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Power suits, job ads, negotiating a salary and you’re not too old

Editor-in-chief Fiona Anderson on the news that caught her eye this week
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Top stories this week come from the Atlantic -- important tips on how to dress and how to negotiate a better salary.

First wearing a suit makes you feel more powerful (they probably don’t call them power suits for nothing). And wearing a white coat you believe belongs to a doctor makes you more attentive. The story doesn’t say what you believe if you think the white coat is a painter’s smock, other than to say it doesn’t make you more attentive.  The reason though, is because you actually think differently.

Thinking differently – ie it’s not just about the money – is also a way to negotiate a better salary, according to a story entitled Ask a Hostage Negotiator: What’s the best way to get a raise? The key is you have to think of the whole picture, all the elements that make up the job. If you want more money to do a better job, you also need more authority to do it. In a hostage situation, if you are willing to pay a ransom, you have to figure out how the exchange is going to be made.  And the nicer you are, and the more you listen, the more successful you’ll be in both.

If you want a job at Alibaba, though, you may want to hone your porn star qualities. It’s hard to believe, but the company actually advertised for applicants who knew how to praise “code monkeys,” wake them up and organize meetings, Bloomberg reported.  Physical characteristics similar to a well-known Japanese adult film star would be helpful, the ad said. Programmers were offended. So too were women.

A more positive place to work, if you are a woman, is an all-woman law firm in Washington, DC that prides itself on its family friendliness. The firm’s credo is that a woman can be successful in work and still take afternoons off to spend time with her children.

And more good news for women – opponents of Hillary Clinton say they will not raise her age as an election issue, at least not expressly.  They’ll just hint, by referring to her as a politician from the 20th century.  Apparently they are taking that from Bill Clinton’s playbook, who expressly said he didn’t think Senator Bob Dole was too old to be president. “It is the age of his ideas, I question,” Clinton said (as quoted in Reuters).