My parents told me if someone offered you a job, you take it, and be grateful b/c you need this job. Then do the job better than anyone has, and go above it where they set the mark, b/c you'll get rewarded. And that's been true about 35% of the time (45-50% when I started speaking up for myself vs waiting for them to do the right thing).
BUT about 10 years ago, I got a mentor who kinda gave me the "here's what you need to know about careers." She's like you never take the first offer unless they've met what you're asking for to a tee. And I was like that seems very rude and she reminded me, they're always going to give less than they can and see what you do. If you go for it, then win, if not, they may have to go up a tiny bit. And to ask for like 10k more than what you want, so you can get relatively close to what you want and they can still feel like they talked you down.
She also told me that I have to remember no one is looking out for me but me, not my boss, not a mentor, no one. I need to know my worth and stand up for it b/c at this point in my career, my history will speak for me. If they can't hit the number I want, I look at vacation time or another perk(she gets a donation made yearly to a charity she likes -- so apparently you can be creative).
I tell all the younger people at my work this stuff -- esp. the first gens like me, where they're in their 30s and still paying off loans. When I found out that my current gig won't give you an end-of-year bonus unless you're at the manager level, I immediately shared that w/ our specialists and coordinators so they could put a plan in place to get themselves on the manager track. They act like anyone can get the end-of-year bonus based on how hard you work, but that's not true! When I got manager, the first thing they led w/ was "and now you can get a bonus at the end of the year!" Orgs. are shady AF!
By the way, my college self would die reading this. And I'd remind her how many times we went against our side b/c I trusted what other people said instead of doing the research myself and speaking for me. I'd join a union in a heartbeat (college Jenners is dying right now).
