Salary Negotiation Script

Prepare a compensation negotiation: your case, your number, spoken responses to every likely reply, and where you actually walk away.

Prepare me to negotiate compensation.

Situation: [NEW OFFER / RAISE REQUEST / PROMOTION / COUNTEROFFER]
The current offer or my current pay: [BASE, BONUS, EQUITY, EVERYTHING]
Who I am negotiating with: [RECRUITER / HIRING MANAGER / MY MANAGER, and what authority they have]
Market data I have: [RANGES, WITH SOURCES, or "none"]
My evidence: [RESULTS I DELIVERED WITH NUMBERS, SCOPE I TOOK ON, WHAT WOULD BREAK WITHOUT ME]
Competing offers or outside options: [REAL ONES ONLY, or "none"]
What I want: [TARGET NUMBER AND THE PACKAGE SHAPE]
What I would accept: [YOUR REAL FLOOR]
Constraints: [TIMING, VISA, INTERNAL PAY BANDS, HOW MUCH I NEED THIS JOB]

Produce:

1. **The case**, in four sentences: the value I bring, stated as outcomes rather than effort, in the terms this specific person is measured on.

2. **The number.** What to ask for and why that number, given my data and my target. If I have no market data, say what to gather first and where. If my target is unsupported by anything I gave you, tell me directly rather than helping me argue for it.

3. **The opening line**, word for word. Then the second line, which is silence. Note the pause explicitly, because the most common error is filling it and negotiating against yourself.

4. **Responses to their likely moves**, two or three spoken sentences each:
- "That is the top of the band"
- "What are you currently making?" or "What number are you looking for?"
- "We cannot do more base, but we could do equity or a signing bonus"
- "Let me see what I can do" followed by silence for a week
- "This is our best and final"
- "Do you have a competing offer?" when I do not

5. **Non-salary levers** worth asking for, ranked by how often they are actually granted: signing bonus, equity refresh, title, start date, remote days, review timing, professional development budget.

6. **My walk-away**, stated as a specific number and condition, plus the exact sentence to say if it is reached.

7. **What not to do**: the three moves most likely to damage the relationship or the offer here.

Rules: base the case only on evidence I gave you. Never suggest inventing a competing offer or inflating current pay; both are discoverable and both end badly. Keep every script line short enough to say out loud without reading.

How to use

Writing the walk-away number down before the conversation is what makes the rest of the script usable, because a negotiation without a floor is just a request. The scripted silence after the ask is not a stylistic touch: the most reliable way people lose money here is talking through the pause and revising downward before anyone has answered. Rehearse the responses out loud, then run this alongside the hard-conversation rehearsal prompt with the model playing the recruiter.

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