Can I inquire about a signing or relocation bonus?

Transcript

"I just received an offer for a mid-sized firm in New York. I received a verbal overview of my offer package, and was a little surprised when the firm didn't offer a signing bonus or relocation bonus. Would it be possible to inquire about such a thing?"

No, I would not. With mid-sized firms, no, I wouldn't. They made it verbal, so that means they can withdraw at any time. For not giving you a signing bonus or relocation bonus, maybe they'll pay for moving. The problem is sometimes, not every firm but some firms, especially mid-sized firms or smaller firms, they may just not like it, and see it as a sense of entitlement and withdraw your offer. Larger firms typically won't mind you asking. If you feel like you're a really good fit for the job, you may wanna ask and inquire. I would just be very careful.

This is the kind of stuff that recruiters do by the way, recruiters will come in and they'll negotiate all this stuff for you, and a lot of times when you're doing stuff on your own, it can be very difficult to negotiate that. I would be careful about what you do. But this is a good question, and if it were me, I would probably figure out how much this firm really wants you, and ask them about all this sort of stuff. And if you have a recruiter have the recruiter ask. It's very difficult to get a job when you're coming from outside the country, back to the country or to a new country, so I probably would just feel lucky to have gotten the position. New York's also a very competitive market right now so be careful.

You certainly can ask anything you want, you just need to be careful about how you do it. This is what I would say. And mid-sized firms, for the most part, are going to not react as well as a major firm would, and it's not exactly that common for major law firms to offer even signing bonuses.