game. People will celebrate negotiating a signing bonus or bigger salary or more vacation up front. I certainly advocate negotiating the best deal you can up front. In the gig economy, changing jobs is the fastest way to increase your salary, and build your skillset.

That said, the compensation you receive is driven by market forces. If your skill set is in demand, you get more money. When the need for your skills decreases, so does the money.

Within the narrow subset of one's compensation negotiations, whatever you can work out is still a zero-sum situation. There is range the company can afford to pay you. They can adjust the pie to include a signing bonus, more pay, vacation, training and other perks. But at the end of the day, your overall compensation is a fairly set number.

Even if you do get a great offer, the company still has to make the numbers on the back side somehow, whether by smaller pay hikes, more work demands, etc.

Per your question, the hitch with a signing bonus is that it comes with an obligation to stay in the job, or repay part of the bonus. The question I think is why are they offering a signing bonus? There is a reason, and more then likely, its not related to the prospective employee.
[Post edited by Hokie1992 at 07/13/2018 06:15AM]