Should I try to negotiate a signing bonus?
You asked about a signing bonus and were told the conditions that would be required to get one. It does not appear that you will qualify, but you do have another option. Ask if you can start earlier. Some times they can't change the start date. They might have a contractual issue with the customer and the customer is setting the start date. Other times they are waiting for somebody else to retire or transfer. But ask. Tell them starting earlier speeds up the training process. For you it can make the transfer of insurance benefits sooner. Keep in mind it could be a few weeks before you get your first pay check. How were you planning on bridging the gap? I was able to request a modest advance on my salary when I started my first job out of college, for essentially the same reason. Alternatively, you might consider requesting a small personal loan from friends or family. If you have a credit card that can cover things like grocery expenses for that period, this may also be the appropriate time to use it. Buy cheap food, like lentils and beans. :P In the future, once you earn some money, you should keep around a few months' worth of essential expenses in a saving account to avoid this situation. :)
"It's correct.   Be sure of your personal opportunity cost and not that you're letting the tax tail wag the dog just to score ""tax free"".  Your upside is $3,700 (single) or $7,000 (married) in taxes saved until you're out of the 0% zone.  Is that worth not receiving an income? Even if your savings are such that you don't need to work for income for a fiscal year, how would this affect the rest of your career and lifetime total earning prospects?  Now, maybe: Otherwise, I'd hope you have solid contacts in your network who won't be fazed by a resume gap and be delighted to have a position open for you in 2019 (and won't give you the ""mother returning to the workforce"" treatment in salary negotiations)." It appears that co-signing does impact your debt-to-income ratio, at least in the US.  An article on Kiplinger says: An article on Forbes agrees saying: There is a similar question here. "Yeah I'm not too sure either, but in response to your edit, this is what got me wondering even more, enough to post this question. Last year was a rough year. Growth was flat in many regions. Still, I heard salesfolks complaining about bonuses. I had the same reaction as you-- ""why would you get a bonus?"" But then I started thinking perhaps some amount is guaranteed." Sorry to call you out on this, but your numbers are definitely off. If someone takes you seriously you'll be misleading them and I'd like to avoid that. Maybe you had this conversation with your friends many years ago when salaries were lower?  The big consulting firms all have set base salary and signing bonus for all entry level positions in the US. Everyone in the starting class out of undergrand has the same starting salary (across all geographic regions). Depending on the firm and your performance, you then receive a year end bonus (or no bonus at all). For MBB, you can expect close to a 6 figure salary in your first year. With an MBA, you're closer to $200k with bonus.  Source: I work for a top consulting firm, but here are some hard figures: http://managementconsulted.com/consulting-jobs/2012-management-consulting-salaries-undergraduate-post-mba/# I had a similar decision to make. I got offered a modest salary near Philly, or a better salary plus a nice bonus in New York. I chose New York. I'm loving it so far but who knows what will happen. I'm actually saving a lot of money as I automatically have it deduct from my paycheck and disperse into several savings accounts. I guess it's different for everyone and you have to consider your situation before applying a blanket advice There is no reason to try to build a commission discount into the contract when you are not represented by a buyer's agent. Make your offer is 3% lower than it would be otherwise. Then the seller's agent becomes your best ally. He knows he'll get the whole commission, so it's in his best interest to make the deal happen. Even if he believes another unrepresented buyer will come along, the difference in his commission will be minuscule and probably not worth his time. If you get the price you offered, does it matter whose pocket the discount came out of? On the other hand, if you enter negotiations that stall at an amount less than half of the commission, then mention a discounted commission. At that point the deal is so close that the seller and agent may be able to bridge the gap themselves. "So you've already considered relocation. Here are a few additional things to consider with respect to negotiating a signing bonus (if any): Would you be leaving a position where you are eligible for an upcoming bonus, profit-share, or other special incentive payout, such as a stock option or RSU vesting date?  A signing bonus can help offset the opportunity cost of leaving a previous job when an incentive payout date is near. At the new company, would you be required to wait some pre-defined period to be eligible to participate in the pension or retirement savings plan with employer basic or matching contributions? If you were receiving ongoing employer contributions in your previous company's plan and would need to wait, say, six months before participating in the new company's plan, a signing bonus can offset lost employer contributions in the interim. Consider funding your own IRA in that time. Would you be required to give up something else of value to you that your previous employer was providing, such as an expensive laptop, that is not expected to otherwise be replaced by the new company? Whether they offer a signing bonus and how much you can expect to negotiate is based on a lot of factors and you'll need to ""play it by ear.""  Remember what bonus means: ""A payment or gift added to what is usual or expected, in particular."" Remember also that a signing bonus is a one time thing.  In general, it's more important to consider the overall ongoing compensation package – salary and incentive plans, vacation, retirement benefits, health benefits, etc. – and whether those meet your long-term needs." "To avoid going on and on in the comments I'm going to add this point that seems to be missing from the other answers. ""Banks often offer me deals while negotiating to open an account (since they are under high pressure to open an account)""   Would these happen to be the regionally advertised account opening deals like a $200 new checking account bonus if you deposit at least $x and leave it for at least 90 days?  This kind of deal is not unique to you.  This is not offered to you because of your unique negotiating ability. You need to understand the authority of the person you're dealing with.  Products are designed in the corporate arm of the bank.  Once a product is ready, it's rolled out to branches to be sold; sometimes with some fancy sign-up bonus.  A checking account is a product, just like an iPhone.  