When applying for jobs, job seekers often focus on a desired salary while ignoring other aspects of the job offer such as benefits, fit with the job, and working environment. In many cases, the salary may be good, but there are other, negative features of the job not being considered. This is an example of

A. anchoring bias

B. representative bias

C. framing bias

D. overconfidence bias

E. hindsight bias

Anchoring bias refers to a common mistake of relying heavily on the first information that we get, or in this case, the first information that we look for.

We all tend to suffer from anchoring bias, that is why it is one of the oldest sales techniques. Everyone has seen an ad that states a before price and a discount price. If the difference between the before price and the after price are significant, then we will consider that it is a bargain. Or a salesperson first shows us an expensive product, and then shows us a similar but lower priced product, we tend to believe the second product is cheap.

When most of us look for a job, of course we focus on the salary, since we want to work to earn money. But only focusing on the salary is seeing only half the picture, although the most important half. Other associated benefits or costs are usually not considered, e.g. a high paying job might also require dressing formally or spending a lot of time travelling.