6 Ways to Determine Your Salary Negotiation Skills

6 Ways to Determine Your Salary Negotiation Skills According to the American Psychological Association, nearly a third of American workers believe they are underpaid and suffer heightened amounts of stress due to what they perceive to be an inadequate salary. As more jobs become available and the hiring economy slowly improves, this provides many U.S. workers with the ability to look elsewhere for gainful employment and further negotiate their salary. However, when seeking a new position, employees are often unaware of how much they are worth and run into trouble when deciding if they should negotiate a job offer, and if so, how aggressively? While each situation is different, there are some key questions you can ask yourself to more accurately determine whether the initial figure is indicative of what you’re worth on the open job market. Considering the following 6 salary negotiation factors should give you an educated guess about the best course of action in your situation: 1) What is your current compensation structure? Running a recruiting firm, when I see that an employer is offering a new job applicant the same or only slightly higher (less than 10%) of a salary than they are currently making, it typically leaves room for successful negotiation. In the majority of circumstances, you can be successful negotiating a compensation package that is up to 15% higher than what you are currently pulling in. 2) Have you held more than 3 jobs in the past 2 years? If you have held numerous jobs in the past few years, employers will view you as less of a long-term investment and thus will give you less wiggle room when attempting to ask for additional compensation. Luckily, this can be prevented if you have sound reasoning for departing those past positions and you broach the topic earlier in the interview process, as opposed to waiting until you receive the offer. 3) Has the job been open for more than 2 months? The more desperate a company is to get a job search over with, the more flexible they are going to be when approached for more money.    Our executive recruiters have noticed a significant change in flexibility around the 2-month mark, as by this time an employer has spent numerous hours trying to find the right applicant and has most likely endured a lot of disappointments during the recruitment process. 4) Have you had experience in the industry? Roughly 80% of the time when employers come to our recruitment firm, they have a hiring preference that the applicant have experience in their industry.    Though experience and expertise don’t always go together, employers will still chase those with exact or parallel backgrounds.    In most instances, all other variables being equal, the job seeker with the matching background will come out of the negotiation process with 5% to 10% more than a non-experienced individual whom our recruiters present. 5) How well off are you financially? Our recruiters have seen that stress has a highly negative effect on one’s ability to influence a hiring manager, sales headhunter or HR representative.    When negotiating salary, confidence pays. 6) How much are similar positions offering? This is a complex situation, as it’s always intelligent to know what similar jobs are paying prior to asking for a number.    However, telling the HR representative or recruitment professional that you arrived at this number because their competitor is compensating that amount can have the opposite of the desired effect. If you negotiate salary based upon the feeling that you deserve more money, you are much less likely to succeed in your endeavors.    Prior to approaching the topic of compensation next time, base your actions and requested figures on facts rather than feelings. Image: Shutterstock

4 Ways to Defend Your Personal Brand Against Cyberstalking - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

4 Ways to Defend Your Personal Brand Against Cyberstalking - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career I looked out at the room right before I started to speak. The first two rows were completely empty. Typical. Why is everyone so shy about sitting closer to the speaker? I was at Ohio State University to give my presentation, 8 Steps for Creating Maintaining Your Personal Brand. When I was done and asked if the audience had any questions, the room was completely silent. Again with the shyness. I reminded them I’m extremely busy and this was a great opportunity to ask me anything, even something not related to personal branding. Questions finally started and went on for about an hour. But the most disturbing question arose after everyone left, except for those who wanted to speak with me one-on-one. “How can I repair my personal brand, particularly while I’m job hunting, while I’m being cyberstalked?” According to a recent report by Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA), cyberstalking increased by seven percent in 2009. I guess that doesn’t totally surprise me, given the sheer lack of privacy on the Internet and the number of new “geolocation” tools that come out every day. But this young woman’s story was downright frightening. I won’t give complete details, but someone (she doesn’t know who and the police are actively investigating) is posting inappropriate pictures using her head and someone else’s body daily. When you Google her name, that’s what shows up. And for a hiring manager who either has never met her before or only met her once, it would be easy to mistake the pictures for being very real. There are techniques to get your results at the top of search engines, but it sounded as though the cyberstalker was already employing them. First, she could start a blog and post often. Second she could learn search engine optimization (SEO) and other Internet marketing techniques to make sure the content that actually is hers appears as high as possible. Third, she could attempt to appeal to search engines (i.e., Google) about the problem. Fourth, she could hire an organization like ReputationDefender to help in ways maybe the police could not. I’m sorry to say I didn’t have all the possible answers for her at the time, nor do I now. She went on to ask about how to broach the subject in interviews. Like all negative issues, I told her, don’t be the first one to bring it up. Be prepared with a concise response that answers their question and then moves on. Most of all, be mentally prepared because it will likely come up. Does anyone else have advice for her? What else can she do personally to control this situation? Author: Heather R. Huhman is a career expert and founder president of Come Recommended, an exclusive online community connecting the best internship and entry-level job candidates with the best employers. She is also the author of #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), national entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com and blogs about career advice at HeatherHuhman.com.

Word of Mouth Starts by Owning Your Contacts - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Word of Mouth Starts by Owning Your Contacts - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Your connections begin in your own database.  When I’m asked about how to “own your game”, or dominate your niche, the first place I begin asking about is what do you know about your database? Word of Mouth marketing starts by owning your contacts Even those born within this last minute, already have a handful of people in their personal database. From the mother that carried them, to the physician that delivered them, to the nurses in the delivery room, the pediatrician and the nurses in the nursery â€" the newborn even know somebody! How can you make the most of who you are already connected to? First, clean your list. Start going through your list to see whose email, phone number, cell phone, address, and employment information is up-to-date and who is not. Your first focus is to make sure you have the most current, effective information for those people who already know you. Second, grade your list. No, I’m not talking about judging people yet. I am talking about categorizing them in a way that makes sense for you.   Who really knows you well? I mean they have spoken positively on your behalf, they know your hopes, dreams and aspirations. They may even know the good, the bad and the ugly! They know you. They know what you do for a living. How many close contacts can actually say that? Often we’re connected with those who “kind of, sort of” know what we do so they could never repeat it to anyone or effectively explain it or even speak to a prospective employer or prospect about how you can help them. Start first with those who really know you well. And, then work through your list seeing who you really know. Again, use the same criteria do you know their hopes, dreams and aspirations? Do you know their strengths? Do you know what they really do for a living (not just their title)? Third, of those who really know you â€" what gaps do you see in the information you have on them? Maybe you don’t even know if they’re currently married, divorced or single. Maybe you don’t know where they graduated from?   Or, you might have their work number yet you don’t have their email address or cell phone number. Focus on where you have gaps and make a plan on garnering some of that information. It might be that you’ll find out at the next ball game or happy hour get together. Whenever it is, make sure that you flow your information gathering into the conversation and not sound like you’re going through a checklist. To do so, would surely shut down conversation. Lastly, who on that list really supports you?  They have been “your brand advocate” all along. They cheer you on and sing your praises!   Do any of them fall in the following categories? People who have mentored you? People you have mentored or taught? Former managers, supervisors or instructors? And, yes, even co-workers? These are the foundation of your brand advocates and you must identify them first to own your connections.