But negotiation isn't rocket science: you need to be thoughtful and honest to yourself and come up with an aspirational number (what you want, best case) and a floor (which you will not go below). Any number in between should be acceptable to you, by definition.
I find the hardest thing for people is being honest about the floor and being willing to walk away.
This seems hard, but plenty of analytical brain power could be applied towards this. But there's also no will for companies to reach pricing frequency and fidelity like a stock market or retail because the inefficiency is in their favor and I suspect the real numbers that would come out of that would be much higher.
Its more like a poker game. The more information you know, the more advantageous your position will be.
When recruiters ask me a range, I typically go 20%-30% above what I'm currently making as the starting point and about 10% below what I'm actually making as the floor. I also always tell the recruiter I'm open to negotiating.
This usually gets a reaction from the recruiter. They either tell me I'm asking too much and will give me the actual range the company is looking for or they say, "Oh that's perfect, its right in the range the company is looking for."
That information on its own will tell you whether its worth it to continue or not in 99% of the situations.
I walked away vaguely annoyed with the hiring company.
Never reveal what your honest floor is. That's just for you, so you know what is an acceptable negotiation range. Tell them what your expectation is, instead.
So I can see making an offer below or near floor. 20 percent is awfully low, but I would have fun and make a counter. If they don’t move much you then it’s clearly time to move on. Really depends on what else is on the table.
(OTOH, maybe it's a mistake to low-ball a candidate by such a large percentage, regardless. It sounds like a recipe for a discontent employee.)
The problem is that you almost certainly don't have enough information to predetermine a floor, because that almost certainly depends on what other options will be available to you in the near future. I mean, sure, technically your floor could be literally just the lowest amount that you could survive on, but most people anticipate that the options available to them allow them to go higher than that.
There isn't really a shortcut, because if you feel like you've accepted an offer below your minimum and never applied for other jobs you'll feel like that forever. Which isn't a good foundation for the next years working in the role.
Right, but this process is only acceptable if you believe that you have more than a few options in the near future.
If you don't expect much options, just accept one and continue looking for the next one?
Maybe there is a kind of madman theory of salary negotiation as well, heh: throw out some numbers, don't think about it too much, randomly blow up the negotiation for any reason, or for no reason, etc.
For my part I just accept that I'll be getting the floor or very close to it.