Know Thyself (Sokrates)
Breaking news: You're in a marathon, not a sprint. Therefore the first step towards successful salary negotiations is a clarification process: you need to be very clear on your desires. Which values are important to you? How do these translate into your expectations on your potential occupation? Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years from now? Ask yourself this first: What do you really really want from life and who do you want to be? And by 'want', I mean the thing you are burning for so much, that you are willing to make sacrifices for it. Do you want to learn and become an expert in a specific field? Do you prefer to work in a dynamic and rapidly changing or in a well predictable environment? Do you rather want to work with a certain type of people e.g. with creative, analytical or highly energetic colleagues? Do you prefer to work in a certain environment, e.g. in an international, globally distributed team?
Bonus task: Also be very clear about your personal red flags. For instance, would you be ok with working for a company that produces and sells (technology for) arms?
Your professional journey may take you through many stages and you will not always have the freedom of choice to set the direction. Hence it is crucial to have a guiding light, your personal north star, that helps you navigate towards your ideals in the long run.
Writing helps you think
These are just a few questions you might ask yourself before you embark on your next step in your professional journey. Your answers to these questions do not necessarily have to take your strengths into account. At this stage the point is to gain absolute clarity about your innermost desires. Don't overdo it. But make sure to write your results down. This is key, because it helps in multiple ways: First, you will have a more clear structure of thoughts by being forced to put your abstract thoughts into specific language. Second, you will have the benefit of being less ambiguous once you commit yourself to put your desires in writing. This will have a huge benefit in the long run. Last but least, what is written is easily remembered. Also this way you will be able to check back any time and review and maybe adapt your desires. So you see, writing down your desires itself is part of the clarification process.
Analyse Your Superpowers
Once you're done clarifying your desires, you can proceed to the next step: An analysis of your unique selling proposition (USP). You can regard this similar to a SWOT-analysis where you only focus on your strengths. Leave the rest for later. For now only your best punch matters. What are your superpowers? What is it that thrills you so much, it is the first thing you think of when you wake up and the last thing you think of before you go to bed? Which ones are your most striking habits? What are you good at? What do your friends say about you if you ask them these kind of questions?
For now you're fine with what you want and what you have. In the next step, you'll want to figure out how others might benefit from your strengths and capabilities. For this, you'll need to adapt your customer's perspective.
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