help: sign on/relocation bonus

Once you've accepted the best you can hope for is appeal to their sympathy. After all, you can't threaten to back out of the offer this late in the game since you'd have a hard time finding another offer.

On the other hand, if you're going to relocate and have legitimate expenses from that, you can certainly appeal to them and say you simply don't have the money (since you're a college student, that's totally believable) and ask if they'll pay your relocation expenses. In some cases, this can be more than the bonus, especially if you get them to directly pay for it.

Bottom line, don't accept an offer until you're 100% sure it's the one you want since you can't change it once it's accepted.

as long as they pay for your housing, relo bonus will seem pretty inconsequential. try to negotiate before they send your contract... just say "another offer i've received gives $__ sign-on". they'll most likely do their best to match because a one-time bonus of 10k is peanuts to them.

this seems pretty strange for a bb though... can you say which bank it is?

thanks for post, additional Question is whether this 'negotiation' should be done with HR or the MD who hired me..? cheers