This is the fifth in a series of eight posts, each linked to one of eight categories in the Career Resumes blog. These posts sum up the best pieces of advice, tips, direction, insights, and answers discovered and shared on the blog by Allen Voivod, Chief Blogger for Career-Resumes.com from October 2006 to September 2008.

If it weren’t for the whole “copyright violation” thing, I’d reprint this article in its entirety. It’s called “The Salary Game,” by Donald Asher, and I love, love, LOVE it. It made me laugh out loud, and it reminded me strongly of the absolute impenetrability advised in my favorite section of J.P Donleavy’s hysterical book, The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival and Manners. (That would be “Upon the Sudden Reawakening of Your Sordid Background.”)

The simple truth is, employers start with the upper hand when it comes to salary. They know what their budget is, they know what range of compensation they set, they know what the last person got paid, they know how much money they need to save on the next person they hire, and if they’ve got a bead on two otherwise identical candidates, they’ll go for the one who’ll take the lower salary.

What’s more, money’s still one of the greatest taboo topics in our nation. Sure, we constantly hear about the millions that celebrities make, but when it comes down to you and me – regular folks who happen to be good at what we do and deserve to be well-compensated at it – we often find ourselves uncomfortable when it comes to asking for the money we deserve. Not out of greediness, but from a place of sheer authenticity and integrity.

So when it comes to salary and negotiation, I beg these three things of you:

1. Read, re-read, and find more. Commit Asher’s article to memory, and keep seeking out more ways to handle the salary conversation.

2. Role-play. Find someone you feel comfortable with, and practice putting these tactics into action. You want them to feel so natural coming out of you that, when you get into the real situation, you get the hiring managers to automatically bend to your will.

3. Focus on the value, not the cost. Sales-type questions, like “What would you have to see in the first 60-90 days to know you’ve made the right decision?” take the focus off salary (an expense in their eyes), and put it on results (their income). And making a point throughout the hiring process to focus on results and performance makes it easier for a hiring manager to choose you over a candidate who may take a lower salary but isn’t as results-focused. That way, there’s a clearer ROI with you than the other person, and an easier decision.

Weak job market. Rising gas, food, and energy prices. Slumping stock market.

Suddenly, salary questions are getting a bit more complicated.

If ever there was a time to consider the broader job offer package and what it delivers, this is it. From flexible work hours to telecommuting, 401(k) matching to stock options, the base salary you get from your employer (or the one you offer to a prospective job candidate) is becoming less of a factor in the job decision these days.

Don’t get me wrong – base salary isn’t becoming irrelevant by any stretch of the imagination. I’m simply pointing out the fact that, in previous job surveys, quality of life plays a much higher role in job satisfaction than salary alone.

You probably knew that, but did you take it to the next level? Considering what’s going on in our economy, and knowing how expensive it is to find and recruit new talent, isn’t it that much more important to look at the whole pay package now?

And how much more satisfied will people be if their companies take into account the current economic situation when crafting job offers and reviewing best practices for benefits to existing employees?

Look at gas prices alone. Employees can literally save hundreds of dollars a month if they have a 9/80 or 4/40 work schedule; if the company promotes carpooling, vanpooling, or public transportation options; and if employees are allowed to telecommute one or two days a week.

Telecommuting still isn’t what you’d call “widely available” to people, but it could be with one simple tweak to expectations. Just set a goal. Say, “I’ll let you stay home to work today, but I want X, Y, and Z done to show for it.”

Check out this CNNMoney.com story to learn more about how folks are feeling in this economy….

You want the truth about recession? Here’s the truth about recession. It takes two quarters - six months! - of negative growth before anyone can officially declare a recession.

For anyone to be calling “Recession!” right now is the equivalent of calling “Shotgun!” for the front passenger seat before anyone’s decided to even leave the house.

All the talk in the media about recession is essentially scare-mongering. No, I’m not saying things aren’t bad, or that we aren’t in a recession now. (They’re right, we probably are.)

But it’s getting completely blown out of proportion. I’m convinced that the so-called “pundits” who are blathering on about it will actually do more harm than good. They’re going to take the negative effects of a recession and turn it into a vicious circle that ends up making the eventually-declared recession a lot worse than it could have been, if they’d have exercised a little restraint.

