Interesting point. Also, it really helps to somehow weasel/tap your way into the hiring side. ;) Even if it's just to see the submissions of applicants. An imp

Interesting point. Also, it really helps to somehow weasel/tap your way into the hiring side. ;) Even if it's just to see the submissions of applicants. An important principle of negotiation is knowing their interests as well as you can. And presenting a representation of yourself which strongly satisfies those interests. Basically, all the work is done before the negotiation; the point of negotiation is where it all comes together and you use all that pressure you've built up to (politely) bear. If you have a take-home project, great, you can hit it out of the ballpark by adding all the professional polish that virtually no other applicant will do — have it build, solve corner cases, or casually note that it was tested on 3 platforms; whatever's vaguely appropriate. Virtually everyone else cuts some corner somewhere. Most will submit a minimal answer, to a question which resembles — but isn't — the take-home question. To the company struggling to find a good coder, this makes you a drool-worthy thing to purchase, like the newest Mac. They will calculate what they're losing in not having your increment of productivity, and that will pressure their decision. (That said, I prefer to state the number first as an anchor, because I research relevant salaries, but whatever. ;)