home institution? What is your experience in negotiating based on international offers? Any advice you may want to share?

[youllneverwalkalone]

I am in Europe myself and don't have any experience with the US academic market, so I am afraid I have no advice to you.

One thing I don't get from reading your post - and that you may want to clarify - is whether there is any preferred outcome to this process. Are you genuinely considering that job in your home country, or did you just apply to get more leverage with your current institution?

[Ruralguy]

A general principle of negotiation is that you really can't use what might be seen as a *worse* offer for leverage. However, your home institution might be concerned about retention, and for that reason, you might have a little leverage. What is it that you think you  need in order to keep your job (other than unrelated family issues)?

[polly_mer]

A general principle of negotiation is that you really can't use what might be seen as a *worse* offer for leverage. However, your home institution might be concerned about retention, and for that reason, you might have a little leverage. What is it that you think you  need in order to keep your job (other than unrelated family issues)?

Even if the offer isn't objectively worse, an institution/department that needs to shed tenured full professors may respond to the outside offer with, "Congratulations!  Your last day here is <date>.  Best wishes in your future endeavors!"

[Kron3007]

I suspect this will also depend on he regulations at your current school.  I am unionized and we basically have no merit based raises.  Having an external offer is essentially the only way we could get a raise above and beyond our standard seniority based increments and COL (lucky to get these, I know).  This is a horrible policy for a number of reasons, but the way it reads it seems like they are able to match external offers, not beat them.  So, where I am I don't think that offer would get me very far but it would be worth trying.

Of course, your school could have completely different policies.

[pedanticromantic]

A general principle of negotiation is that you really can't use what might be seen as a *worse* offer for leverage. However, your home institution might be concerned about retention, and for that reason, you might have a little leverage. What is it that you think you  need in order to keep your job (other than unrelated family issues)?

Even if the offer isn't objectively worse, an institution/department that needs to shed tenured full professors may respond to the outside offer with, "Congratulations!  Your last day here is <date>.  Best wishes in your future endeavors!"

I think they'd still have a hard time getting rid of a tenured professor just for saying they have another offer and asking for a raise. I've been recruited a bunch of times with other offers--so an offer doesn't necessarily even mean you're on the market.

[polly_mer]

A general principle of negotiation is that you really can't use what might be seen as a *worse* offer for leverage. However, your home institution might be concerned about retention, and for that reason, you might have a little leverage. What is it that you think you  need in order to keep your job (other than unrelated family issues)?

Even if the offer isn't objectively worse, an institution/department that needs to shed tenured full professors may respond to the outside offer with, "Congratulations!  Your last day here is <date>.  Best wishes in your future endeavors!"

I think they'd still have a hard time getting rid of a tenured professor just for saying they have another offer and asking for a raise. I've been recruited a bunch of times with other offers--so an offer doesn't necessarily even mean you're on the market.

Legally in the US, you're correct that the tenured professor cannot be fired for having an outside offer. 

However, narratives aren't rare about how unpleasant staying at an institution can be after one tries to use the external offer to get a better local situation and fails because the institution doesn't care enough to try to retain.  In that respect, an over-the-transom unsolicited offer is more likely to pay off because someone really does want this particular professor.

[Hegemony]

You could certainly say, in the politest way possible, that you'd love to have an raise to help you consider staying.  The danger is that they will say, "Nope, can't do it," and you'll decide to stay anyway, which would be a bit embarrassing and demoralizing.