Negotiation has become a staple of every working person’s life. Negotiation skills are highly valued in the work place, and crucially for your personal development, also make you a better candidate for the job. Negotiations skills tend to be seen as a soft skill but even if you have no practice of formal, professional negotiation you can still train your negotiation skills.
Examples of sectors where negotiation skills are needed include work in international affairs and diplomacy, the legal system and lawyer partnerships (plea bargains), business disputes, sales. They can also be used in domestic contexts such as a divorce, a domestic dispute, or buying a new house. Once you have these attributes you can add them when writing your CV.
Why do I need negotiation skills
Negotiation skills are found in all walks of working and even personal life. You will sometimes have to negotiate a salary based on where you are in your career. But you also need to have strong negotiation skills on your CV if you will be in a line of work that entails bargaining processes.
Being a poor negotiator will usually lead to a poor professional career in a multinational or business context. If you are diplomat or in the political scene it will be disastrous. You may think
How do I negotiate my salary?
Negotiating your salary can be one of the most daunting tasks of any job interview. You will often be asked your salary expectations and its important to be aware of several things before you launch yourself into that process :
- In some countries labour laws spell out clear guidelines on how to remunerate a person with your skillset, and if that’s the case it will mostly favour you as the candidate. Already referring to those guidelines gives you a stronger negotiation position. Look up your local labour laws.
- Similarly, in other the negotiation culture will play a part in salary negotiations. In the US you are supposed to take initiative and haggle if you want.
- Saying “No” is very difficult during salary negotiations due to the fact that a “no” can also be interpreted as a lack of motivation for the job or you turning down the job. You have to instead communicate reluctance to a salary proposition by
What is a BATNA and a red line in negotiations?
Your BATNA is like a Plan B. It stands for Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. This is where you have to use your creative and strategic skills to decide what to do if a deal falls through. Create a process chart of your next steps and understand what a failed negotiation entails for you and for the opposite parties.
Your red line is the point at which you simply cannot accept the deal on offer. You need to set out what your red line is before negotiations too. Knowing your red line is also important for your strategy. You will have failed a negotiation based on whether your red line has been crossed.
Knowing your BATNA and your red line is already a good start to negotiations, but here are a four other tips :
- Find out whether you can design a win-win situation in your negotiations. These are optimum outcomes and are really what you should both be aiming for if you want a longer term business or partnership. If one party comes out of the negotiation worse off then its likely.
- When you start negotiating, in most negotiating cultures an effective strategy is to demand more that you
- Make sure you round of negotiating with a course of action, that you are able to remind the opposite party of by written form later. This is so an agreement verbally or contractually is then put into action.
- Always take the demands of the opposite parties seriously no matter how trivial they may seem.
How do I present negotiation skills on my CV
Your negotiation skills on your CV can go into a professional skills section. You can also prove your negotiation skills in your experience section. The important thing is that you back it up with events rather than merely just put it out there, especially if one of the key competences asked for is negotiation skills.
Thus, you should aim to have your negotiation skills included in your professional experience and extra-curricular activity too.