Determining Your Worth for a Salary Negotiation

Determining Your Worth for a Salary NegotiationDetermining Your Worth for a Salary NegotiationIts a known fact that in todays competitive job market that if you want a salary bump, youre most likely going to have to ask for it. Savvy candidates will likely have read one of our articles on preparing your background materials for promotions and raises, such as milestones achieved and sales or other goals met. While thats all fine and good, most employers are still going to ask for industry trends for comparison in order to justify any nudge north when it comes to compensation. If you find yourself in similar shoes, or simply want to be prepared for all possibilities, weve got a few useful suggestions for determining your worth for a salary negotiation. Research Through Online Salary ToolsSavvy job-seekers know that Simply Hireds free salary calculator is one of the best-kept secrets in your raise negotiation arsenal. With this handy (did we mention free) service you simply input keywor ds based on industry or job title in order to get the sensationsmeldung on what others like you are currently earning. You can also search by region to further fine tune the information you collect making your final numbers all the more relevant and powerful to your case. Assess Your Skill SetGetting a handle on comparable salaries is only have the pay raise battle. Employees should also gather information on their specific role at their company which can help demonstrate ability, worth and any areas where you may be going above and beyond. If youve managed large teams of people, take note. Asked to take on large projects and department or company-wide rollouts? Also vital information.Once youve collected your specific contributions, its time to start comparing. Search for other jobs in your industry with similar titles to delve into common responsibilities. If youre being asked to perform at a higher level than your peers it could help make for a strong argument for promotion and/o r a salary negotiation. All else fails youll have the start of a great pitch for freshening up your resume or speaking with a recruiter. Ask Your NetworkWe saved the toughest, but most relevant, steps for last when it comes to determining your professional value. While there is an unspoken rule when it comes to comparing salaries with your peers, this can often be relaxed with trusted networking contacts. Reach out to prior coworkers or managers, recruiters or trusted HR professionals. Get their feedback on your skills if theyve worked with you professionally and take advantage of their specialized knowledge of your position. Use their recommendations and advice as part of your pitch during raise negotiations for maximum impact.Have another useful suggestion when it comes to valuing your skills in order to negotiation for a raise? Drop us a line in the comments and maybe your tips will make our next updated column on the topic.

Scheduling a Job Interview Keep These Things In Mind

Scheduling a Job Interview Keep These Things In MindScheduling a Job Interview Keep These Things In MindYou know your resume and cover letter are carefully targeted when you receive the phone call or email that every job seeker wants Thank you for your submission. Were very interested in scheduling an bewerbungsgesprch with youWhile some talent acquisition managers will provide several scheduling windows from which to choose, others will point to an open calendar and leave it up to you. When that happens, your brain goes into overdrive trying to figure out the best possible time to schedule an interview. Morning or afternoon? Early in the week or late? The list goes on. Fortunately, you can give up on trying to find out the absolute best time of the day, week or year to interview. As career expert Alison Green says, If youre the best candidate, the fact that you interviewed at the start or end of the week isnt going to obscure that. No scheduling hat trick will suddenly make you the best fit for a position careful scheduling will only help to make you feel at your best for the big day. With that disclaimer, here are a few things to take into consideration as you plan your job hunt and interview for your next big opportunity. Best Time of the DayStatistically, there is no single best time of the day to conduct or attend an interview it all depends on your preference or the preference of those interviewing you. Since you cannot read the mind of your interviewer, you should prioritize your personal working rhythms to make sure you are able to perform at your best. For example, if you are like 7 percent of young adults who identify as a morning person, an early-morning interview may catch you at your freshest. If you arent, a late-in-the-day interview may suit you better and give you more time to prepare. The best answer will depend on when you feel the fruchtwein confident and energetic. As you hunt for a job hunt, take note of when you feel your best each day. Wh ether you are employed or unemployed, you will start to notice specific times when you feel most energized and other times when you feel tired or unfocused. Whenever possible, schedule these times for interviews.Best Time of the WeekThere is no day of the week that will obscure your fit for a position. However, interviewers are people, too, so there are a few common-sense guidelines you can use to catch them at their best. First, aim for the beginning of the week over the end of the week. In particular, after noon on Mondays through noon on Thursdays. This allows talent acquisition managers to step into the office and have time to catch up on administrative tasks before they meet you, making it less likely that they will be distracted by unanswered emails and other priorities for the week. The reverse logic works for the end of the week as busy as your interviewer is, he may be preoccupied with finishing his tasks for the week or fitting every meeting into his schedule before the we ekend. An interview during this time wont count against you by any means, but it may be more convenient for the interviewer to avoid these high-traffic times in the office.Finally, if you have any indication of the interview order (that is, when other candidates will be interviewed relative to your interview), try to be last. Contrast bias may work against you as the hiring board considers everyone it has interviewed, and the last interview tends to stand out most. Some experts recommend aiming to interview slightly before the middle of the group so that you avoid falling victim to the hiring boards decision fatigue, but you still stand out as one of the first viable candidates.Best Time of the YearIf youre ready to leave a job or suddenly unemployed, there isnt much you can control about the time of year youre seeking a job. However, its important to note the holiday and common vacation schedules of your locality so that you wont be surprised by closed offices or everyones-out-of-t he-office responses. For example, hires over the summer or near peak holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas may take longer to push through a company. During these times, key stakeholders in the decision process may be on vacation, pushing back the final offer until everyone is available, caught up and ready to make a decision. Also consider the financial calendar of the industry youre pursuing. Towards the end of the year companies are finishing up initiatives and working off of maxed-out budgets. When a company makes its hiring decisions will depend on whether they are on a calendar year financial schedule (starting January 1) or a fiscal year financial schedule (starting on the last day of any month in the year except December). It may be difficult to figure out which calendar is used in your industry, but there are some guiding principles. For example, seasonal businesses often use fiscal tax years, whereas partnerships, LLCs and S-Corps will typically use calendar years. T o-Do List for Extra Careful PlannersIf youre determined to be as strategic as possible in scheduling your interview, heres a list of preventative measures you can take to time your interview perfectlyDouble-check that you do not have any recurring appointments for the day of your scheduled interview (dentist, doctor, counselor, etc).If you are currently employed, factor in your work schedule and when you are least likely to be missed.If youre ready to go around the clock, consider asking the interviewer what time works best for the team rather than suggesting your own time. Increase your odds of being hired by 20 percent by taking time to send a genuine note of thanks afterwards, preferably received in the same week of an early-in-the-week interview.Avoid interviews right before or right after the lunch hour. That way a good interview wont be cut off by a lunch appointment or delayed by someone late from lunch.Again, none of these details will affect whether or not you are the best candidate for the job, so accept them with a grain of salt. The most successful interview wont be the one scheduled at exactly 115 PM on a Tuesday right after the end of the tax year simple because of the day and time it will be successful because of the preparation you put into the interview and your applicable experience.

