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PROGRAMSOptimism - One Trait to Rule All Interviews With
By NIIT Editor
Published on 10/10/2019
Negotiation is a skill that is not limited to the functional role of Sales. By definition, negotiation is the process to convince someone to lower their asking price for something so you can purchase the product/service at a lower or preferable price. In other words, you can define it as, the power to persuade people to do what you want them to do. Negotiation is a mixture of skillsets, where the background knowledge of a product makes you present a reasonable logic and allows the seller of the product/service to agree with your viewpoint. It also requires you, the individual, to be a confident speaker. Needless to say, the better you are at this skill the greater chances you have to win any debate or argument. This is one of the reasons interviewers look for the following signs in you, as a future leader, to be good at negotiating.
Never Take ‘NO’ For an Answer
We always have to back our answers with reasons, whether in personal lives or professional. The first and foremost rule of negotiation is to continue the discussion for as long as possible. This means not taking NO, as an answer. The best example of it is children trying to convince their parents to buy them something. Have a look at the following question, for instance:
Interviewer: “Please share an incident when something you wanted was denied to you. How did you remedy the situation?”
Children never stop, even when their parents tell them straight that they will not grant them their wish. They continue to give reasons, even if the reasons themselves make no sense. Try a variation of the following example:
Interviewer: “I had a lengthy, and heated discussion with my parents once to highlight the reasons for me going on an inter-state college trip. It was necessary as the research I did would help me build my annual project. Needless, to say that in the process I would also gain confidence by exposure to new people.”
The interviewer wants you, as a job-seeker, to have this quality, to begin with. Logic is something that your supervisor or the reporting manager can teach you once you are employed. But nobody can teach you to be hungry. Let your desire to achieve be the starting point for you and back your reasons with logic.
Make Others Realize Benefits
People would be least interested in listening to you if you do not show them the benefits of a deal. Think about it, you pay attention to an advertisement, when you think it might be something that could add value to your life. Until you can bring out and highlight this factor in the course of a discussion, the deal would be likely to fall apart. Even throughout your interview, you are trying to persuade the interviewer that your potential is greater, and therefore the organization would profit more by hiring you. Let us try and understand this principle with an example:
Interviewer: “What is your strategy to convince people of your point of view?”
Make others believe that they will profit from a particular deal more than you would.
Candidate: “I take myself out of the equation and shift the focus onto the listener. Whatever the subject of discussion, it is important for the listener to understand how they can prosper from a potential deal.”
Among the finer details, do not stress yourself and sound too “pushy” to keep your point across the table. Be as natural as you are with your friends while negotiating something strategic.
Learn To Stay Optimistic
Even before you step into the very first day of your very first job, keep this in mind that at the end of it all, it is business. No matter how many scientific or experiential approaches you apply, you will never succeed 100% of the times. On the other hand, when you enter a scene of dialogue as the lead negotiator accepting your chances of failure, you’d be much likely to succeed. This approach allows you to release unwanted pressure and take things in a positive stride.
Stay optimistic knowing that the game would go on. If not this client, you would certainly win over the next one. Such an approach lets you begin the new day with renewed energy and passion. It is this quality of keeping yourself pumped, that the interviewer will try to probe through the following question:
Interviewer: “How do you approach rejection? Please share examples!”
Learn to radiate confidence. It is a common trait to be found in highly successful individuals regardless of their functional role. You are at your best when the day-to-day happenings affect you the least. Trust and treat everything as part of the natural process of growth. A variation of the following answer sits well as a reply to the above question:
Candidate: “I appeared for the AIEEE examination but didn’t score well. In the beginning, I was a little depressed but soon I realized there are many other ways to get the same education. I realized it is upon me to do the hard work.”
Back yourself with the belief that comes what may, no challenge is too big to make you feel small or defeated. Let this psyche guide you towards your professional ambitions. You wouldn’t realize when you turn into a leader teaching the same lesson to your juniors.
In addition to optimism, learn to handle situational questions in interviews that have become the new norm in F2F rounds. There is an art to tackle tricky questions by HRs so you don’t sound dull but rather come about as the ideal candidate the recruiters are looking for. Our guides would help you to point your cultural fitness to the HR, something that is paramount to clearing any screening round.
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