Wall Street may be seeing chaos, and it’s possible some of the shareholder retribution will involve layoffs or job cuts. The employment numbers coming out this year don’t seem to bode very well either.

But employment surveys we’ve quoted before have said as recently as September of 2007 that the balance of power - especially at the management, executive, and professional level - is tipping in favor of the resume senders, not the resume receivers.

What does this all mean for you, the mid-career job seeker? It means that, for the most part, nothing has changed.

Networking? Just as important as it always was.

Updating your resume? Still necessary.

Defining for yourself what your ideal job or next step there looks like? You had to do it before, and you have to do it now, and you’ll have to do it until you die. Or retire.

And now (perhaps more than ever), you need to focus on the value you deliver. Document your results. It’ll offer you some cover in the job you already have, and it’ll concretely demonstrate what you can do for the next employer who evaluates your job candidacy.

Wanna succeed in the face of a recession? Just follow through.

On the plane from New Hampshire to California the other day, I had the pleasure of reading the latest installment of Donald Asher’s “Save My Career” column in US Airways Magazine.

(Okay, I’ll freely admit that half the reason I was flipping through the content of the magazine was because both the Sudoku and crossword puzzles had been completed by the person in the seat before me. How often are flight attendants supposed to change out the magazines in the seat-back pockets, anyway?)

Back to the story. Asher’s February article, “The Salary Game,” revolved around the plight of an anonymous 36-year-old female executive, making $80K, who had just found out she was making $62K less – yes, sixty-two thousand dollars less – than a male colleague for doing essentially the same job.

Now, this could be a gender thing, a bad negotiation thing, a company trying to keep every penny it can, or a combination of any or all of these. But while the gender thing is more of a macro discussion, we can at least address the micro – the tactics of negotiating salary.

I’m not going to reveal Asher’s tactics here – honestly, it’s worth the click through to read it yourself. He suggests multiple deflective responses to employers asking you your salary requirements during the interview process, and I laughed more because of his awesome suggestions than my fellow airplane riders did to the in-flight movie. (Lars and the Real Girl, since you wondered.)

His point: Save honest-to-goodness salary negotiation for the one time in the hiring process when you have the power – when they say they want you, and make you an offer:

Then, when it comes to actually negotiating the terms, be nice but firm. Appeal to market rates, which you know from your prior research. The pertinent number is not what you earned before, but what it would cost them to hire someone else besides you. That’s the market rate.

(As an aside, USAirwaysMag.com seems to archive their issues online, which is great news – you can dive deeper into Asher’s writing. Not every inflight mag offers their content so freely online.)

As you start the new year, you’ve probably already know your financial picture for 2008. You received your performance review, you got whatever bonus you’re going to get, the percentage of your salary raise is about to be factored in to your first paycheck of the year…

And how do you feel about it? Do you think you should be getting more? Are you dissatisfied with all or part of what you’re getting? Or just vaguely uneasy, thinking that you could be doing better, but you’re not sure how to resolve that sensation?

Well, to answer those kinds of questions, I put myself in your shoes and started putting in Google searches. I tried “salary audit,” and discovered that unless auditing is your vocation, that’s not the search to be making.

After more searches, though, I couldn’t really find something simple and straightforward about evaluating whether you’re getting paid what you’re worth, so – what the heck – I’ve just decided to give you the simple steps here:

1. Head over to Salary.com. You can afford a personal salary report, so go ahead and get one.

2. Check with your trade group, licensing body, or industry association. It’s likely these groups are tracking average salary information in your field, so reach out and get some more info from them.

3. See what the government has to say. The Bureau of Labor Statistics at the Department of Labor has a whole passel of information to share with you. Gotta get something back for those tax dollars, right?

4. Ask your network. Sure, money’s not a subject everyone likes to talk about. But if you’re forthcoming and have some good relationships with other professionals in your field, you’ll likely be successful in gathering more information.

5. Don’t forget the benefits. Some make a tangible difference in the total value of your job. You’re more likely to get useful information out of your network on this one.

How’s that for a good start? Got any other advice for evaluating your salary situation? Share it here!

As part of the process of writing for this blog, sometimes I go sailing off into the wild blue yonder of the Internet to see what’s new in the world of resumes and related job seeking activities. Sometimes it comes to me through email, and sometimes I just stumble upon it.

