A brilliant quote from a Harvard Law School Negotiation Paper on the same topic:<p><i>"Instead, try to fgure out what pay category someone with your education and experience would receive, then build a case for a salary at the high end of that range. If an interviewer asks you to name your price, how should you respond? In their book 3-D Negotiation (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), Lax and James Sebenius recommend making a “non-ofer ofer,” or a statement that could anchor the discussion in your favor without seeming extreme. Suppose your research suggests that you would mostly likely fall into the $70,000 to $80,000 pay range, but the next-highest category seems within reach. Rather than saying, “I think I deserve $80,000,” consider saying, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve heard that people like me typically earn $80,000 to $90,000.” Notice that this statement is not a demand. Yet due to the powerful impact of the $80,000-to-$90,000 “anchor”—a reference point that may or may not be relevant to the discussion—it could very well steer the numbers toward your upper goal"</i>
I never understood the 'don't give a number first' law from all these blogs. If I know the upper bound of my potential salary, why wouldn't I throw out that number (or a bit above) and try to stick to it? What's the negative here? I think it'd be a lot harder if they lowballed you then you come off as somewhat unreasonable by throwing out a much higher number.
I don't know if I agree with all of this. I'm pretty sure Google, Amazon, etc. have VERY stringent requirements on the hiring process for (at least most) new software engineers. At my own company, there are processes for internal and external applicants, and I personally can vouch that I, the technical interviewer, and the directors do actually look at applicants' resumes.<p>That doesn't mean I disagree with the premise of the article: candidates should definitely view the negotiations process as a two-way street. But to really have a level playing field and skip most of the "process", as the author suggests, you need to have demonstrable value to the hiring manager at whatever place you're interviewing at. Sometimes that can be hard to demonstrate if you don't have a working relationship with someone inside the company that's interviewing you. Hence the need for some of these processes and resume reviews.