For those of you who suck at negotiations and how to go about them, I believe the single best thing you can do is to get more than one employment discussion going at the same time. Then you can be totally honest and open in your negotiations and still maximize the offer made by each company. It is quite difficult to mess it up at that point - you might not get the highest salary possible between the companies, but you will get close to the highest possible salary that at least one of the companies is willing to offer.