How do you know what you are worth?

by Mitch Byers :: March 18th, 2008 :: Posted in Negotiating Your Salary |

There are few things worse than starting a job with a vibrant spirit only to learn later that everyone is making $10,000 to $15,000 more than you are. What happened? Assuming education and professional experience are equal, then we have to backup to the interview. During the interview, did you adequately convey your value in the interview? Did you show the hiring team how you were going to contribute to the team? Did your answers signify how you were going to make a significant difference? If not, then maybe you are being offered a lower salary while the jury is still out on your performance. Or maybe they were expecting you to negotiate and started on the low end of the salary range.

Going into the interview, you should have first hand knowledge of the value you are bringing to an organization. Many job seekers rely only on their personal salary history, but this can cause a serious problem. Your past salary may not be reliable because:

1. You are changing industries
2. You were previously overpaid
3. You were previously underpaid
4. You are changing regions, like moving from Houston to Boston
5. The new position requires additional responsibility or
6. The new position requires less responsibility

Before you go in to interview you will want to carefully review the job description, both to help frame the interview and to understand the market value for the position. One website every job seeker should visit is www.salary.com.

A recent key word search for “Business Analyst” in zip code 75201 pulled up 25 varieties of business analysts on the first page. Narrowing the search to “Financial Analyst” provided four grades. A quick review of each job description provides a desired match at level III.  For every position, a bell-curve diagram divides the base salary range into quadrants, from low to high. In the low 25% range, the base salary for Financial Analyst III is $63,400 and the 75% percentile salary is $78,600, with a median base salary of $71,000.

An average bonus for this position as well as the value of average benefits is also available for review. Additionally, you can find the expected education level for the position. For the Financial Analyst III position, 38% of employees have a bachelor’s degree and 60% have a MBA.

In just a few minutes, you have relevant and useful information you can use to:

1. assure any salary offer presented is in the correct range
2. leverage to negotiate a higher salary if an offer is below the median.

This a free site, more detailed and personalized information is available for a modest fee.

Matching your job description with those on salary.com should be a must for every job seeker. Requesting too high a salary for the position can be a turn off for the hiring company and accepting too low an offer can put you back in the job market prematurely. A little research will go a long way to assuring you are entering a win-win situation with your new employer.