Interviewing: How to Know the Salary to Ask For

Salary Listings: Online.Salary.com is an excellent resource for those seeking to evaluate a general idea of what the market value for someone in your line of work is. Displayed in a bell curve what the growing rate for someone in your geographic location in your job is? They offer a paid service with more advanced features, but if you are looking for a general range is probably not worth the money.

Friends in the Industry: Talking to friends and acquaintances about how much is done can often be a taboo, but the information can be obtained from other people you know in your industry is invaluable. You do not have to ask how they do, but you can ask general ranges in terms of number of employees in such position are made in the company. You can also reach people who used to work on your business and see what kind of wages that people make in your businesses.

Industry Surveys: Often large firms make salary decisions based on what a salary survey in the industry, says in the area. These salary surveys are conducted by large consulting firms and that are sold to large companies in the area. It may be hard to get your hands on one of these industry surveys, but if you can get a hold of one, the information is very valuable to you.

Head Hunters: Head Hunters are great sources of information working with these things every day. Often, they will be happy to talk with you, especially if you can help in some way, for example referring to a business contact that could fit into a position that the headhunter was looking for. They often have a very good idea of what people can do in a specific industry in a geographic location.

Doing Interviews: Go for interviews with companies is a time consuming activity, but if you receive a written offer from another company, stating that it would pay $ X to do a specific job, which is the best validation that you never have as how much you’re worth. You can take information from a company that you really do not want to work, and demonstrate that a company that wants to work, hoping to get a better deal.

Do not guess what you are worth and ask for a raise without knowing the facts. Know what is really worth it and will have more bargaining power than they could have imagined.