Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. Advice at the intersection of work and life.
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Browsing category "Negotiating"

How to make yourself more likable

January 6th, 2010
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I am back with the farmer.
This probably is not surprising to you, because admittedly, it is absurd to be engaged one day and not engaged the next day. But there are exacerbating factors, and basically, the way I got him back was to be more likable.
I have spent most of my career overcoming my lack [...]

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Thanksgiving drama on steroids: Adding a family business to the mix

Posted to: Entrepreneurship |  Money |  Negotiating
November 25th, 2009
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I think its safe to say that for the majority of people, Thanksgiving is not about goodness and gratitude, but rather, family drama.
Until now, I have been pretty much on the outside of this American tradition: The tradition of building up Thanksgiving to be a great family moment and then the family not living up [...]

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How to find work with a flexible schedule

August 4th, 2009
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Most of us think of a dream career as one that affords us flexibility for personal relationships and high engagement for personal growth. And while flexible work used to be limited to women, USA Today reports that increasingly, men, too, feel stress from the personal impact of inflexible work. So the question for everyone is: What's the best [...]

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How to shift between work and dating

Posted to: Negotiating |  Self-management |  Women
January 23rd, 2009
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Here is a map of where all the single men are:
http://creativeclass.typepad.com/thecreativityexchange/2007/04/the_singles_map.html
I do not live near any single men. Well, I sort of do. My divorce lawyer has set me up with a few men in my hometown, Madison, Wisconsin. He told me that I am too focused on my work life. I need to get [...]

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The entrepreneur's guide to a good divorce settlement

Posted to: Entrepreneurship |  Negotiating
July 25th, 2008
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Here's what happens in every meeting I have with investors: They ask about my divorce.
Many people ask about my divorce. Usually it's because the person cares about me. But with the investors, there is no pretense. They just want to know if Nino is going to get a large percentage of my stock in the [...]

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5 Communication lessons learned in marriage counseling

Posted to: Negotiating |  Office Politics
November 28th, 2007
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In case you are new to the drama that is my marriage, here is the post about our first day of counseling, which now has 171 comments. And here is the post where I blame my whole marriage on the institution of shared-care parenting, and also where I find out that the population of available [...]

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Try this: Don't ask for what you want when you negotiate

Posted to: Entrepreneurship |  Negotiating |  Women
August 27th, 2007
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When I founded my first company I didn't have time to find someone to date, but I knew that I wanted to get married. So I followed all the advice I had read about how you should tell people what you want in order to get what you want. I started telling everyone that I [...]

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Yahoo column: 7 Tricks for negotiating in business situations

Posted to: Negotiating
June 21st, 2007
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Your gender might matter most when it comes to negotiation — women just aren't as good at it as men. Part of the reason for this is that women are more hesitant to ask. But to be fair, women who negotiate competitively are judged negatively, whereas men aren't.
Another factor that has a huge impact on [...]

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How to negotiate when you have nothing to leverage

Posted to: Negotiating
June 18th, 2007
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You probably know by now that while I go by the name Penelope today, it didn't start out as my real name. It was a pen name. My editor at Time Warner gave it to me, and the first time I saw it was in a contract. It looked like a good place to start negotiating.
But [...]

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How to negotiate more effectively with anyone

Posted to: Negotiating
May 17th, 2007
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During my first job interview, my mom drove me to 31-Flavors while we practiced interview questions.
One question we did not practice was "How much money are you expecting?"
When the ice cream store owner asked, I said, "Well, my parents are cutting off my allowance for the summer so I'd like twenty dollars a week." That [...]

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Yahoo column: Five steps for getting a raise

Posted to: Managing Up |  Negotiating
April 5th, 2007
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Here are numbers one and five on the list. You can read the rest at Yahoo Finance.
1. Understand your boss's perspective.
This is not a moment of truth, it's a moment of negotiation. You convince your boss you're worth more and your boss convinces you he or she is fair, and you reach some sort of [...]

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Office politics is not optional: Five tips for doing it better

August 2nd, 2006
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John Annabel, of Northampton, walked into the office one day to find himself working side by side with a new employee whose only qualification seemed to be that she was having an affair with Annabel’s department head. Annabel says people didn’t particularly care that she was in the office doing no work until she started [...]

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Upbeat news about flextime requests

July 24th, 2006
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The best thing you can do if you want a flexible schedule is ask for it. Younger workers are finding more and more success when they ask, which should give everyone encouragement to request flextime if they want it.
Laurie Young is a founder of Flexible Resources, a company that specializes in finding flextime jobs for [...]

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How to get a raise

Posted to: Leadership |  Managing Up |  Money |  Negotiating
July 18th, 2006
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You do not deserve a raise just because you have been doing your job well for x amount of months. It is your job to do your job well. That's why you were hired.
Also, do not complain about your salary not being at market rate six months after you take your job. Because if you [...]

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When it comes to office politics, consider the sibling factor

July 7th, 2006
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Time magazine's cover story is How Your Siblings Make You Who You Are. There are a few good tidbits about how your sibling experience affects how you are at work.
Adult life is made up of relationships – at work, in marriage, among friends — and we learn the skills for these relationships through siblings because [...]

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Take your pet to work day

Posted to: Negotiating |  Working from home
June 23rd, 2006
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Today is take your pet to work day. In New York City, pet owners are carrying around doctor's notes that say their dog is a medical necessity — as in the psychological benefits of dogs — so that store owners legally have to let the dogs come in. I can see that doing this at [...]

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The time is right to ask for perks

Posted to: Negotiating
May 10th, 2006
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The deluge of press about the difficulty of attracting and keeping Generation Y employees is amazing.
Here's an example of a press release pandering to the media infatuation with the topic. Even the sheep are suffering : "Fewer and fewer people are choosing the sheep and beef industry as a career. There are huge job choices [...]

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Getting a promotion is so last century

March 13th, 2006
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Can we all just stop talking about promotions like they matter? A promotion has meaning when someone is moving up the corporate ladder at such a slow pace that every small step is grounds for celebration.
But there are no more ladders because no one stays long enough at a company to get up the whole [...]

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Lessons from a French chicken farm

Posted to: Diversity |  Negotiating |  Working abroad
August 8th, 2004
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One summer, when I found myself with no job and no plan, I panicked and took a job on a chicken farm in the French countryside. I told myself the job would look good on my resume – showing I am adventurous and understand the agriculture business to boot. Neither is true, in fact, and [...]

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4 interview questions you should never ask

Posted to: Interviewing |  Job Hunt |  Negotiating |  Time management
July 25th, 2004
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Most interviews reach a pause when the hiring manager says, “Do you have any questions for me?" In a world of workplace transparency the most common response to this question would be, “No. I have no questions. I am sick of job hunting. Give me a job."
But alas, you must play the interview game. So [...]

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