Ask the Career Coach: Salary Requirements

Question:

Hey Cheryl, just had a quick question I thought you could answer well. When an employer asks for a "salary requirement" of a job applicant, how should that be integrated into ones' papers they submit(i.e.resume, cover letter,...?) andh ow would one go about coming up with an accurate or fair number? Thanks!

Answer:

• First, when an employer asks for a salary requirement, you must give them one. To fail to do so is to invite rejection.
• Second, you offer this info in your cover letter, never on your resume. Add a sentence to one of your final paragraphs, something like: The most important criteria I value in a new position are (add yours; eg, advancement opportunities, scope of position, quality of match between you and the employer). Based on my (name specific skills you would bring to the table) skills, I believe I would qualify for a salary in the range of $X to $Y.
• When you list your salary range, list it in a range of $10,000 to $20,000. For example, $40,000 to $50,000. To arrive at the correct salary range to note you will have to do some research:

1. Search similar positions online in your targeted geographic area to see if you can find any job postings with salaries listed.
2. Visit salary sites (see the ones listed on my blog) and/or online salary surveys in your field to identify salary ranges in your geographic area.
3. Consult your network to see if anyone knows anyone who can offer insight on the "going rate" in your field in your targeted area.
4. Conduct your own salary survey by calling the HR departments or hiring managers of local employers in your targeted field. Tell them you are conducting research on salary ranges and ask them to indicate the ranges they use to hire in the positions you are seeking.
5. Visit the Occupational Outlook Handbook for national salary averages for the 200+ most common occupations in the U.S.
6. Once you've identified a target range you may want to add some negotiations elbow room. Let's say you discover that the average for your profession in your state/region is $45,000 to $55,000. To prevent yourself from being low-balled, try adding 10-30% onto both ends of that range. The resulting salary range will still be in the employer's ballpark, but will demonstrate clearly that you believe you are worth more.
   
   

• Of course if you do this you will need to make absolutely certain that you demonstrate your skills and experience are worth that amount, which means your behavior-based interviewing and salary negotiations skills must be fine-tuned - otherwise you will come off as arrogant.
• Since you are new to professional-level job search, Will, you might want to take a look at my online job search class, Guerrilla Job Search in 30 Days or Less. This 5-lesson virtual class offers email support and jam-packed details on how to conduct an efficient job search campaign. And it's on sale now for $39. Check it out at http://home.universalclass.com/i/crn/15480.htm .

Hope all this helps!

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Hidden Job Market Penetration Tactics

I read an interesting column on the Californina Jobs Journal website this morning by David Perry, author of Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters. Perry offers some search engine-optimized tactics for penetrating the Hidden Job Market that are well worth mentioning.

As you (hopefully) know, it is absolutely critical to tap into the Hidden Job Market for maximal job search success. Surely it's old news to you that 85% of all jobs are never advertised in print or online and that only 4% of job seekers who use online search methods actually find jobs through the Internet. Today the savvy job searcher makes sure they implement strategies to get their resume directly into the hands of hiring managers rather than relying on shotgun resume dissemination to produce results.

How can you do that? Perry suggests leveraging the power of Google to source leads and background information. In short, he recommends that you:

• Pinpoint the type of job you want and the location where you want to work.
• Use a search string like [advertising + "new york" + directory OR conference] - with your terms inserted, of course - to source company names in your preferred geographic location. The terms "directory" and "conference" will help you to tap into online directories in your target industry or online listings of industry conference attendees.
• Repeat this process until you have exhausted your list of industries/job functions and preferred geographic locations.
• Now identify the company websites associated with each employer your search turns up and peruse each site to pinpoint the names/job titles of people you can send your resume and cover letter to. You're not looking for names of HR Directors. Instead, you are searching for executives and department heads who ultimately hire in the part of the company you want to join.
• If this doesn't produce the names you need, go back to Google's advanced search box and look for the targeted job title at your targeted company [company name in the first box and job title, i.e., Vice President of Sales & Marketing, in the third box].
• Use the results of this last search to identify all the people who have ever held senior sales/marketing positions in your targeted company and to source other current/past employees of that company with whom you can network.
• Once you pinpoint the name and title of the best person for you to send your resume to, go back to Google's advanced search box and insert the person's name in the first box and the company name in the third box to generate a list of press releases, articles, conferences, and the like involving the executive you are targeting.
• Read a few of these and identify a snippet of information you can quote in your cover letter to that person. Use your cover letter to demonstrate a positive connection between this snippet and your experience or qualifications for the job.

