One Way to Win at Negotiations: Crack a Dumb Joke

New York Magazine:

Here’s a move that pulls double duty: Next time you’re seated across from a potential new employer to hammer out salary details, try kicking things off with a silly wisecrack. One, it’ll break the ice; and two, it might just help you leave with a better offer. As the Association for Psychological Science explained in a recent blog post, past research has shown that opening with a joke about your desired salary can be a better strategy than playing it straight.

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“Knowledge of the candidate’s salary history gives the employer information about what the candidate is likely to expect, which may be at the lower end of what the employer is willing to offer,” said study author Todd J. Thorsteinson, a psychologist at the University of Idaho. (As the APS noted, Massachusetts recently become the first state to pass a law forbidding employers from asking about salary history, a big step in combating the gender wage gap.)

Read the whole story: New York Magazine