In the case of today’s salary-related post, a combination of the two has led me here. Amy Quinn at HR World has been letting me know about some articles they’ve recently posted, and I’ve been exploring their site a bit as a result.

This article, which I found under their Payroll section, was possibly one of the most interesting things I’ve read all year. How could you not love a piece entitled “Tales of Outrageous Compensation,” anyway? Especially when the feature by Christina Wood starts off with this attention-grabbing opener:

“The world of compensation can be strange and unpredictable. Some people do invaluable work for a pittance while others make more money than any human could possible spend simply for being who they are. Even when salaries find some normalcy, there are creative compensation arrangements out there that prove that every paycheck is as individual as the relationship between the people paying and the one receiving the paycheck. Read on for some of our favorite tales of outrageous compensation.”

And unlike the “craziest story you ever heard of” holiday party story I flagged in the last blog post, these stories either come from journalistic sources, from consultants who were there when it happened, to managers and executives who went through it and lived to tell about it.

What’s the craziest compensation tale you know? And to keep it honest, make it yours or someone you know personally (no “I heard a friend of a friend of a colleague said…” stuff). Do tell!

Don’t gamble with your résumé. Get a free résumé critique from Career-Resumes.com® today. Peter Newfield, President of Career-Resumes.com® and the résumé expert for BlueSteps.com, The Ladders, and former expert for Spencer Stuart Talent Network, leads a crack team of résumé writers with over 100 years of combined experience. Invest in your executive career at Career-Resumes.com®.

Big names in professional staffing and online job sites have been joining forces the last couple of years to sponsor and release on of the most interesting salary and job market surveys out there. And if you want a glimpse at what the future of executive and professional hiring looks like, you won’t find a much more authoritative source.
Robert Half International (RHI) and CareerBuilder.com just released the third edition of their Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations (EDGE) Report, and the balance of power between companies and job seekers seems to be tipping steadily in favor of job seekers, as Robert Half International CEO Max Messmer notes:

“The survey results from 2005 to present show an increasingly competitive job market for professional-level and highly skilled positions,” said Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half International. “To recruit successfully, companies must ’sell’ applicants on the benefits of working for their firms. Organizations that are adept at promoting the positive and unique aspects of their corporate cultures to prospective hires have a significant advantage over their competitors.”

There’s a full report to be downloaded there if you like getting into the nitty-gritty of things. Personally, one of the things I love best about this report is how it manages to touch on a range of topics related to management-level work - many of which are categories within this blog.

For example, one of their findings is that “voluntary turnover” (i.e., “I quit!”) rates have been increasing over the past couple of years. And though the surveyed employers are trying to fight back with salary and job benefit changes, employees surveyed say that they’d respond better to work-life balance changes.

In short, if you’re an executive, manager, or professional type who’s either in the job market now, or planning to be soon, things are looking up for you. Take heart, and make sure your resume is a winner with a free critique.

When it comes to salary, no hiring manager wants to be the first to quote a salary number.

Whether it’s the phrase “Salary based on qualifications,” “Pay based on experience,” “Send salary history with your resume,” or some other way of putting it, the hiring managers want to keep the upper hand in salary negotiations from the very beginning of the hiring process.

And the best way to do that is to get you to show your cards first – by getting you to say a number first.

You can do a bit of research to strengthen your hand, of course. You can go to Salary.com and look up all the variations on your title, put in your zip code to get more regionally accurate data, or even pay for a personal salary report.

When it comes to a specific position at a specific company, though, all bets are off. The company may have set ranges from which they never deviate. They may have a budget within which they have to stay. Or regardless of any other considerations, they may just lowball the offer in the hope you’ll just accept it (worst case scenario).

No matter the situation, your best option for getting the upper hand in salary talks is simply to turn the question around. When asked for your salary requirement, your response should be akin to the following:

“I would expect my salary to be commensurate with my education, experience, and the demonstrated value I’ve created in my previous position(s). How would you compensate the [insert job title here]?”

It’s a non-answer answer, immediately followed by a question. If you ever watched the comedy improve show Whose Line Is It, Anyway? you may recognize this as a variation on “The Question Game.”

