May Receive
Negotiating Your
Employment Contract
BY BARBARA SNYDER AND MICHAEL L. JACKSON
The decision to seek a senior student affairs position is
always challenging and involves the examination of
many personal and professional issues. Once you have
explored your options, thrown your hat in the ring,
completed the interview process, and have the job offer,
you face the most challenging aspect of the job search: negotiating your
employment contract.
Many of us in student affairs have been content, over the course of our
careers, to accept the offers that were made to us. Certainly, each of us might
have increased the offered salary slightly or changed the starting date to fit
our needs. Increasingly, the real satisfaction comes in defining what is
important to you and your family, asking for those wages and benefits, and
receiving them, despite moving beyond your comfort zone to do so. It has
been said that student affairs professionals are not very good at asking for
