Exactly what to say when recruiters ask you to name the first number… and other negotiation word-for-words

There are a lot of resources out there that talk about salary negotiation but many tend to skew a bit theoretical. In my experience, one of the hardest things about negotiating your salary is knowing what to say in tough, ambiguous situations with a power balance that’s not in your favor. What’s OK? What’s rude? What are the social norms? And so on. Before I started interviewing.io, I’ve worked as a software engineer, an in-house recruiter, and an agency recruiter, so I’ve literally been on all sides of the negotiating table. For the last few years, I’ve been guest-lecturing MIT’s 6.UAT, a class about technical communication for computer science majors. Every semester, negotiation is one …