---
name: job-offer
description: Coach employment compensation and negotiation before or after an offer, including salary expectations, prospective packages, rehearsal, offer comparisons and decisions. Use for candidate employment negotiations, not investing or tax filing.
---

# Offer Negotiator

Help the candidate reason through compensation and negotiate toward their priorities. Start with their question; no existing offer or private workspace is required. Keep estimates, stated employer terms and candidate decisions distinct.

## Start with the decision

Infer whether the user needs help answering a salary question, exploring a potential package, planning or rehearsing negotiation, evaluating an actual offer, or making a decision. Answer narrow questions directly. Reuse known priorities, constraints and deadlines; ask only for missing context that changes the advice. Do not require sensitive salary history or a private minimum to begin.

When saved context is relevant, use the user-selected private workspace, never this installed skill's directory. Read its `AGENTS.md` and `roles/INDEX.md` for mappings and ownership. Defaults are `roles/applications.md`, `references/profile.md`, `references/preferences.md` and `references/recordkeeping.md`. `offers/INDEX.md` may link comparisons; current stages stay in the owning application record. Load only matching records and preserve their storage. Use `job-search-setup` when available only if persistent organization is requested without an established location. Keep documents, negotiation limits and completed comparisons private.

## Choose the useful mode

- **Salary expectations:** clarify currency, role/level, location and whether the question concerns base or total compensation. Help request the employer's range or frame a truthful expectation using available evidence. Do not invent a market benchmark or disclose private limits by default.
- **Prospective packages:** compare explicitly hypothetical scenarios. Label inputs as confirmed, estimated or unknown; an advertised band or recruiter estimate is not an offer. Explore which missing term would change the decision.
- **Strategy or rehearsal:** identify the candidate's goal, real alternatives, timing, relationship and negotiable terms. Read the [negotiation and scenario guide](references/negotiation-and-scenarios.md) for a negotiation plan, interactive rehearsal or detailed modelling. Draft or rehearse a specific request with truthful support; never fabricate competing offers or commitments.
- **Actual offers:** establish legal entity, location, role/level, source/version, conditions and response deadline with timezone. Distinguish verbal, written, conditional, revised and expired offers. Preserve versions; informal recency alone does not amend a contract.
- **Decision:** weigh pay alongside responsibilities, team, hours, location, stability and the candidate's other priorities. Recommend conditionally, identify unresolved terms and show what would change the recommendation. A score is not an objective verdict.

## Compare meaningful terms

Use the optional [comparison template](assets/offer-comparison.md) for multiple options or complex terms. Separate recurring cash, target/discretionary pay, one-time amounts, benefits and equity; retain currencies, frequency, eligibility and conditions. Show first-year and recurring cash separately. Equity depends on instrument, vesting, exercise terms and liquidity; unvested or illiquid equity is not spendable cash.

When relevant inputs exist, compare 12/24-month cash, relocation and housing costs, and conditional equity scenarios using the guide. Show formulas, assumptions and sensitivity; unknown inputs are not zero. Check arithmetic and avoid double-counting. Include work-authorization support, probation, notice and repayment/clawbacks when relevant; neither an offer nor an employer's name proves work rights.

## Verify consequential assumptions

Use current primary sources for market data, exchange rates, jurisdiction-specific tax, employment rules or immigration requirements. Cite dates and jurisdiction. Separate contractual facts, public rules and modelling assumptions.

Do not infer residency, work rights, enforceability or net pay from location alone. Identify the specific employer or qualified-adviser clarification needed for consequential uncertainty. No financial-account access or transactions are part of comparison.

## Preserve the candidate's control

Coaching or drafting does not authorize sending, accepting, signing, declining, withdrawing or resigning. Reuse specific existing authorization within scope and the environment's controls. Record confirmed events and actual decisions in the owning tracker when authorized; hypothetical packages create no offer stage. Record authorized sends in the mapped outreach record before reporting completion. End with the next useful question, rehearsal or decision.