Cool, huh?

Optimize Your Email Communications

As a professional Resume Writer I see hundreds of resumes each year, and it never ceases to amaze me how little attention job seekers pay to their email address and email etiquette. Perhaps these suggestions will help:

Do not use your personal email address for job search communications.

• First of all, many people have email addresses that reveal their nicknames, hobbies, interests, and much more that is none of anyone else's business, let alone inappropriate for prospective hiring managers to read. An email address like sexygurl@xyz.com doesn't exactly communicate a professional image, now does it?
• Second of all, by using your personal email address when job searching, you will invite all kinds of unwanted spam into your email inbox, not only from people you send it to, but from the job sites you post your resumes on. Then there are the spammers who source email addresses from any and all locations, and the hackers, and the automated applications that skim addresses from myriad websites.
• Third of all, if you sign up for one or more search agents, your inbox will be flooded with daily/weekly emails of job leads. That's a good thing for the most part, but will all those emails cause you to exhaust your email client's storage capacity?
• Then there are all those viruses we're always trying to avoid .... Get the idea>

Do not use your business email address for job search communications.

• Ditto every point I made above. Do you want your company's IT person coming after you for opening their servers to spam, viruses, or reduced storage?
• Then there's the fact that using company resources for private purposes is usually prohibited and almost always unwise - not to mention difficult to hide from corporate security measures.
• Even more important, though, is the message you send to prospective employers when you use company resources to seek alternative employment. Is that really the message you want to send a hiring manager?

Set up a POP email account and use it exclusively for job search purposes.

• If your ISP offers numerous email accounts, reserve one for your job search. If they don't consider signing up for a free account from Yahoo, Hotmail, Juno, or even Gmail. When you land your new job you can close the account.
• Why a POP email account? So you can access from anywhere on the planet at any time on any computer/laptop/email device.
• Keep your email address professional - no nicknames, no hobbies, no hint of your sexual orientation. Keep it as simple as possible, too. You want employers to remember you, not your email address.

Set up your email account's folders to help you manage your job search.

• Save search agent emails in one place. If you're applying for more than one type of position in your search, consider setting up search agent folders for each type of job.
• Try using your email folders as tickler files. You can do this easily by naming folders according to the action needed (Calls to Make; Action Needed; Postings to Review; Postings to Submit; etc.) and/or by the date (Action Needed This Week; Postings to Submit in June; etc.). This will prevent emails from piling up in your Inbox.

Use your email signature as a personal commercial.

• In addition to using your sig file to share your contact information, why not also broadcast some of your strengths? The same kind of information you include in your 30-60 second and 1-2 minute commercials should also be showcased in your signature.
• Focus on the skills, experience, and achievements you bring to the table rather than the type of position you are seeking.
• Include 1-2 personality descriptors and 3-4 of your strongest skills.
• Keep it brief and highly focused.
• Also include links to your online resume, portfolio, articles, and/or blogs, if relevant.

What other great suggestions can you contribute? Post them as a comment to this post.

The Power of Word Choice

Word choice isn't just for English majors - but it is often overlooked by job seekers and resume writers alike.

Word choice is the art of selecting the right word for the right use. Clear communications naturally emerge when we use the best word to express what we are trying to say.

