Yesterday

I spent the whole day travelling to, being in and then travelling back from, London.

The interview at 2pm went well. Although it's for an interim role they were very scrupulous and advised me that they'll be interviewing someone else. They also said that the second stage would involve meeting directors.

Today they phoned and asked what I was looking for. I thought they meant career choices etc, but they actually meant money. I gave them a figure which seems to be the market rate at the moment.

It's actaully quite difficult to give a realistic rate these days as there's so much volatility in the UK IT job market. I stressed that in giving the figure I didn't want to negotiate myself out of the job.

There are two rules of negotiation which I generally follow:

• if you can't walk away from the deal you can't negotiate
• who ever gives a figure first (price, salary, rate etc) loses

Technically I can walk away from this job. I'm not facing house repossesion or bailiffs at the door. But I rather would like the job. It may only be for a few months and it has a lot of exposure to mainstream technologies and it's back in the City.

Again, rather than try to get them to quote a figure I thought it better to advise them on what I observe is the market rate. If they were thinking of a higher figure well so be it. What I quoted is an acceptable amount to live on in London these days.

We'll see.