Verified against ChatGPT · 2026-08-10
Draft an offer email that's built to survive a counter-offer conversation, not just a signature
Writes a job offer email with a clear compensation breakdown and pre-planned flexibility, so the recruiter isn't improvising when the candidate comes back with a competing offer.
The prompt
Ready to copy — highlighted parts are example details you can swap.
You are drafting a job offer email for a candidate who is likely to negotiate or has a competing offer — write it so the flexibility and the firm lines are already sorted out before it's sent, not figured out live during a negotiation call. CANDIDATE AND ROLE Elena Vasquez, Senior UX Researcher. FULL COMPENSATION COMPONENTS Base $142,000, annual bonus target 10% based on company performance, 8,000 RSUs vesting over 4 years with a 1-year cliff, no sign-on currently offered. WHAT IS ACTUALLY NEGOTIABLE VS FIXED Base has up to $8,000 of room; bonus target and vesting schedule are fixed company-wide policy and cannot change. KNOWN COMPETING OFFER OR LEVERAGE She mentioned a verbal offer from another company with a higher base but no equity component. DEADLINE AND NEXT STEPS Needs a response within 5 business days; background check and start-date scheduling follow acceptance. Open the email with the decision itself, plainly, before any compensation detail — candidates re-read offer emails several times and the headline decision should be unambiguous on first read. Break the compensation down component by component (base, bonus target and how it's calculated, equity with vesting schedule, sign-on if any, benefits highlights relevant to this specific candidate's stated priorities if known) rather than a single lump total, since a lump number invites the candidate to interrogate what's actually behind it in a follow-up call anyway. Separately from the email itself, write a short internal negotiation brief (not for the candidate) stating exactly which components have real room to move and by how much, which are genuinely fixed policy, and one thing to offer instead of base salary if the candidate pushes on base specifically and there's no room there (extra sign-on, an earlier review date, more equity). If a competing offer or leverage point was given, name the most likely angle the candidate will push on and prepare the one strongest response to it in advance, rather than leaving that for whoever takes the call to invent on the spot. WHAT NOT TO DO Do not include speculative compensation figures not present in the input — if equity value or bonus payout history isn't given, describe the mechanism (vesting schedule, target percentage) without inventing a dollar estimate. Do not write the offer email in a tone that oversells the negotiation flexibility that was stated as fixed; if a component is genuinely non-negotiable, the email shouldn't imply otherwise just to sound generous. OUTPUT FORMAT 1. The candidate-facing offer email, with the compensation breakdown as a clearly labeled list. 2. The internal-only negotiation brief: movable components with room, fixed components, the one alternative lever if base is pushed, and the prepared response to the most likely competing-offer angle.
Customize
Optional — swap in your own details for the highlighted parts above.
Why this works
The instruction to produce a separate internal negotiation brief alongside the candidate-facing email addresses a real operational failure mode: most offer negotiations go wrong not because the offer itself was bad but because whoever fields the candidate's counter has to improvise in real time, and improvised responses to pushback tend to either over-concede on things that were actually fixed or under-offer on things that had real room, both of which cost the company either money or the candidate. Asking GPT-5.1 to name the most likely angle a candidate with a specific competing offer will push on works because it's a concrete prediction task the model can actually reason about from the stated leverage (higher base, no equity implies the push will be on base or on articulating the equity's value), rather than a vague "prepare for negotiation" instruction that produces generic advice with no connection to this specific situation. The explicit prohibition on inventing speculative equity value matters because a model given "write a compelling offer" framing will often reach for a hypothetical payout estimate to make the number feel more concrete and persuasive, which is actively dangerous here since a made-up equity valuation stated in an offer email creates a real expectation the company may not be able to honor and can constitute a misrepresentation if the equity underperforms. Requiring the compensation to be broken into components rather than a lump total reduces the candidate's need to ask basic clarifying questions in a follow-up call, but more importantly it forces transparency about what's actually driving the number, which tends to reduce a specific and common objection pattern where a candidate assumes a headline number is inflated by soft benefits and negotiates against it without understanding what it's actually built from.
What you get back
Candidate email: We're excited to offer you the Senior UX Researcher role. Base salary: $142,000/year. Annual bonus target: 10%, tied to company performance. Equity: 8,000 RSUs vesting over 4 years with a 1-year cliff. Please let us know by [date]. Internal brief: Base has $8,000 of room; bonus target and vesting schedule are fixed. If she pushes on base beyond that, offer an earlier first equity review instead. Likely angle given her competing offer: she'll frame the other company's higher base as the deciding factor — lead with total 4-year value including vesting, not just year-one cash comparison.
Verified against
ChatGPT GPT-5.1 · 2026-08-10
Changelog
- 2026-08-10 — Initial publish, verified against ChatGPT GPT-5.1.
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