When we fail to use the right word, our verbal and written communications cloud the issue at hand and make misundertandings more likely. Poor word choice can lead to:

• Vague sentences
• Imprecise quantifers
• Incorrect assumptions
• Inaccurate statements
• Reduced impact
• Boring repetition
• Failure to communicate

One of the mistakes I often see in resumes - including those designed by certified professionals - is the failure to pay attention to word selection. This failure reveals itself in resumes, letters, and interview responses as:

• Using a similar-sounding word inappropriately. For example, have you ever known anyone who said pacific when what they actually meant was specific?
• Repeating power verbs in unimaginative ways. With thousands upon thousands of words at our disposal, there is absolutely no reason to use the same action verbs over and over to start sentences and bulleted statements.
• Using vague quantifiers. Quantifiers such as many, some, varied, and several, to mention but a few, have been weakened by consistent overuse.
• Selecting weak action verbs. Action verbs aren't all created equal. Using a word with less punch (like improved) communicates less than a stronger verb (like strengthened).

So, what can you do to bolster your word selection skills?

• Buy a word-a-day calendar or subscribe to a word-a-day RSS service (many are free) to stretch your vocabulary in new directions.
• If you wish to emphasize a skill in a document or an interview response, use synonyms to communicate without repetition.
• Don't rely on spell checkers to ensure good grammar. The word pacific may be spelled right, but if you use it in place of specific, that usage will still be wrong - and embarass you.
• When you find that you have already used an action verb in your resume or letter use a thesaurus to find an alternative selection.
• Rather than rely on vague quantifiers, get specific. How many? If the number isn't impressive, describe what you did in other more meaningful ways. If the number is impressive but you don't want to be explicit, then try something like more than $10 million.

With the continuing rise of digital communications (pagers, cell phones, chat, email, web, blogs), verbal and written communications are decaying rapidly. You can easily set yourself apart from other candidates by taking a little time and energy to boost your vocabulary and word choice.

Landing a Great Job Without a College Degree

Many successful mid-career professionals have less than a Bachelor's Degree or no degree at all. If you're one of them, how do you stay ahead of your more credentialed peers in the job market?

While having a degree, especially a BA/BS or higher, is a definitive advantage in the job market, the lack of one doesn't have to spell disaster. But there are two vital things you will need to attend to if you want to ensure that your lean academic credentials don't hold you back:

Positioning: How you position yourself in a job search always makes a difference to the outcome of your search, but positioning rules when you have one or more significant weaknesses in your background or experience.

• Do whatever research is necessary to make sure that you have selected the right industry(ies), company(ies), and type/level of job titles to pursue. If your positioning is skewed, your job search results will be, too.
• Your Career Summary assumes more importance when you have to compensate for less training and education. Make yours stellar by using industry-specific key words in both the body of your summary and in your listing of key competencies.
• Rely less on applying to open positions and more on marketing yourself to targeted employers. Make exceptional use of your networking contacts to help you get your resumes into the hands of hiring managers.
• When you read online job postings, consider applying for the position if you meet 75% or more of the hiring employer's requirements. If you don't have the exact educational background they are looking for, yet you meet the majority of the rest of their requirements, consider applying anyway. What have you got to lose?
• Weave quotes from managers, clients, and/or peers into your resumes and letters. You can source them from your performance evaluations, thank you notes/letters/cards/emails, client evaluations/testimonials, and 360-degree assessments, or you can solicit them by asking people for feedback on your performance.

Sell your strengths: Again, this is always good job search and career change advice, but when your academic credentials are leaner than you'd like, relying on your already-proven strengths assumes greater importance.

• Showcase your achievements in your resume, letters, and interviewing responses. Make darn sure you've identified, collected, prepared, and practiced a wealth of success stories to prove your achievement portfolio.
• Give your success stories more space and attention in your resumes and cover letters. Consider creating a Select Achievement Highlights section in your resume to draw more attention to them.
• Make sure each job in your work history delineates at least 3-4 solid, measurable achievements.
• Include more success stories in your cover, follow-up, and thank you letters.
• Collect, document, and report more of your informal education background - on-the-job training, self-taught skills, and continuing education seminars/classes. Lace your education section with as many of these as possible.
• Don't overlook the awards you've received, whether from employers, volunteer work, or academic participation. Awards are often vital to report, but they grow in importance when there are one or more lapses in the balance of your professional background.
• Supplement your resume with a "brag book" or achievements portfolio.

