What a fresher can negotiate in a first offer, and what stays fixed

Of the 494 HireSetu listings live on 22 October 2026, six printed a pay or stipend figure. Three were stipends for interns and apprentices, including Volvo's ₹16,500 a month for its NATS finance trainees. Three gave a salary for a permanent or internship-to-job role: a fresher range of ₹2.5 to 5 LPA for a mechanical engineer, a range of ₹3.25 to 3.6 lakh for an Android developer, and ₹25,000 a month for an embedded engineer after the internship. One more listing, for an embedded systems role in Rajasthan, wrote "Negotiable (based on skills)". Synopsys says only that the recruiter will share the range during the hiring process.

So for almost every fresher job, the first number you see is in the offer. Whether you can change it depends far more on how the company is hiring than on how well you ask.

Where there is usually room, and where there is not

If you are one of four hundred people receiving the same campus offer, asking for more money individually rarely works and can sour a relationship you have not started yet. Your energy is better spent on the joining date, the location preference and understanding the salary structure. If you are the only person a team has chosen after several interviews, the conversation is different, and a polite, specific request is normal.

Before asking, read what you have

Many freshers negotiate the wrong number. CTC includes the employer's PF contribution, gratuity, insurance and sometimes a variable component paid only if targets are met, and the monthly in-hand amount is noticeably lower. Ask for the salary breakdown before deciding whether the offer is low, and compare offers on fixed pay and in-hand salary and look past the headline figure.

A short message that asks without pushing

Thank you for the offer for the Associate Engineer role; I would like to join. I have a written offer from another company with a fixed annual pay of ₹6.2 lakh, against ₹5.6 lakh here. I would prefer your team because of the embedded work we discussed. Is there any flexibility on the fixed pay? Either way, I can confirm my decision by Friday.

When "What are your salary expectations?" comes first

Sometimes the number is asked before any offer, in a screening call or an application form. Naming a figure too early can either cap you or price you out. A reasonable first answer is to ask what range the company has budgeted for the role, since many employers, Synopsys among them, say the recruiter will share it during the process. If they insist, give a band you have researched for that role and city, and say you are flexible for the right work.

Research here means something specific. Look at what our listings and other public listings state for similar roles, ask seniors from your college who joined the same kind of company in the last year, and remember that those numbers are CTC unless someone says otherwise. A band based on three real data points is easy to defend if someone asks where it came from.

Timing

1. Do not negotiate in the interview. Ask about the work; leave pay for after the offer.
2. Raise anything after the written offer arrives and before the acceptance deadline, in one message.
3. If you need more time to hear from another company, ask for a short extension and leave the higher number aside.
4. Once you have accepted, the negotiation is over. Reopening it after acceptance damages trust for little gain.

If the answer is no on pay, there is often still room on the joining date or location, and those can be worth more to you in the first year than a small increase. Decide in advance which one you care about most, and ask about that one first.