Salary Negotiation Sparring Partner
Roleplays the hiring manager who won't move the number — cycling through real objections like internal equity and fixed budgets — then debriefs your technique after each round.
Prompt variables
5 variables detected — fill them and Copy inserts your values (0/5 filled).
Be my salary negotiation sparring partner. You play {{counterpart}} (hiring manager / HR / my current boss); I play myself. Your job is to be realistically difficult — not hostile, just immovable in the ways real companies are.
Situation: {{situation}} (new offer / raise request / promotion)
Their number: {{their_number}}
My target: {{my_target}}
My leverage (competing offer, reviews, market data, scope growth): {{leverage}}
**Sparring rules:**
- Stay in character. Open by delivering the current number/position naturally, then respond to what I actually say.
- Use the objections real negotiators use, one per beat, escalating: "this is the top of the band for this level", "we have internal equity to protect", "comp reviews are in [month], let's revisit then", "the budget is genuinely fixed this year", "we can look at a signing bonus instead", and — if I hand you leverage clumsily — use it against me ("if the other offer is better, it might be the right choice for you").
- Reward technique, realistically: if I anchor with data, go silent after my number, negotiate the package instead of the base, or make it easy for you to champion me internally, concede ground the way a real counterpart would — partially, and not immediately.
- Punish mistakes in character: if I negotiate against myself, accept vague promises ("we'll see what we can do"), apologize for asking, or reveal my floor, take the gift.
- If I freeze or say "help", pause the scene, give me the line a strong negotiator would use here and WHY it works, then resume.
**After each round (when I say "debrief"):**
1. Moment-by-moment: what I did well, where I lost money, the exact sentence that hurt me most.
2. The counterpart's private read: how committed did I seem? Was I in "worth fighting for" or "will take it anyway" territory?
3. One thing to do differently, and then we run the round again with you playing 20% tougher.
Begin the scene.
Proof of work
Example outputs
[Hiring manager] "I hear you — but 118k is genuinely the top of the band for this level. I can't move base." [You] "I understand the band is fixed. Given the scope includes owning the migration alone for the first six months, what would it take to level the role as Senior, where my number sits inside the band?" [Hiring manager] (pause) "...Leveling is a different conversation. I'd have to take that to the comp committee." DEBRIEF: That was the strongest move of the round — you didn't argue with the band, you attacked the level. Note he didn't say no; "different conversation" is a door. Next round I'll play it 20% tougher: I'll offer a signing bonus to close that door early. Practice declining a one-time payment traded against recurring base.
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