HR Question (Salary Negotiating)

As a corporate recruiter I would say it depends on the job.  If she is going into a position as a Govt contractor then she may not be able to. Often the salaries are capped by the bid of the company for that work.  Although Health insurance is a cost commonly split between the company  her taking or not taking insurance will probably not impact the company where they are saving enough for any significant raise in salary.  (I get this question a lot).  Our company is around 80% military retirees and spouses so the answer is always no using this argument. 

Additionally her skills and the prevailing salary in the area are going to dictate how much she can really ask for.  Word of advice on salary calculators, they are not real time. 90% are currently using pre-2008 (economic bust) data and all kinds of other variables come into play. They are currently out of whack (meaning higher salaries are suggested); use them with a grain of salt.  This also applies to the Military vs Civilian pay.  Those are even worse!  When you see the median knock off about 15% and you are probably in the range of what (non Govt contracting) companies are negotiating.  

As for vacation and sick days, those are usually negotiable to a point.  For many companies, the more senior the position the more days off they will receive.  Also, you generally see a base of PTO with increments over time; say another week every 4-5 years with a beginning base of 2-3 weeks PTO and 6-10 paid holidays.  Even though we are a government contractor we do not observe every federal holiday, sadly. Many companies are moving to a PTO (paid time off) based system where Sick days and vacation days are combined (alleviating the lie of being sick to take more vacation days lol, no seriously!).  I generally am open to negotiating PTO as I and the company are of the belief that we work to live not live to work and I want the new employee coming to work satisfied we came to a mutual understanding, thus happy.  A good argument to use is that since you are in the Military she would like to be able to take as much vacation as she can with you before and after you deploy (assuming you may).  Pull the heart strings a bit some of us are not completely immune LOL…

Hope this helps you out a bit. And best of luck to you both!