Proclaiming yourself average may not be such a bad thing if your experience consists of a 3 month bootcamp. If anything, proclaiming yourself "average" with tha

Proclaiming yourself average may not be such a bad thing if your experience consists of a 3 month bootcamp. If anything, proclaiming yourself "average" with that kind of background is vastly overselling yourself. I would say it is actually pretty good negotiating strategy by subtly getting the hiring person to agree that 120k is the absolute floor and probably insultingly low, since who (especially at companies like Google and AirBnB) would willingly admit to hiring below-average or even average employees? "Everyone knows" that they want Only The Best (tm). Just the fact that they're talking about salary therefore implies that the applicant must be above average and confident behavior/being hard to get can easily reinforce that impression.