Story

Name your salary for a new job

Name your salary for a new job

In early 1930, Princeton University offered a position to Albert Einstein. During the job offer stage, the scientist was asked to name his salary.
A few days later Einstein wrote to suggest what, in view of his needs and . . . fame, he thought US dollars 3000 was a reasonable figure ... unless you think, I can get by less.
The university rejected his request and offered him five times of the salary he suggested.
Princeton university showed fairness.
This fairness may not be the current norm in most of cases.
Make a mistake during your salary negotiation stage and you are likely to be setback by few thousand dollars. The new salary will also become a base for your future salary negotiations!
How will you prepare for this question during your coming interview?
Photo Adaptation/Wikiwand.com/en/Albert_Einstein
Share on

Your Comments

Similar Stories


The mistakes we make in our everyday life

• We are hardwired to make these mistakes • Few biases are simply evolutionary • These errors affect all of us including the bright ones • Experience is just not enough to overcome • but expertise is required to recognize and overcome

Few of biases as below · Anchoring - When an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information during decision making · Fixed pie - When we assume that our interests conflict with the other party's interests and we play adversarial · Framing - When we decide on our options differently when the options are presented with positive or negative connotations · Vividness – When we pay attention to strong features at the expense of less, that could be more impactful · Over confidence – When our subjective confidence is greater than the objective accuracy · Escalation – When initial decision is followed up with an irrational decision to justify the initial decision

Few ways to mitigate these biases are · Learn to recognize the bias · Use slow, effortful and logical thinking (System 2) · Avoid fast, automatic and effortless thinking (System 1) · Avoid negotiations which are thrust upon when not ready · Learn through use of stories, examples, exercises · Bring an outsider perspective