You don't have to accept or decline a job offer

Have you ever actually had a job offer rescinded because you politely asked for more money?

This is a pretty common misconception about salary negotiation—that the company will retract the offer if you negotiate. But it's extremely rare and you're much better off negotiating than worrying about such a rare occurrence.

The worst-case scenario is usually just that the company doesn't budge on their offer.

By the time you're far enough into the process to get an offer, the company has invested significant resources to determine if you're a good fit and someone they want to bring on board. They're not going to forfeit all of that investment just because you say, "Thanks for your offer. If you can do [thing you're negotiating], then I'm on board."

I wrote about this and other common misconceptions about salary negotiations here: https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com/why-you-should-not-neg...