Negotiate your salary with a hiring manager
You have received a job offer and are on a call with the hiring manager to discuss compensation. The base offer is slightly below your expectation.
An intermediate-level session of about 8 minutes.
A request can shrink while it is being made, and this one usually starts shrinking before the number is out. The voice lifts at the end of sentences, the request arrives wrapped in so much gratitude that it stops being a request, and the manager, who is friendly, agrees that you are keen and moves on. The other half is what happens after you ask. There is a pause, then a reason why the number is the number. That is the part to practise. Not the asking, which you can write out beforehand, but the ninety seconds afterwards, when you have to stay in the conversation without repeating yourself and without folding.
Angles worth taking
- Name one figure rather than a range, because a range is heard as its lower end and the conversation continues from there.
- If the band is described as fixed, ask what sits outside the band instead of pushing the same figure again.
- Decide in advance how you will answer if asked whether you would accept the offer as it stands; hesitation answers for you.
- Never negotiate against yourself. Asked to justify twice, add a reason rather than quietly lowering what you asked for.
- Close by agreeing what happens next and when, and let the revised numbers reach you in writing before you accept.
Who is in the room
You play
A candidate negotiating a job offer
You speak with
A friendly-but-firm hiring manager with a fixed budget band
Phrases to reach for
These are shown to you before the session starts. They are what you are asked to use, not a list the scorer is checking off.
Ready to speak?
Free to start. You need a TalkDrill account to speak — reading this page does not.
Browse all roleplay scenariosThe format
Modes
Learn (guided) · Mock (exam-real)
How a roleplay session works
Read your brief
Your role, the situation, and what a good outcome looks like. The counterpart has their own brief, and you do not get to read it.
Open the conversation
You speak first in most scenarios. How you open sets what you can ask for later, which is most of the exercise.
Handle the turn
Somewhere in the middle it stops going your way — a refusal, a counter-offer, a rebuttal you did not prepare for. That moment is the scenario.
Read the report
Outcome, the phrases you used and the ones you missed, fluency and clarity, and the specific line worth rewriting.
What you're scored on
Across every roleplay, the report looks at the same four things — because they are what makes a real conversation work or fail.
Confidently ask for a higher salary and justify it with your value, without sounding entitled.
Task outcome
Whether you got what the brief asked for: the refund, the extension, the concession, the point conceded.
Appropriacy
Whether the register fits. A complaint that is too soft gets nothing; the same complaint too hard gets a manager and no refund.
Recovery
What you do with the unexpected turn — repair, rephrase, push back, or stall. This is where most of the marks move.
Delivery
Fluency, pronunciation and pace, judged in conversation rather than in a prepared monologue.
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