How to strengthen your negotiation skills during an interview

Negotiation skills constitute to being a significant part and parcel of your career. Right from the time you sit in front of your employer for interview till the time you retire; almost every instance requires a presence of strong negotiation skills.

While many limit the boundary of negotiation skills as just the process of bargaining in a particular party’s favor or opinion, there’s a bigger picture to this. Strong negotiation skills can exactly offer you what you are worth to; in fact, you can even bargain for more.

Cutting the chase, let’s proceed with some strategies to strengthen your negotiation skills during an interview.

• Do your homework: Before going for an interview, ensure that you do your research to calculate the pay scale for a particular post. Sites like Glassdoor help you to know the approximate salary margin for a profession or post that you can bargain with your employer.
• Be confident: Confidence is the key for strong negotiation skills. In absence of confidence, the entire mediation process will be difficult for you. Try to radiate a positive body language.
• Demonstrate your skills: Negotiations skills are just not limited to bargaining of your salary. Demonstration of skills like active listening, critical thinking, assertiveness and problem solving will come in handy to impress your employer.
• Perfect your Pitch: When it comes to negotiation, you need to persuade your employer that you are an asset and an ideal candidate for this post. Once the employer is convinced that hiring you would be beneficial for the company, half the battle is already won.
• Ask questions: Being a psychological game, your employer is bound to put you in troubled waters. At such times, instead of losing your calm, be honest and smart enough to draft answers in a way that the employer gets the insight of your creative solutions.

While the list is endless what matters the most is the key ingredient of situational awareness. It’s the situational awareness that will give you power the perfect your pitch in order to create a win-win situation for all.

However, if your negotiation skills are weak, then there’s no need to worry. Through a constant practice, one can certainly polish their negotiation skills.  Similarly, if you wish to master these skills, try reading the books of negotiation experts as they provide a hands-on approach in honing your negotiation skills.