Apple took the headphone jack out of the iPhone 7, no amount of negotiating with the Genius at the Apple store will put it back for you. Vote with your wallet, show the bank you're unhappy by leaving." "Eh, that doesn't really make for healthy negotiations. Consider the converse argument: ""a candidate should put their acceptable salary range on their resume."" Every hiring manager is going to offer you your lowest acceptable salary. You might have gotten more money had you not freely offered that information." Keep in mind that unless you have a contract that says you get a certain amount of raise every year, the employer is not required to give you any raise. The quality of a raise is too subjective for anyone to tell you how to judge it.  You either get a raise you can live with, it makes you content/happy, and you continue working there, or you get a raise that does not satisfy you, and you jump ship to get more money. Some (most?) employers know that raises can be the tipping point for employees deciding to leave.  If you consistently receive raises greater than inflation rate, the message is that the employer values you.  If the opposite, they value you enough to continue your employment, but are willing to replace you if you decide to leave. Key thing here is there are three ways of getting increased pay with your current employer.  Cost of living or annual raise is the one that we are discussing.  Merit based raises are a second way.  If you think you deserve a raise, due to loyal consistent contribution, or contributing above your duty, or for whatever reason, then ask for a raise.  The third way is to be promoted or transferred to a higher paying position.  Often times, you should also make your case to your supervisor why you should have the new position, similar to asking for a merit raise. "Keep in mind one possible gotcha on depositing a bonus into your 401K: Tax withholding. Depending on whether your employer combines your bonus onto a regular paycheck, you can be bitten if you allocate a large chunk to your 401K.  I suspect your bonus is, like most, subject to an arbitrary federal withholding requirement of 25%, and if you allocate 100% of the bonus to your 401K, the 25% withholding may come out of what would ordinarily be the take-home in your ""regular"" paycheck - leaving you with a literal take-home of zero for one pay period.  There are lots of variables in that calculation, obviously, but it's one a lot of people seem to overlook." That's my point, a 20k bonus at big 4 for non partners is really common. You can easily get 40-50k if you're highly rated. Also, I'm not saying the max for partners is 600k, that's the average. This is much higher than the average Accenture partner-equivalent.  The data is out there, just look at glassdoor. It's perfectly ok to not be big4, you can still make a good living at Accenture. But, realistically, the compensation and other benefits are lower. My theory is because public firms pay less than private firms, what's yours? "IANAL, but I had heard (and would appreciate someone more qualified commenting on this) that one reason these things were often found unenforceable is that there is no consideration.  The contract is to bind you for your work each day, but once you stop working, they allege you have a continued obligation that transcends your time at the company.  Claiming that your day-to-day compensation covers this is as if to say some part of that compensation is not for your work but to pay you for not going elsewhere.  It would be nice to see at minimum a requirement to separate these two concepts into separate contracts as bundling them creates a blur, and most importantly doesn't allow you to negotiate or walk away from the terms of one part without the other.  At the heart of any ""market"", which the job market purports to be, is a sense that a fair price is reached when both parties can walk away from a bad deal. This is not so in the case of employment because, as Adlai Stevenson said, ""a hungry man is not a free man"", so someone who needs to eat (or feed a family) has a need to take an offer that is already biasing their acceptance of work, and this quasi-duress is compounded when a company can attach additional pressures that work agains that person's ability to fairly negotiate possible improvements of what may already have been a bad situation.  I'm of the impression that duress itself has been argued to be a reason to hold a contract invalid.  But more abstractly and generally, any time two parties are bargaining asymmetrically (I'm not sure the legal definition, but intuitively I'd say where one party has the ability to force a contract change and the other party is not), then those terms have to be suspect.  Also, for the special case the pay is anything near minimum wage, I would suggest asking the question of whether the part of the compensation that is salary, not ""keeping you from working for the competition"", is the wage paid consistent with minimum wage, or does it have to draw from the pool of money that is not about wage but is about incentivizing you to not move.  And, finally, if they stop paying you, and each day you've been paid a little to work and a little to incentivize you to leave, then are you getting a continued revenue stream to continue to incentivize you not to work for the competition? If not, there would seem again not to be consideration.  As I said, I'm not an expert in this. I just follow such matters sometimes in the news. But I don't see these issues getting discussed here and I hope we'll see some useful responses from the crowd here, and also the smart folks at reddit can help through their discussions to form some useful political and legal defenses to help individuals overcome what is really a moral outrage on this matter.  Capitalism is an often cruel engine.  I worked at a company where one of the bosses said to me, after contributing really great things that added structurally in fundamental ways to the company, ""don't tell me what you've done, tell me what you've done lately"". Capitalism makes people scrap every day to prove their worth. So it's morally an outrage to see it also trying even as it beats down the price of someone and tells them they aren't entitled to better, to tell them that they may not go somewhere else that thinks they are better. That is not competition and it is not fair.    Indentured servitude, not slavery, is more technically correct. And yet it is a push to treat people like capital, so slavery is not inappropriate metaphorically.  The topic is non-competes, but really it's about businesses not wanting to have to compete for employees; that is, about businesses not wanting capitalism to prevail in hiring.  Sorry for the length." I'd say the best course of action would be to call the card issuer and ask them. Converting can definitely be done, but you'll have to enquire about the bonus. "Do you need the capital? If you not, are you considering taking it to help you grow faster? To lower your downside risk?   In terms of deal structure start with your financial model  and evaluate  your payback period and IRR... Think if you were investor how much of a split would you need to compensate the risk you are taking.  Generally the investor will want to get 100% of their original investment paid back plus a annual  8%  ""preferred"", return and after they are made whole 80% of proceeds, but I've seen restaurant deals at 50/50 splits and no preferred return.   I'd try to ensure you get a salary and/or management fee.   Make sure you retain control and rights!  Don't sign anything without legal review."