I think there are a lot of people disagreeing with "Don't state the number first" but it's important to be open to new ideas.
This article is meant to make you stronger and offer some new tricks in the negotiating process. You're certainly not learning and expanding your game if you're convinced that you don't need to do anything different.
I think its important to think about what the author is really saying: Can you find out what cards their holding before they know what cards you have? Can you? It's tough, its challenging, that's the point.
The more information you have before you start making decision the better decision you're going to make, period. When you start throwing out numbers a very big decision has just been made, theres's no going back at that point.
If you're worried they are going to laugh at you, or be offended, they won't be. This is not a war, it's an interview, a chance to make an introduction and meet somebody new. Sometimes you can make connections in the interview even if you end up not taking the job. You're dealing with people, not robots. No one is out to get you. In fact, they're considering hiring you and working with you everyday!
The point is learn new tricks and push back a little.
Interesting point. Also, it really helps to somehow weasel/tap your way into the hiring side. ;) Even if it's just to see the submissions of applicants.
An important principle of negotiation is knowing their interests as well as you can. And presenting a representation of yourself which strongly satisfies those interests.
Basically, all the work is done before the negotiation; the point of negotiation is where it all comes together and you use all that pressure you've built up to (politely) bear.
If you have a take-home project, great, you can hit it out of the ballpark by adding all the professional polish that virtually no other applicant will do — have it build, solve corner cases, or casually note that it was tested on 3 platforms; whatever's vaguely appropriate. Virtually everyone else cuts some corner somewhere. Most will submit a minimal answer, to a question which resembles — but isn't — the take-home question.
To the company struggling to find a good coder, this makes you a drool-worthy thing to purchase, like the newest Mac. They will calculate what they're losing in not having your increment of productivity, and that will pressure their decision.
(That said, I prefer to state the number first as an anchor, because I research relevant salaries, but whatever. ;)
This article is meant to make you stronger and offer some new tricks in the negotiating process. You're certainly not learning and expanding your game if you're convinced that you don't need to do anything different.
I think its important to think about what the author is really saying: Can you find out what cards their holding before they know what cards you have? Can you? It's tough, its challenging, that's the point.
The more information you have before you start making decision the better decision you're going to make, period. When you start throwing out numbers a very big decision has just been made, theres's no going back at that point.
If you're worried they are going to laugh at you, or be offended, they won't be. This is not a war, it's an interview, a chance to make an introduction and meet somebody new. Sometimes you can make connections in the interview even if you end up not taking the job. You're dealing with people, not robots. No one is out to get you. In fact, they're considering hiring you and working with you everyday!
The point is learn new tricks and push back a little.