Job seekers know there is enough work and stress involved in the job search process to last a lifetime. But, the one topic that seems to add more stress than any other is the question about your salary expectations.
Every job seeker knows internally what salary he wants from his next position. He knows what he made at his last job and, deep down, he hopes to replace, if not increase, that salary. Is that a realistic expectation?
We’ve all heard stories about the manager who was able to find her next job quickly and, to add insult to injury, was able to negotiate an even higher salary than the one she left in the previous job.
And, we’ve all heard about people who have landed in new positions at lower salaries than they had before. So, what gives?
Who knows? Life is funny that way. I suppose if someone took the time to conduct an in-depth study of those two outcomes, they might find some significant indicators that would help the rest of us in our salary negotiations.
But, I do know one thing for sure: the more prepared you are about salary going into the interview, the more prepared, relaxed, and confident you’ll be when it comes time to talk money.
The more you know about your skill set and what the local and national salary trends are for what you do, the better armed you will be to answer the interviewer’s question. Knowing that you have supporting evidence to back up your salary request gives you an edge of confidence, not arrogance, that you’ve done your homework and that you’re only asking for what, according to the data, seems fair.
Of course, they already have a budget for the position, a range in which you must fit your request. But, if you’ve gotten past the resume screeners, past the telephone interview, and done a good sales job during the interview, the salary conversation can be a breeze because you’ve researched the market, you know your fair market value, plus you’ve practiced the salary conversation multiple times with a counselor or friend.
So, where can you find good salary information? Here are some resources that will help with your salary research:
www.salary.com – Use their Salary Wizard to locate salary data. Enter your title, zip code, and click on Search. The system displays salary information for you and for the employer that is free. There is an option to purchase additional salary information.
http://career-advice.monster.com/salary-benefits/careers.aspx – This is the monster.com salary application and, to me, is less helpful. You must select a job category that may or may not be what you do, enter your zip code, then click on Search. The resulting screen, after you click No Thanks on the ad page, gives you a collection of job titles, a description of each, and a Base Salary Range link that takes you to, what looks like, a salary.com-like graph of the lower 25%, the median, and the upper 75% of salaries.
http://www.cbsalary.com/salary-information/article.aspx?t=KnowYourWorth&id=8e3398a7-e1de-43cd-b5da-475a74565926 – This is the salary calculator from careerbuilder.com. Enter a Job Title and click on Calculate. Click on No thank you to get past the ad page and CareerBuilder displays a list of job titles. Click on the one that most fits you. The page displays the national average salary and a low-to-high salary graph. At the bottom of the graph, enter your City, State, and click on Go. As always, click on the No thank you button to get past the ad page and the system displays the average salary for the city and state you entered.
http://www.texasindustryprofiles.com/apps/win/eds.php?compare=5&page=0 – I must admit, this is a very comprehensive presentation of salary information for the state of Texas. You simply enter your job title in the Search for field and click on Search. The system displays a list of links that contain the job title you entered plus a Relevance field that indicates how relevant the result is to what you entered. Since the top link is probably the most relevant, click on it. The system displays a compensation summary, a brief job description, and a breakdown of the data by industry. There are tabs across the top (Industries, Areas, Occupations) that provide even more salary data by those designations. As I said, a very comprehensive site.
There you have it. Not an exhaustive list of links to find salary information but a good start. I’m sure there are many other sites that provide valuable data that will help you build a case for getting your next salary. In fact, if you Google salary calculator, you’ll get about 3,440,000 hits. So, take your pick.
The point of this, and any discussion of the job looking / salary negotiation topics, is that there’s no reason for you to go into an interview unprepared, for whatever topic: experience, skills, tools, or salary.
The data is out there. Look at it. Research it until you’re sick of it. Get a big yellow pad and write down the data from as many sites and you want, compare what you’ve found, then drive a stake in the ground: decide in your own head what you think your fair market value is, pick a range you can live with, and move on.
Now, when you got to your next interview and the interviewer asks, “So, what kind of salary were you looking for?”, you can say with confidence and with supporting data that you are looking for a specific number because you’ve done your homework, you’ve worried about this topic long enough, and now it’s settled.
It’s amazing how much stress relief is contained in that one decision!
