When a compensation partner asks to see your competing offer letter, how should you respond?

## What is really being asked When a compensation partner asks to see a competing offer, the request is usually not auditing for fraud. It is asking for enough confidence to spend an exception on you: someone internally has to justify going above the number already approved for the level, and they want something concrete to point at. Understanding that reframes your answer. You do not have to prove anything; you have to give them enough to act, in a form you are comfortable with. ## Three disclosure tiers, decided before the call **The employer's name.** The weakest currency and the one candidates give away first. It invites the conversation to become a comparison of brands, and it tells the other side something about the likely structure of your alternative that you may not want them to infer. Withholding it is easy and normal: you can say you would rather not name them, and move straight to the part that matters. **The shape.** The level the other offer is written at, which component is ahead, and the date it lapses. This is the tier that actually does work. It gives the compensation partner a target to take to whoever approves exceptions, and it keeps the conversation about your level rather than about someone else's brand. **The document.** The strongest signal and the least reversible. Before you forward anything, read what your own letter says — many offer letters ask that the terms be kept confidential, and the courtesy runs to the company that made you the offer. Some candidates share a redacted version showing the level and the figure with names and personal details removed; some decline entirely. Both are defensible. ## How to decline without losing the ask Declining works when you replace the document with something the other side can use. The pattern is: a plain refusal, the concrete numbers anyway, and a closing commitment. > I would rather not forward the letter itself, but I am happy to be exact about what is in it: it is written at the higher level, the base is ahead of yours, and it lapses on a named day. If you can get to that figure, I will sign here today. The last clause is what converts your refusal into something workable. A compensation partner who cannot verify your alternative can still verify that the exception closes the deal, and that is often the approval they actually need. Be ready for the honest downside: some companies do discount a competing offer they cannot see, and a few have an internal policy of not matching unseen offers at all. Practice varies widely by company and by market, and what an employer may ask you about pay history in particular varies by jurisdiction and changes over time, so check the rules that apply where you are rather than assuming a universal one. If they discount it, you still have a real choice — the alternative you hold has not become less real because they did not look at it. ## The line you never cross The failure mode that destroys everything is implying an offer that does not exist and then being asked to share the written details. Its worst form is the one candidates rationalise into existence: editing the number in a real letter before forwarding it, or assembling a document that looks like one. That is misrepresentation in a hiring process, it is easily checked at the point of a background or reference step, and the consequences run from a rescinded offer to a permanently closed door. Consequences and process vary by company and jurisdiction, and none of this is legal advice — but there is no version of this that is a good trade. A quieter version of the same mistake is quoting a total that includes components you were never actually offered, or reporting an equity number at some assumed future value rather than what the letter says. If you would be uncomfortable having the letter read aloud beside your description of it, you have already crossed the line. ## The worked case The candidate finishing a loop for a quality-engineering role holds one written offer and wants the other job. Their timeline board shows two decision dates 9 days apart. The compensation partner at the preferred company asks to see the letter. The candidate declines the document, states the level and the figure, names the lapse date, and adds that they would sign the same day at that number. That is four pieces of information, three of which are verifiable by outcome rather than by paperwork, and it is usually enough. If it is not, the answer arrives fast — and a fast no is worth more than a slow maybe when the two dates are 9 days apart.