Practice your salary negotiation
Face a virtual recruiter in a level-based game: multiple-choice at first, free-response answers graded live by an AI coach. One concrete readout, the offer that climbs when you argue well, to master anchoring and tactical empathy.
The live duel
No more multiple choice or fixed scenes: a seasoned recruiter answers you live and springs traps. Hold your value, line after line.
Your path
0 / 11 completed · 11 levels to master salary negotiationWhy practice your salary negotiation before the big moment?
A salary negotiation lasts a few minutes but shapes years of income. According to LinkedIn, 57% of professionals never negotiate their salary, most from a lack of practice, not arguments. Accepting the first offer or anchoring too low can cost you 10 to 30% of your pay over the course of a career.
The most expensive mistakes are always the same: countering with a timid number, breaking awkward silences by over-talking, and making concessions without asking for anything in return. The recruiter, on the other hand, is trained: they know their margins and let the candidate talk their own expectations down. Without preparation, you are clearly playing at a disadvantage.
A strong negotiation combines two levers. Tactical empathy: truly listening, mirroring the recruiter’s constraints, and asking calibrated questions (“how am I supposed to do that?”) that make them work with you. And anchoring: putting a high but evidence-backed number on the table first, holding the silence after stating it, and trading every concession for something in return (bonus, time off, remote work, a 6-month review).
Our AI salary negotiation simulator lets you practice all of this risk-free: you face a virtual recruiter level by level, you watch the offer climb toward your target with each strong reply, and you get live analysis from an AI coach. At the final level you can load your resume and a real offer to rehearse your exact conversation, no sign-up required.
What is a salary negotiation simulator?
A salary negotiation simulator is practice under live conditions: an AI recruiter makes you an offer, raises objections and sets traps, and you answer. Salary negotiation is learned by practising, not by reading advice, because what is missing on the day is not knowledge of the theory but the line available within three seconds.
The stakes are out of all proportion to the time involved. A salary negotiation lasts a few minutes and sets the base every future raise is calculated from. According to LinkedIn, 57% of professionals never negotiate, most often through lack of preparation rather than by choice.
The course is organised in levels. The first five each install one rule, in the order it becomes useful. The next set those rules against the recruiter's classic traps. The last is a free exchange with an AI recruiter, without a net.
The recruiter's lines are not improvised: they reproduce the phrasing genuinely used in interviews, from the low anchor to the supposedly frozen budget. You practise against what you will hear, not against a caricature.
The five rules of the course
One rule per level, in the order they come into play in a real negotiation.
- Set your markers before you walk inLevel 1
Your range, your floor and your justification are decided before the interview. What is not decided beforehand gets decided under pressure, and therefore badly.
- Defuse without giving inLevel 2
Answering an objection without conceding it and without going rigid. Most negotiations are lost in the ten seconds after the first objection.
- Make them talk to gather informationLevel 3
The open question is the highest-return tool in a salary negotiation: it shifts the burden of proof and reveals the real room.
- State it, then go quietLevel 4
The silence after you name your figure. It is the easiest rule to state and the hardest to hold.
- Never give anything away for freeLevel 5
Every concession is traded. Giving ground on the start date for nothing teaches the recruiter that the rest is free too.
The recruiter's most common traps
A deliberately low first figure, placed early so everything after refers back to it. The counter is to refuse to negotiate from that number.
"The envelope is closed." Sometimes true, often tactical. It never says anything about variable pay, a signing bonus or the review date.
An answer demanded within 24 hours. A company that has been recruiting for three months can wait two days.
"What are you asking for?" put first. Naming a figure too early turns your expectation into a ceiling.
Extracting a move with nothing in return. Every untraded concession sets the rhythm for the rest of the negotiation.
The ultimatum, real in a minority of cases. Answering with a question rather than an immediate decision rarely costs the offer.
Ten traps are modelled in the simulator, each with the lines recruiters actually use, and each tied to the rule that neutralises it.
Frequently asked questions about salary negotiation
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