Let's face it - we all have liabilities to consider when we market ourselves into new jobs. Th key is to recognize them and develop a savvy plan to overcome them.

Rejection Letter Tips

If you haven't already received one of those dreaded rejection letters, you soon will. But before you throw them out, consider these suggestions for how to "read between the lines" and make the most of your rejection.

Make the most of rejection? Well, yes. Here's how:

• As your rejection letters and emails arrive, sort them into piles based on the rejection message.
• Some letters will clearly indicate that there is something lacking in your background, education, or experience. Let's call these "A" rejections.
• Other letters indicate they appreciated your candidacy, but have hired someone else. They will, however, keep your resume on file for future developments. Let's call these "B" rejections.
• Still others have a definite tone of finality to them, as if to say in so many words, "No thank you today, no thank you tomorrow." Let's call these "C" rejections.
• In truth, there are often many other degrees of rejection, but for simplicity's sake, let's limit our discussion to these three.
• If you receive an "A" rejection letter based on a resume you submitted (but no interview), then consider sending a follow-up letter asking for referrals to other positions or companies who may be a better match to your background and credentials.
• If you receive an "A" rejection letter based on an interview, then send a thank you letter (Surprised? See the third article in the resources below - this approach really works!) as a means of staying in touch with the company. If after several follow-ups, nothing emerges, then transition this contact into a networking resource.
• If you receive a "B" rejection based on submission of a resume with no interview, then definitely follow-up with the contact to monitor their hiring and discover when new staff may be added.
• If you receive a "B" rejection after an interview, then follow-up after the hired person has settled in to see if any additional hiring will be taking place. You can also definitely leverage these contacts into networking resources, too.
• If you receive "C" rejection letters, regardless of how/when, feel free to discard them and do no follow-up. These are, in fact, the only rejection letters you should not follow-up in some way.

• Coping with Rejection
• Learning from Rejection
• Turning Rejection into Opportunity

Sample Cover Letters

Need some sample cover letters? Here are a variety to take a peek at:

• QuintCareer's cover letter samples


• Susan Ireland's 50+ cover letter samples


• CareerLab's cover letter samples

Leveraging the Power of Media Opportunities

One of the ancillary tasks you want to include in your job search is regular reading of business-related newspapers, magazines, and journals, including national, trade, and community local publications. Why? Because every issue offers you media or "spot" opportunities that you may be able to leverage into job or networking possibilities.

The idea behind this technique is simple: You read an article on a local company in the paper. Based on that article, you identify a possible opportunity you would like to pursue.

• If a company is growing/merging/acquiring another business, they may soon be hiring. Why not acknowledge their growth and point out how you can help?
• If a company is downsizing/restructuring, they may also soon be hiring. Why not point out ways your skills/experience/credentials can make a positive difference in their workplace?
• If a new staff member is hired, or a current one is promoted, they may be expanding a department/program, or filling the position the person used to hold. Why not seize this opportunity to market yourself into that position?
• If a company is showcasing a company achievement or new product, they may have a current or future need for someone like you. Why not compliment them on their achievement, and note how that accomplishment mirrors your own goals, values, and achievements?

You'll want some samples to refer to as you write your own media, or "spot" opportunity letters:

• Sample Letter and examples of how executives have successfully leveraged this technique.

Networking Letters

As you begin working your net of personal and professional contacts, you may find it advantageous to send a networking follow-up letter. Part thank you letter and part sales pitch, this letter allows you to keep yourself in the mind of your contacts.

To write one:

• In your first paragraph, refer to/thank the contact for meeting with you. Note the date of your meeting. Make mention of the contact who originally referred you to this person.


• In your second paragraph, note again what kind of work you are seeking. As you pinpoint your preferred type/level of position and industry, weave in those key words I keep mentioning, along with your 2-3 strongest and most relevant skills.


• In your third paragraph, summarize in crisp sentences or bulleted statements some of the highlights or key issues in your resume. Do not repeat your resume, but restate the important points in new ways.


• In your closing paragraph, indicate when you will be following up next with this person. And, of course, thank them again for their time and energy on your behalf.