Negotiation isn’t just about closing deals—it’s about problem-solving, active listening and finding common ground. These are critical in customer-facing roles, internal stakeholder management, and collaborative project environments. Given its importance, why aren’t negotiation skills more frequently tested during recruitment?

A Missing Link In Recruitment?

Negotiation is an essential skill across many business functions, from customer service and sales to project management and procurement. However, recruitment processes often neglect to assess candidates’ negotiation abilities. Instead, they rely heavily on CVs, interviews and unvalidated claims of past achievements. While these methods provide insight into a candidate’s experience, they rarely test their practical negotiation skills or reveal their approach under pressure.

Negotiation as a Measure of Key Competencies

Negotiation exercises provide insight into several essential skills, including:

1. Problem-Solving: The ability to analyse situations and propose creative solutions.
2. Active Listening: Demonstrating empathy and understanding by truly listening.
3. Adaptability: Adjusting to new information or challenges in real-time.
4. Communication: Clearly and persuasively articulating ideas while maintaining professionalism.

These competencies are vital across many roles, yet they remain under-assessed in hiring processes.

The Risks of Ignoring Negotiation Skills in Recruitment

Relying on CVs and interviews for negotiation-heavy roles is risky. Achievements listed on a CV only show one side of the story and often lack validation from other parties. For example, a candidate may boast about successfully negotiating a major contract, but how can we confirm whether they truly led the effort or simply took credit for a team achievement?

Popular interview challenges like “Sell me this pen” provide little insight into negotiation style or ability. Instead, they test superficial skills such as improvisation or salesmanship, leaving critical elements—problem-solving, empathy, and collaboration—entirely unexplored.

The Role of Negotiation Cards: A Quick and Effective Solution

A practical and efficient way to assess negotiation skills during recruitment is through Negotiation Cards. These simple tools provide everything you need to drop straight into a negotiation skills assessment without requiring lengthy preparation or complex case studies.

Why Negotiation Cards Work:

• Ease of Use:

Negotiation cards are quick to implement, requiring minimal setup.

• Focus on Style:

They are designed to observe how candidates negotiate in real-time, offering insight into their natural style rather than testing their data analysis skills.

• Versatility:

Each card outlines a scenario with basic variables, allowing candidates to negotiate based on the information provided

Incorporating Negotiation Cards into an Interview: A Simple but Powerful Tool

Negotiation Cards can transform the interview process by offering a quick and engaging way to assess candidates’ negotiation styles and approaches. This activity is not about finding a “right” or “wrong” way to negotiate but rather about observing how individuals handle a challenge, how confident they are, and which skills they naturally demonstrate. Here’s how to use them effectively.

Example: Using Negotiation Cards in an Interview

1. Preparation:

Before the interview, prepare a deck of Negotiation Cards. Each card should represent a role—either a Buyer or a Seller—and include basic variables for the negotiation. For example:

• Buyer Card:

Budget: £800 per tonne of apples. Payment terms: 30 days. Delivery requirement: Within 1 week.

• Seller Card:

Break Even: £460 per tonne of apples. Stock available: 10 tonnes.

2. Setting Up:

During the interview, shuffle the deck of cards in front of the candidate or group. Hand a Buyer card to one person and a Seller card to the other. Explain the scenario:

• Scenario: “You are negotiating the sale of a tonne of apples. Your goal is to reach a satisfactory outcome based on the information on your card. You may not show your card to the other party, but you can ask and answer questions to explore the terms.”

3. Time Limit:

The negotiation should last no longer than 5 minutes. Emphasise that this is purely “a bit of fun” and not a test. The purpose is to let them express their approach and see how they handle the challenge.

4. Observation Criteria:

During the negotiation, observe how the candidate:

• Initiates the discussion.
• Communicates their needs and explores the other party’s.
• Handles challenges, such as mismatched expectations.
• Demonstrates problem-solving or compromise.
• Uses persuasion, active listening, or other negotiation skills.

Key Benefits of This Exercise

1. Highlighting Negotiation Styles:

The simplicity of this activity allows candidates to express their natural style, whether they are assertive, collaborative, or something in between. For example:

• A direct and confident candidate might push for the best price quickly.
• A more analytical candidate might take a slower, methodical approach, asking clarifying questions.

2. Quick and Engaging:

This exercise is quick to set up and requires minimal preparation. It’s also fun for candidates, creating a memorable and interactive experience that differentiates your recruitment process.

3. Assessing Confidence and Communication:

Even in a short time frame, you can gain insights into a candidate’s confidence, ability to think on their feet, and skill in building rapport.

Pro Tip: Practice Makes Perfect

As an interviewer, practice with Negotiation Cards before using them in a recruitment setting. By participating in similar exercises—perhaps at a negotiation club—you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics and be better equipped to interpret the candidates’ behaviours.

Prop Tip: Iterating the Process

Feel free to have a couple of rounds with different scenarios or variables. For example:

• Negotiating delivery timelines instead of price.
• Changing the commodity to something relevant to the candidate’s industry.

This allows you to see how candidates adapt to different challenges and whether they can shift their style to suit the situation.

Negotiation Styles Matter

There are no “right” or “wrong” negotiation styles—only styles better suited to particular situations. For example:

• A direct, assertive approach may excel in high-stakes supplier negotiations.
• A softly spoken, collaborative style could shine in internal stakeholder management or customer resolution roles.

Understanding a candidate’s negotiation style is critical for aligning them with the right position. Additionally, having a diverse range of negotiation styles within a team ensures the business is well-prepared for any scenario or situation.

Incorporating Negotiation into Recruitment

Here are a few ways businesses can integrate negotiation assessments into their hiring process:

1. Negotiation Cards: Use a pre-prepared set of negotiation cards for quick, focused exercises.
2. Role-Playing: Create buyer-seller or conflict-resolution scenarios reflecting real-world challenges.
3. Group Dynamics: Include team-based negotiation tasks to evaluate collaboration and leadership skills.
4. Case Studies: Provide scenarios requiring strategic thinking and verbal proposals.

The Competitive Advantage

Integrating negotiation exercises into recruitment allows companies to evaluate candidates holistically. It ensures new hires bring the necessary technical and interpersonal skills, aligning with team dynamics and business needs. Candidates will also view the company as forward-thinking, valuing practical abilities alongside experience.

Negotiation skills are too important to overlook in recruitment. By using tools like Negotiation Cards, businesses can efficiently assess candidates’ real-world abilities, understand their negotiation style, and place them in roles where they can thrive.

Whether hiring for sales, procurement, or project management, a simple negotiation exercise can reveal more than any CV or interview question ever could. After all, successful negotiation is about problem-solving, building trust, and adapting to challenges—skills every business needs to succeed.

Using Negotiation Cards in interviews may sound overly simplistic, but it’s a highly effective tool for observing candidates’ skills, styles, and behaviours in action. The insights gained can be invaluable—not just for hiring decisions but also for ensuring a good match between candidates’ negotiation styles and the specific demands of the role.

By integrating this activity into your recruitment process, you’ll not only assess key competencies but also create an engaging and insightful experience for both candidates and interviewers alike.