Growing Your Career: How to ask for more — and get it | Alex Carter

Modupe Akinola (0:00)

Hey, listeners, we're dropping another playlist this month. And this one is for anyone who's on the job market right now. Making a career change is never easy. But I think a lot of us are finding it especially hard at this moment, because it can feel so impersonal. There are more AI screenings, more trying to connect over Zoom. It's like the human part of the process is slowly getting filtered out. That's where these talks come in. I've picked out a line up full of tricks and tips to help you stay calm, stay true to yourself, and advocate for what you want and need. The job hunt can be opaque, overwhelming, and anonymizing. So let's shed some light on it together.

I have a very clear memory of one of my first negotiations, and it's because I was so nervous. It was my first time doing independent advisory work, and I needed to come up with a pay rate. I asked my friends and other people what they were getting paid to do similar work, and through my cursory research, I came up with a number that I thought was worth my while. I gathered the courage, and in a meeting with the hiring team, I said the number out loud.

And then, silence, long protracted silence. With the gift of hindsight, I recognized that silence is a good sign. If they had said yes right away, then I should have asked for more money. Instead, they said something like, we might be able to adjust our budget to make that work, and make it work, they did. During that negotiation, I was a bundle of nerves. I'm glad I saw it through, but sometimes I do wonder, what would have happened if I couldn't stand the uncomfortable silence? What if I didn't have the nerve to ask?

I'm Modupe Akinola. This is TED Business from the TED Audio Collective. Our speaker today is Alex Carter. She's a negotiation trainer for the United Nations, and she's here to share her expertise with us. After years of experience, she's discovered that curious people, they're often the ones who make more money. Then after the talk, I'll share some strategies for elegantly opening up a conversation. But first, a quick break.

And now, Alex Carter takes the TED stage.

Alex Carter (2:37)

The most important things I know about negotiation, I learned in a kayak on my honeymoon.

Picture this. I arrive in Hawaii, and I look adoringly at my brand new husband as we get in a two-person kayak together for a river tour. Then things go wrong, fast. You see, in a two-person kayak, the passenger in the back, usually the larger passenger, is supposed to drive using their paddles. Well, I didn't like how he was driving. So I decided to drive my own way. And exactly at the moment I thought I had taken over, we flipped over three separate times. Apparently, we set a record. So I get back in the kayak, now dripping wet, when our guide up ahead turns back and says, OK, folks, let's negotiate these things to the left, because you're going to hit that beach up ahead.

Negotiate the kayak. In that moment, I realized that although I had been teaching negotiation for a few years already, I had missed something important. And I was not alone. A lot of us have misconceptions about negotiation. We're taught that it's a battle over money, that it involves losing. So we either fear it or we avoid it altogether. In fact, 54% of us didn't negotiate our last salary. That's from research, by the way. I'm not actually seeing into your souls.

The fact is that before that guide, I had never heard anyone use the word negotiate that way before. I too had absorbed this message that it was a contest of wills. You know, like five minutes earlier when I dumped us in the river. But there's another way to think about it, isn't there? When I negotiate my kayak toward a beach, what am I doing? I'm steering.

Today, I want to share five lessons about negotiation that just might change your life. And the first is this. Negotiation is simply steering. It is any conversation in which you are steering a relationship. And it's so much more than the money conversations. You know, just like a kayak where we want to steer consistently to get to our goal, we can be steering our relationships almost every minute of the day. You know, when I got back from that honeymoon, I looked around and I saw opportunities to negotiate everywhere. I could be getting to know my bosses better so that I understood what they prioritized most. I could be calling my clients regularly and asking them what was new in their businesses. And I realized something powerful. If we intentionally focus on the everyday steering, what happens when we do get to the money conversations? We are more likely to be successful. Which brings me to lesson two. Curious people make more money.