Career & Negotiation

Workers Who Negotiate a Starting Salary Often Get Better Offers

By Maren Hale / November 7, 2026

Confident businessman in a suit seated at his office desk with hands clasped

Numbers first. In a Resume Genius survey of 1,000 full-time U.S. workers, 45% said they negotiated their starting salary, and 78% of those people said they got a better offer. Multiply those and you get roughly 35% of all respondents (my arithmetic, not the report’s). The survey ran online from November 2024, with analysis in February and March 2025, and the report page was last updated on 5 June 2026. The catch: it is self-reported, it comes from a job-search company, and it never says how much more anyone got.

Key takeaways

45% negotiated; 55% accepted the first offer. Of the negotiators, 78% said the offer improved.
51% of negotiators said the company matched their ask, 27% got more but less than they asked for, and 22% got nothing extra.
The report gives no dollar amounts and no margin of error.
An older Glassdoor survey of nearly 6,700 professionals put the negotiation rate at 46%, close to Resume Genius, but did not report outcomes.
Asking looks low-risk in this data, but the data cannot tell you what happens to a weaker candidate or whether any offers were pulled.

Who ran the survey, and how

Resume Genius is a resume-builder and career-advice company. The report page credits Jack Hulatt, its digital PR and data specialist, with Lauren Mastroni as reviewer. The company fielded the survey online through the Pollfish platform, using what the page calls random device engagement. The sample was 1,000 full-time workers in the United States. The page’s metadata says it was balanced across gender and age groups. It does not give a margin of error.

Two oddities to flag. The page metadata shows an April 2024 publication date, which predates the fieldwork, so the page has clearly been revised since. And the metadata names the underlying dataset as a 2024 post-election career, salary and workplace survey, not a salary-negotiation survey. That suggests the questions may have been part of a broader omnibus poll, but the page does not explain.

What it found

Measure	Result
Negotiated their starting salary	45%
Accepted the first offer	55%
Negotiators who got a better offer	78%
Company matched the ask	51% of negotiators
Got more, but less than asked	27% of negotiators
No improvement	22% of negotiators
Men / women who negotiated	51% / 39%
Men / women negotiators whose offer improved	76% / 82%
Gen Z / Millennials / Gen X / Boomers who negotiated	55% / 48% / 42% / 42%

The report also says 57% had some regret about how they handled their starting offer. That includes 27% who did not negotiate and wish they had, and 30% who regret their approach even though it felt right at the time.

Notice the gender split. Women negotiated less often but reported improvement more often once they did. With about 450 negotiators in total (45% of 1,000, my arithmetic), each gender group is a couple of hundred people. The 6-point gap between 82% and 76% is small enough that I would not read much into it.

A cross-check from Glassdoor

Glassdoor’s economic research team surveyed nearly 6,700 professionals on its Fishbowl community in 2023 and found 46% negotiated their most recent salary. That is close to Resume Genius’s 45%. But Glassdoor found men and women equally likely to negotiate, at about 46% each, which does not match Resume Genius’s 51% versus 39%. The surveys differ in sample, wording and year, so I would treat the overall rate as roughly consistent and the gender gap as unsettled. I read this through a trade-press write-up, not Glassdoor’s own report, and that coverage does not report negotiation outcomes.

What the survey cannot show

How much. “Better offer” could mean $500 or $15,000. The report gives no dollar amounts.
Cause. People who negotiate may already have leverage: in-demand skills, a competing offer, an employer eager to fill the role. The 78% describes who chose to ask, not what would happen to anyone.
The bad outcomes. If respondents were describing jobs they ended up taking, withdrawn offers would not appear. The page does not give the exact question wording.
Memory and self-reporting. Nobody checked pay records. People recall wins more readily than losses.
Neutrality. Resume Genius sells career tools and publishes surveys that attract links and press. That does not make the numbers wrong, but this is not peer-reviewed or independent research.
Scope. It covers starting offers, not raises in a job you already hold.

The job market behind it

The survey was fielded in a different labor market from today’s. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on 6 November 2026 that U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in October, above the average monthly gain of 48,000 over the prior 12 months. The unemployment rate was 4.1%, and average hourly earnings were up 3.1% over the year, to $38.00. Consumer prices rose 3.7% in the 12 months to September 2026, per BLS. Average pay growth of 3.1% is running behind prices at 3.7%, which is one reason to anchor your ask to what your specific field pays. None of this tells you whether you have leverage. That depends on your field, location and the employer.

How to use it without overstating it

The fair reading is that asking is common, often rewarded in the survey, and rarely described as a disaster. It is not a guarantee.

Get a pay range before you talk: posted ranges for the role, and what comparable employers offer.
Decide your number and your reason for it. “I have another offer at X” or “this range is below market for the role” beats “I want more.”
Ask once, clearly, in a calm tone. Then stop talking and let them answer.
Be ready for a partial win. In the survey, 27% of negotiators got more than the first offer but less than they asked for.
Know your walk-away point before the call.
Remember that the survey says nothing about non-salary items such as start date or review timing. Those are worth asking about, but there is no data here on how often they work.

Frequently asked questions

Does negotiating work for most people?

In this survey, 78% of people who negotiated said they got a better offer. That is a self-reported figure from an online poll with no stated margin of error, so treat it as a rough signal.

Is there a risk the offer gets pulled?

The survey does not measure it. Its 22% “no improvement” group includes people who got nothing extra, but the page does not say whether any offers were withdrawn. Employers differ.

Do men and women get different results?

Resume Genius found men negotiated more (51% versus 39%) while women who negotiated reported improvement more often (82% versus 76%). Glassdoor’s 2023 survey found equal rates. The evidence is mixed.

How much more can I expect?

The survey cannot say. The page also cites a separate hiring-manager survey on how much of an increase they would accept, but that is stated attitude, not outcomes, and I would not plan around it.

Before you decide

The data supports one modest conclusion: asking is common and, among people who asked, most said it paid off. It does not tell you how much, or whether your situation is like theirs. Do your homework on pay for your role, decide your limits first, and treat any improvement as a bonus. For decisions involving relocation, equity or large financial commitments, a fee-only fiduciary adviser or an employment attorney can look at your actual offer.