Yep. It's no real surprise that coders are mostly men with poor social skills, while HR is mostly women with good ones, most of whom those men find attractive. Classic Valley symbiosis.
I am sure there are companies that, by outward appearance, do have candidates negotiating with HR people after the interview is over. Step 1 in handling negotiation with those companies: realize that you are not negotiating with HR.
The other was a big one in San Francisco, and their HR was insanely powerful... for some reason. It was quite a shock to me but to a lot of others used to Bay Area startups they made it seem like the norm.
So I guess my point is that not all HR is alike and there is probably some truth to this HR negotiating business.
HR is there to make sure you know where the toilets are. They can't pick a Javascript programmer, nor can they decide what to pay for one.
Most of the software developers I've worked with in my career have had very good social skills, those that didn't, were poor developers as well... So are they bad negotiators because of they lack negotiating ability, or actual ability?
Is there data on the social skills of IT, HR, Gender breakdown etc... Perhaps what you are refering to is a U.S (?) phenomenon?
The fact that people with good social skills convinced you that they were good developers proves the comment made by the parent poster.
To clarify for those that are a bit slow(er):
Their development skills convinced me they were good developers, their social skills just correlated.
I've met quite a few HR folks with rather poor social skills. It's often the place where the worst business majors get "parked"
