How She Learned to Negotiate

A recent offer negotiation reminded me that candidate control is everything just this week. Before approaching the client, get specific confirmation on the exact salary, PTO, and terms the candidate would 100% accept the offer before going back to the client. That clarity gives the client something concrete to approve and creates the strongest path toward closing the offer.

Negotiations can get tricky at times. My natural inclination early on in my life was to listen, ask questions, and generally say yes. As I grew through my career I learned responses like, that's a great idea, let me think on that. Generally I would then take a list of my priorities - looking at questions like - how does this fit with my professional development, personal and professional values, as well as how long is my list of to dos? Better yet, if it seemed more than I could manage - generally speaking I would try to come up with one or two other recommendations and explain why.