70 Days of Unemployment

70 Days of Unemployment 70 Days of Unemployment This article welches originally published on LinkedIn and is the actual testimony of the author.On February 22nd, I had a meeting with my manager and welches relieved of my duties. Im almost 40, and for the first time in my lifeI was being laid off.Yesterday, I started my next adventure with a new employer in a position I am amazed I was able to get.This blog posting will be my attempt to share with you what I learned about myself, about my job search, and yeahThis wasnt the first time I had been unemployed. When I moved to New England, I did so without a job. After a month of sending out my resume to HR black hole after black hole and elend hearing back a peep, I walked into a temp agency and got a temp position within a week. After three months, I was offered a full time job. The job was easy, I did it, and had plenty of downtime to do things like write speeches for Toastmasters. But I wasnt mentally stimulated, so I literally applied for any internal job that remotely seemed interesting. After four years of sending more applications into that HR black hole, I finally got a shot, and was offered a promotion.My job challenged me, forced me to work harder, be more diligent, and taught me very valuable transferable skills like SharePoint. Then three years later I found myself unemployed.Because I knew how hard it was to get a job, especially a job I liked, there was a part of me that was scared I would never find a job. I feared I would spend months sending emails into more HR black holes and then I would finally have to go back to the temp agency and get another temp job and hope it worked out.I even talked with my wife about being a stay at home dad, and on the weekends being a wedding photographer again. We ran some numbers and frankly it wasnt something that fiscally could work. Health insurance premiums were going to kill us.Luckily, part of my severance package was that I got to work with a company that helpe d people in job transition called Lee Hecht Harrison. Through them, I took online seminars about things like creating an exit statement, maximizing your LinkedIn profile, and how create a soar (situation, obstacles, actions, results) story. I attended workshops on how to get insurance if you dont have a job, how to spruce up your resume, how to handle interviews and did networking with companies.One of the things that helped the most was working with my career coach at Lee Hecht Harrison.I never had a great resume, but I thought what I had looked good. My career coach and I had disagreements over trivial things like font choices. I mean really who uses arial anymore? But she helped me see that recruiters generally skim resumes. You need to have it formatted in such a way that they feel very comfortable finding the information you want them to find. And using arial over say California FB (my personal branding) helps them do that.Also at Lee Hecht Harrison, I attended a weekly support group called the Job Search Work Team. Through those sessions I was able to meet other people and learn what they were doing. I was also able to share what I learned and was doing too. I went to the Monday morning group and found it was a great way to start my week.Through my Job Search Work Team I learned of a website called jobscan.co.They take your resume and compare it to a job posting you are going to apply for. It looks at your hard skills, your soft skills and other skills, and then tells you what percentage it thinks you are a match. The best part however was it showed you what words you needed to add to your resume to be a better match. IE you are great at process improvement, but the job posting needs someone who knows change management. Those are two words that mean basically the same thing, but odds are the HR computer doesnt know that. As someone who loves video games, this was fun trying to see if I could beat the HR black hole game.Jobscan.co helped me see where my r esume was lacking and helped me get past the filter so a menschengerecht could find me. I applied for 45 jobs, and had 9 phone interviews with HR recruiters, a roughly 20% success rate. Dont get me wrong, I would have loved to have had a 70+% success rate, but compared to my 0.001% I had over the past 8 years I have lived here? It was a huge improvement.Of the nine phone interviews, I had two actual interviews, and I got one job offer.So if you find yourself looking for your next career follow my advice and do those following three things1) Work with a career coach, take their advice and follow it. Seriously, Arial isnt the end of the world.2) Get a support group, its great for networking and staying sane. Plus, when people from the support group get a job, they usually bring in doughnuts to celebrate.3) Figure out how to maximize your resume to appeal to the job you are applying for. The yearly subscription to jobscan.co was the best money I spent on my job search. Aside of course from the celebratory doughnuts I brought to my support group last week.Aloha from Western Massachusetts,Brian David Crawford, DTMBrian David Crawford is a Data Analyst based in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is currently employed by Cigna as a Tech Support Specialist and is an excellent photographer and owns his own company BDC Photography. Brian has been a Jobscan user for three months. You can see his LinkedIn profile here.Interested in sharing your story? Email emailprotected