[djcooley]

I highly recommend reading Never Split the Difference, by Chris Voss. The book offers a different take to negotiation, written by a former FBI negotiator.

In his words, he could never split the difference in a hostage negotiation. When you enter the process understanding this, you do things differently.

[jsmeaton]

Can you elaborate a bit please? Does this mean not meeting half way between your offer and theirs? And then what?

[djcooley]

Good questions. His techniques rely on building a relationship, empathy, and many other techniques.

If you enter the process with a split the difference mentality, you invariably leave a lot of value on the table.

It's late where I am, I'd just go read the book if you want to know more.

[reinhardt]

Hopefully the book has a chapter on how to negotiate with people that have read the same book.

[AstralStorm]

Companies do not work on empathy, but on maximum reward for acceptable risk and investment.

[mifreewil]

This would be true if your offer was negotiated with a distant bureaucratic committee (or board), but most of the time, regardless of who they represent, you're just dealing with people.

[mstade]

Many companies, particularly the larger organizations, have pretty strict boundaries though. Case in point: in a large corporation we tried recruiting an incredibly talented developer, but because of company rules, we couldn't offer him what he asked for despite us thinking he was definitely worth it (and really, it wasn't outlandish in any way) but HR would never let it fly because rules. His problem then, I think, was that he mentioned what he'd earned elsewhere, so some policy dictated we couldn't offer more than 20% than that, or whatever. Stupid, silly policy, and just goes to show you should never divulge information the other party just isn't privy to. (I've never told recruiters what I earned before, that's not their business.)

[vonmoltke]

> His problem then, I think, was that he mentioned what he'd earned elsewhere, so some policy dictated we couldn't offer more than 20% than that, or whatever. Stupid, silly policy, and just goes to show you should never divulge information the other party just isn't privy to. (I've never told recruiters what I earned before, that's not their business.)

Actually, that sounds like a great reason to volunteer my current salary. As long as I'm not desperate I don't want to work for a company that maintains such an idiotic policy, because it tells me something about how they view and value their employees.

[mifreewil]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=guZa7mQV1l0