I've never been good at asking for money. Every job I've ever taken, I accepted whatever the first offer was because the idea of pushing back felt confrontational in a way that made my stomach turn, even though I logically knew that's how negotiating is supposed to work.
Before my last offer, I asked an AI chatbot to help me think through a reasonable range for the role based on what I told it about the position, my experience, and the general market for that kind of work in my area, and then I asked it to help me practice actually saying the ask out loud instead of just thinking about it.
It gave me a few different phrasings depending on how direct I wanted to be, and helped me practice responding to pushback — what to say if they said the number was firm, how to counter without sounding like I was threatening to walk when I wasn't. Having actually said the words out loud a few times to a chatbot made saying them to a real person feel less like the first time.
I ended up asking for and getting three thousand more than the initial offer, which doesn't sound like much but is three thousand more than I would have asked for on my own, ever, based on my track record of just accepting the first number.
Negotiating a salary is a skill like any other, and skills get easier with practice. Getting to practice the actual uncomfortable moment ahead of time, instead of winging it live, is what made the difference for me.
If you want the slow, no-jargon version of all this — the stuff I wish someone had handed me before I fumbled through it myself — that's exactly what I built On Ramp AI for. Check it out here.