Hacker News Reader

Comment by bethling | Hacker News Reader

As a woman engineer, who's a really bad negotiator, I'm not surprised. I know "how" to be better, but I do wilt and get scared when I've gotten an offer - I think only once or twice I've ever made any sort of counter.

I don't know why I don't act in my own best interest though. It wouldn't surprise me if there was some societal element to it, but it really seems strange/weak/victim-ish to blame something external for what really does feel like a personal shortcoming - after all my own sister doesn't seem to have the same sort of "conditioning".

Are there tips out there to help getting over the fear of negotiating? Not really thinking about looking for something else at the moment, but there always seems to be a "next job" out there somewhere.

View on HN

To defeat the fear: I wouldn't recommend a book or a class. Instead find the best negotator you can and spar with them until you get over the anxiety. Find something arbitrary to negotiate over like who's buying lunch (I'll buy drinks if you buy appetizer etc...). Once you've got the basics go to a car dealership and haggle with the sales guys. See what works to get you the lowest price. They are skilled negotiators and will talk to you for free. Alternatively, go on a few job interviews where you have no intention of accepting the position. Since you have nothing to lose, push salary negotiations HARD. See what it will take to have someone actually rescind an offer. Finally ask for a raise at your current job.

Don't worry, even the big toughguy negotiators had to learn the process and were afraid of it at some point too. I've negotated 50% increases at three different employers (two during intial hire, one as a raise) and it didn't come to me naturally. There was no magic testosterone gift that made it easy. The guy across the table is just as worried as you are.

re: socialization factors I blame the school enviroment where grading is fair and you ostensibly get the grade you deserve. This normalizes the behavior of 'just do good work, and you get the pay/grade you deserve.' Kids that wheedle the teachers for an A- when they deserve a B are reprimanded. In the real world it's completely different. Managers will give you a D everytime if you let them.

for what it's worth, i had about a 50% success rate in college at meeting with a professor after my final grade was handed out and asking (with some form of justification) for a higher grade.

professors would get very squeamish and often bump my grade up (from a B to an A-, for example) on the spot.

I'm aware, but I'm trying to take it one step at a time for those just starting out. I've trained a few people (mostly friends and family). A common thread among people who don't negotiate is a belief in fairness. That haggling is about asking for more than what the other person thinks is 'fair' (hurting someone). I've never once had success teaching people that words like 'deserve' and 'fair' have nothing to do with pricing a transaction.

So I divide it into two sides: negotiating to get more that what you 'deserve' (which they can categorize as unfair/wrong/evil etc..) and negotiating to get exactly what you deserve. They start out believing that all negotiation is the first type. Introducing the second type makes it easier to rationalize negotiating for what they deserve, and that it's not 'that other unfair type of negotiating'.

Before my last salary review, I spent $50 on salary.com to generate a report customized for my job description, location, education, company size, etc. I brought the report to my manager and showed the vast distance between my pay, even after taking my raise and performance bonus into account, and my median expected pay. Then he asked me to email him the PDF of the report. Then I had another meeting with my manager and his manager.

My basic negotiating stance was “I appreciate what you guys have done so far to get me an X% raise in this cycle, and I hope you can use this information to convince the corporate higher-ups that I deserve more.” The managers were sympathetic but made no promises.

And four months later, I got a call from my manager telling me that I had been approved for a 10% off-cycle raise.

There are ways to be more hard-nosed and get even more, but as you can see, simply knowing what you are worth in the marketplace and articulating that value can go a long way.

  >> 10% off-cycle raise.

That return on investment for the time spend negotiating was huge. That percentage increase will probably carry forward for the duration of your job. In addition, they may try to allocate a little more of their raise pool to you on the next round.

> I think only once or twice I've ever made any sort of counter.

Argh! This kills me inside.

>Are there tips out there to help getting over the fear of negotiating?

It's the same with asking someone out.

The worst that can happen is they say no, and if they make such a big stink out of it you were better off with someone else in the first place because they are douchebags.