To play “The Question Game,” you must answer a question by asking a question of your own. You win when the other person breaks down and makes a statement instead of asking another question.

This is another role-playing opportunity, so get with a friend or family member, and play the Question Game to see whether you can get the “interviewer” to break and give you a number first.

And when you get into a live interview, you’ll have a better chance of getting the salary you want … or know a lot sooner whether you should be taking your executive resume elsewhere.

Don’t gamble with your résumé. Get a free résumé critique from Career-Resumes.com® today! Peter Newfield, President of Career-Resumes.com® and the résumé expert for BlueSteps.com, The Ladders, and former expert for Spencer Stuart Talent Network, leads a crack team of résumé writers with over 100 years of combined experience. Invest in your executive career at Career-Resumes.com®!

Some of the topics in this blog don’t exactly stand alone. Resumes can be considered separately to a point, but they’re also intimately tied to interviewing. Salary is a whole subject by itself, and yet things like job benefits and work/life balance play a integral role in the compensation offer.

It’s this second group of related topics I’ve been thinking about – especially since I saw this laundry list of salary negotiation points from an old Spencer Stuart article:

• 401K eligibility requirements
• Bonus structure
• Business travel
• Car/Allowance
• Cell phone, PDA, laptop, etc
• Child care
• Club memberships
• Competitive work clauses
• Dental
• Disability
• Educational reimbursement
• Equity
• Flexibility and influence in hiring decisions
• Funding for research, start-ups or other discretionary projects
• Hours or work schedule
• Insurance coverage
• Job functions
• Life Insurance
• Location of work
• Medical
• Office or contents of office
• Optical
• Parking
• Pensions (if applicable)
• Profit sharing
• Relocation assistance
• Retirement provisions
• Salary
• Support structure (e.g. administrative support)
• Termination clauses and terms
• Title
• Training programs or mentoring
• Vacation time

That’s 33 different things – of which salary is only one! – which can affect your total compensation package.

Now, maybe salary negotiation isn’t your strong suit. Or maybe, to go back to an old analogy, it’s like coming back to dating after being in a relationship for a long time. You’re rusty, the rules have changed, and though you’ve got a lot to offer, you’re not sure how to “put yourself out there” effectively.

Either way, the more you prepare yourself, the easier it’ll be. Start with what your current management position offers, and decide what you want to have (and what you don’t need) in your next position.

And if you can, find out as much as possible about the company’s existing compensation policies prior to your salary negotiation – like whether they have rigid salary ranges assigned to positions and levels of experience, for example.

Knowledge is key in executive salary negotiations. And that goes for knowledge about your target company as well as your own self-knowledge.

Don’t gamble with your résumé. Get a free résumé critique from Career-Resumes.com® today! Peter Newfield, President of Career-Resumes.com® and the résumé expert for BlueSteps.com, The Ladders, and former expert for Spencer Stuart Talent Network, leads a crack team of résumé writers with over 100 years of combined experience. Invest in your executive career at Career-Resumes.com®!

Feeling a bit philosophical this afternoon…thinking about the importance of salary (or lack thereof).

No, it’s not a delayed April Fool’s joke. It’s a question worth asking as you prepare your resume for the next step in your executive career. Just how important is your salary to you?

Of course, your current job state may affect your thinking on this - if you’re currently unemployed, a salary becomes monumentally more important as the time between jobs wears on. If that describes your state, try to step back from that for a moment for the rest of this post.

Honestly, your salary is probably the single most important factor that will affect your job satisfaction – and your life. Bigger steps up in salary makes life easier, more fun, and more secure. It’s like marrying for money, to some degree. The spouse becomes more attractive when the financial rewards increase, and so it is with management and career-making positions.

That all said…you can’t let yourself get caught up in it. It doesn’t matter how high the number, and if you can stand it, it doesn’t matter what your current financial situation is. Money is one, and only one, element of the job. It’ll show up every two weeks, and in the between-time, you’ve got 80 hours or so to exist in a great job, or a job that’ll drive you crazy. And that’s not even counting the commute.

Which leads into the natural suggestion - consider your other factors carefully before you send out your resume. Yes, before - even before you write your resume. You want to be very clear why you’re putting yourself into the job search position in the first place, and what you want to get out of it. You want to get it right when you jump to the next job, don’t you?