Salary negotiation

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How in the world do you do this? I think it's rather ridiculous that they even require you to answer this when I don't even have a clue how much a certain job will pay on average. That may be a concern with others but not with someone who is unemployed and willing to take any job at this point.

To me, it's been a mystery. Very few of my employers made salary subject to negotiation. "We offer X," nothing more than that.

Normally, in a job where there is a "salary range" advertised, that either means the job itself pays from X to Y over the range of possible pay grades (government jobs may start you at somewhere from X to Y depending on your qualifications, but it's not negotiable what step you land on), or it's a range of what an employer is willing to pay.

When the latter is the case, once you are offered a job, the topic of salary will come up. They will offer you the job. If you say nothing about salary, you'll get what they want to give you if the matter never comes up. If you ask, or they tell you the amount they are offering to pay, you can accept or decline the position...generally the issue here is to say, "Well, that's nice, but I really can't come to work for you for that amount" and then counter their offer with an amount you would like to get. This might go back and forth, and it can be a tricky matter in that if there is more than one person they could choose to hire and they don't want to budge on the pay, they could just move on to the next candidate...so much depends on how much they want you and your skills.

I'm equally bad at this, but I did have really good luck last time I went for a job (and got it). I was interviewing for 3 at roughly the same time - one paid $5,000 more than the other two.

I told one in my second interview, that I was being OFFERED the job that paid more (I think my exact words were that I had another job lined up). They had been strict on salary, but because they wanted me, they added $3K to the salary, and a bonus of $2K on the day I started.

The next day I did really badly on the interview for the job that paid more, so I wouldn't have gotten it anyway. So it depends how far you're willing to stretch your honesty - making them think you have more than one option (or just telling them you have an interview for something that pays more) will make them try to keep you.

Of course, before you can make that negotiation they have to want you - don't do this in the first interview, do this in the second, or when they call you to make an offer.

I also do not know how to do that. I tried to get out of it with a joke last time.