Makes me wonder if maybe men get better at asking for raises,and dealing with potential rejection, because they often are the ones who ask women out.

Possibly relavent: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm

No. I think it's a good analogy, but the correlation stops there – I think I've asked a sum total of two girls out in my life. There are ample opportunities for women to get rejected as well.

My theory goes that men as a rule of thumb have more opportunities to get into LOUD OBNOXIOUS arguments with someone who is SO WRONG that you can't let it stand. Somewhere in that process you learn to push a few boundaries. We're just conditioned to be/are naturally more aggressive.

Spend a couple weeks in a third world country and go shopping often. Start with a local to see how it's done and then practice by yourself. Street vendors are the absolute best negotiators (even over very small sums of money).

Right on. Here's a good link on negotiation using street-level bargaining strategies from other countries: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2008/03/16/bargaining-with-your-ri...

Thanks - very good read.

You are not seeking a job to make friends, you are seeking an fair exchange of value for time/product/skill.

Seek situations where you can practice negotiation where the stakes are lower than 25% of your earning for 1-2 years of your 50ish-earning-year life (pretty easy to do).

Keep in mind that countering is not personal - you are both seeking your interests, which will rarely be totally in common.

Keep in mind, also, what the best alternative to agreement is. If you shoot too high, they will either come back lower, or say no, or go silent. What is the next step? Seek another opportunity. That is a much better alternative than accepting well below your potential (presuming you have savings or otherwise security).

Avoid getting into negotiation situations where your best alternative is bad, even unacceptable. That is when you will be forced to take the worst deal. It is generally avoidable, so plan ahead.

But above all, practice. Doing it once every 1-5 years with high stakes is a great way to fold or go all in or otherwise poorly play your hand.

I don't know if it's a cultural thing, but a lot of women I know from back home (third-world country, like drusenko mentioned) are excellent negotiators. They have the have patience, charm and downright persistence to squeeze every single penny from whatever purchase they are making (even salary negotiations). It's scary.

<i>it really seems strange/weak/victim-ish to blame something external for what really does feel like a personal shortcoming</i>

I totally agree about taking personal responsibility.

However, when it's also a reproducible difference over a large set of people then it's worth looking for systematic causes and working to address them as such.

OT: putting asteriks around text italicizes it on hn.

What if the cause is systemic but impossible to change?

Check out "Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want", by Linda Babcock and Sarah Laschever.

Their earlier book "Women Don't Ask" is well worth reading too.

Thanks - I'll check the books out.

http://www.womendontask.com

I second the recommendation, the books are both driven by the authors' research & real-world efforts (Babcock is an economics professor at Carnegie-Mellon, Laschever was a research associate for Harvard's Project Access interviewing large numbers of scientists about their career experiences) and take a really pragmatic view. Somewhat unusually for books about negotiation the authors actually discuss the relevant research (including Babcock's own work) in ways that don't make me want to bang my head on the table. These are definitely not would-be self-help gurus skimming a few papers and mostly repeating third-hand stuff from other people's books.

One of the most interesting things for me about the books were that they go into other people's gender-based _responses_ to negotiation strategies, not just addressing the negotiator's behavior. The really frustrating part is that responses to women using the same techniques in experiments (or even the exact same written scenario with just a name change) got significantly more negative responses than the men... BUT they did still see an overall boost in the outcomes. Asking for it isn't going to make the bias go away, male candidates will still be treated better on average with exactly the same strategy, but it's worth pushing because it pays off.

I'd highly recommend both books to male tech people as well - the situation is a lot better for you, but some of the same issues do apply and it'll pay off.

The way to get over fear of something is to do it, again and again. The fear will go away.

Put yourself in situations where you can negotiate - start with going to garage sales and negotiate the price of something.

It's like the cure for paralyzing fear of public speaking - start doing it. The fear will pass, guaranteed.

"Are there tips out there to help getting over the fear of negotiating?"

Start by practicing in situations that don't matter in order to gain confidence.

Get the card game "The Resistance" and play it with a group of negotiation savvy friends.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com