<prompt> Human: Not sure if Im posting in the right place so please dont bite my head off! Also on mobile so forgive my formatting. I recently completed the interview process with a company and was given an official offer letter. The salary was lower than what I was expecting so I sent an email to the hiring manager requesting an adjustment to the starting salary. The manager rejected the counter offer and actually recinded the original offer. Im devastated as I was really looking forward to working with this company. Is this normal?? Ive never experienced this before. Usually if the manager rejects the counter offer they will leave the original salary offer open for acceptance.Salary was never discussed in the two part interview process. This is probably my fault, I never asked but the job posting did have a salary range so I assumed salary was negotiable. I will admit Im not very comfortable with talking about money or negotiating salary Im pretty introverted and shy in general. Should salary have been negotiated before an official offer of employment? In my previous work experience, I have only negotiated salary after an offer of employment, not before.How can I improve my salary negotiation skills and prevent this from happening in the future?Assistant: I dont have a complete answer but: I think one of the best things to do with evaluate your market value of the position in accordance with your experience. Find a way to substantiate what you think your value is, and then convince others of that. The fact that you didnt bring it up in one of the interviews hurt you, although I absolutely relate about the shyness etc.Human: Thanks for the advice. So during the interview process I should bring up what Id like my salary to be and then use the interview to basically justify that number?Assistant: If your comp expectations were realistic you dodged a bullet by the company doing this, they showed you their true colors. Again that only applies if your counteroffer expectations were realistic Human: I believe I may have dodged a bullet as well. I think my counter-offer was reasonable based on my work experience and education. The number I requested was actually well below the state average for this particular postion.  <response>: Yea, then forget them and move on. Enjoy not working in a terrible environment 