“Ask For It” Review
Book Review
“Ask For It: How Women Can Use The Power Of Negotiation To Get What They Really Want”
By Linda Babcock and Sarah Laschever
Ask for It, by Dr. Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, provides practical advice for increasing your negotiation skills. The information is especially useful for job searching women who are negotiating job offers, but the book is helpful for anyone who could benefit from strategies to “ask for more” in their work and life. The authors use stories from women’s experiences throughout the book, which makes it easy to understand the main ideas and tactics.
While Ask for It is specifically written with women in mind, the negotiation strategies will be helpful for anyone who has difficulty believing in the value of their talents. It may not come naturally to many women to ask for more – more money, more assistance, more recognition – and at the same time, women can be perceived negatively by others when they act assertively. The authors address these gender double standards and offer specific tactics for engaging in the negotiation process to help women ask for more, without coming off as “too aggressive.”
Readers gain valuable skills for negotiating, including how to do the research to find out the market value of your position, how to respond when a hiring manager asks for your salary demands upfront, and how to aim for your target salary.
While the negotiation strategies are relevant today, one drawback of the book is that it was published 12 years ago and some of the websites mentioned in the book are no longer active.