The Negotiators Secrets

Greetings Negotiators!

I have a TV card built into my PC and dual monitors so I can work and (believe it or not) watch TV. I don’t watch much TV but sometime during each day I’ll channel surf to get a glimpse of what’s going on in the world beyond my own home. This morning it was Paula Abdul going to face David Letterman on the Bravo channel.

The show focused on all the behind the scenes scrambling that this celebrity and her entourage make for such an event. Paula had one guy following her around just preparing her for all the topics that Letterman might spring on her. He not only advised her of what she might say but suggested choices of different directions she might go with different scenarios. Paula was very upset at the idea that her infamous recreational drug use might be brought up (yet again)and was drying her pre-Letterman hard-questions jitter tears off as she exited the limo. The talk-coach gave her very good advice in my Negotiating opinion: “Turn it into a joke – let everybody laugh with you, not at you.” (my paraphrase).

One of the most significant rules that I learned early on in my career about how people deal with each other is that they talk “at” each other, not “to” each other. More specifically they are performing a role which they are almost completely focused on. When you enter a room for a job interview or being interviewed by David Letterman – the interviewer has a checklist they usually go off of and though they are paying as much attention to you as they can, their attention is almost always split with things like memories of previous interviewees, thinking of what to tell the boss about you compared to the other interviewees, lunch, getting off early on Friday and “doing a good job”, not to mention personal stuff that might not even relate directly to work.

With this in mind – you the interviewee has a great advantage. You’ve been preparing for this moment for at least a week perhaps months depending upon the type of position you are hunting for. Your know your resume inside and out, you have rehearsed your pitch at least 20 times a day and probably tried it out on other companies. That makes you just like everyone else this interviewer has seen while playing The Checklist Game.

Another thing I remember from some of my own interviews is that though Human Resource people might be “trained” to do interviews – I’ve seen very few of them relish the process. In our society “interrogation” isn’t polite and we all typically resist having it done to us or doing it to someone else at least unconsciously. Therefore most interviewers are incongruent about their role and that my Negotiating Friends is always a gift to any Negotiator!

In my 20s I lived in New York City where I made a very decent living trading in a skill today that even children have – typing. Wordprocessing was still a new phenomena that law firms and financial companies paid a fortune to sustain in the mid 80s. I remember my interview for the first job I got living in the Big Apple. Let me spell out the job, then my skills and the final result for you as a reference of what is possible.

The job was for a position as a wordprocessor in a wordprocessing pool which was one room with 4 desks all “manned” by women. It had a 60 words-per-minute requirement, short-hand was required and I think they were probably looking for a woman. The best I had ever typed at that point in my life on any test was about 34 words-per-minute. My hands were quite long and though I could write a few sentences of French and Spanish – there was no short-hand in my repertoire. Last but not least – I was a man.

I knew then in a course way that I had to stand out if I wanted the job. So, I answered the questions that were put to me and I added something to the interview that is still useful today. I asked questions back. Not just the “What are the benefits” type questions but things like the space I would work in, the number of lawyers in the firm. I played dumb and asked the interviewer what it was like to work with lawyers and what helped her decide to settle into a position at a law firm as opposed to the financial district or any other well paying industry. I didn’t just take an interest (self-interest) in my potential future position, but in the interviewer herself.

When she called me in for the second interview she said “I’ve decided to give you the job. I must tell you that you are the least qualified and your co-workers were hoping I’d hire a woman. Furthermore the firm will buy you a book on shorthand so that you can learn it over the next six months. The main reason that I hired you was that you told me you would do whatever it took to get the job done. That is the kind of attitude I want in my office. Congratulations.”

As a result of that Negotiation I just about doubled my weekly take home, I now had benefits, I was a single man working in an office with 3 very attractive women and I got to learn every bad lawyer joke ever told.

I was hired because I stood out – not because of my shinning resume or typing test. Of course if you are shopping for a job as a Nuclear Engineer at a Power Plant your resume might count a little more than mine did in this example – however in most situations people are people and that really is the bottom line.

If you would like more details on how to apply Negotiating Excellence to an interview you might consider looking at my at-your-own-pace Apprenticeship. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to use the comments beneath this post or you can write directly to me at justask@yourownbestgood.com. You can receive my free Negotiator’s Checklist just by signing up for my newsletter on the right hand side of this page.

What would happen if every time you opened your mouth you got exactly what you asked for?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!