A Powerful, Targeted Approach to the Salary Interview Question

 Salary Interview Question | Tips for Success | P.S. Your Career

 

CEO / Career Coach Kate O. discusses how to best approach the salary interview question that comes up during every interview.

 

The salary interview question is stressful… you know it’s going to come up at some point during the interview and offer process, but when? This can add an element of anxiety to an already difficult process. Do yourself a favor and have a solid strategy in place to make sure that you maintain a good relationship with your potential employer and that you set yourself up well for a salary negotiation once you have the offer in hand. Here are 4 steps to take to ensure you are prepared to answer, “What is your desired salary?”

 

Do Your Research
The biggest mistake you can make is to go into an interview without arming yourself with the relevant salary information. This includes learning the basics about the role, the industry, and the company. Most hiring managers rely on a Compensation team within HR to do heavy analysis on salary before they decide on a role for a position or make any job offers. Although the number may seem random, it most definitely is not and, in most cases, serious analysis has gone into developing the number. Given that they have the benefit of in-depth analysis, you need to do the same thing to level the playing field.

 

There are 3 ways that most Compensation professionals will benchmark a salary: the external market for a similar role, the market within an industry (e.g. Financial Services), and your worth on the open market.

 

1)    To start, there are many good resources readily available on the internet that will help you determine the salary range for a specific role. Salary.com is a good place to start. Look at the range and take into consideration years of experience and location to make sure you are using the most relevant comparisons.

 

2)    Next, think about your industry. If you are in Financial Services or Investment Banking, it is likely that you should ask for closer to the top of the range. However, if you were applying to a job at a non-profit, you would be better off targeting a salary slightly below the median.

 

3)    The final component of the analysis is the most important one - you! What could you command in a similar role somewhere else, and what can you uniquely bring to the table that will set you apart? For example, if you speak a foreign language that would be useful for the role or you have prestigious degrees that would command value wherever you go, those may help you to get closer to the top of the range.

 

Defer as Long as Possible
Now that you know your facts, the salary question should be a little less intimidating, but that doesn’t mean you want to jump into it right away. If you are asked what you currently make or what you would like to make, try to defer by either saying you’d prefer to wait until you know more about the role or saying something cooperative but firm such as, “I am very interested in this job and I’m sure we can agree on a salary once we have both determined there is a good fit here.” Putting the salary conversation off until later in the process will give you more leverage for the salary negotiation, and it will also allow you enough time to gather all the information about the role and company you need to determine what you think a fair salary would be.

 

Ask for a range
If you can’t seem to get the recruiter or hiring manager off the topic of salary, the best strategy is to get them to name their range first. Almost all companies use a range for each role, and usually the hiring manager has some leeway to go to the top of the range (or even slightly above) if they find the perfect candidate. Most recruiters will share the range when asked. All you have to do when you get them to share is to confirm for them that the range is something you can work with. This is particularly useful if you are making a career change where you are taking a pay cut. Telling the recruiter your current salary may scare her off if you are making much more than she can offer. Asking for a range and confirming it is acceptable is a great way to assuage the fears and give her confidence that you are seriously interested in the role.

 

Offer a bolstering range
If all else fails and you have to give a number, give a range instead of a number (two can play this game!) Studies have shown that offering a “bolstering range” is the most effective way to initiate a salary negotiation. That means, if you are really hoping for $80,000, say you would be happy with a salary between $80,000-85,000. Giving a range is more cooperative because it opens up room for a conversation, but starting with your target at the low-end means that you are more likely to achieve your salary goals.

 

These tips probably won’t totally relieve the stress of one of the most-dreaded interview questions of all time, but being prepared and informed will help you initiate a good conversation while maintaining a good relationship with your potential employer.

 

5 Important Reasons You Should be Hiring a Career Coach

Make Strong Career Decisions | 5 things to consider | P.S. Your Career

 Coach Mike S. discusses why a career coach can be an extremely valuable tool when making a career change.

 

 

Introduction: It’s that perennial tradeoff that happens every time an appliance breaks; you plan a complicated vacation itinerary; your car makes a strange noise; you consider the joy of doing your taxes; or your computer pops up a strange error message – do I try to do this myself, or do I hire a professional to help me do it? There is no right or wrong answer to this question, but that doesn’t make the decision any easier.

While the examples above are for your non-work life, planning and managing your career isn’t all that different. There are a few considerations that can help you evaluate whether the ‘go-it-alone’ approach or engaging a career expert is the best for you.

How about your situation? Your career is more important and likely more complex than the disposal in your sink, so what are some factors unique to engaging career experts that can help you make an informed decision?

 

Experience: career coaches often have decades of experience, both in industry themselves and subsequently offering their coaching services to others. Many have worked with clients across industries, career stages, and employment situations. Hiring a career coach can give you the benefit of all that experience in a much faster and easier way than were you to have to acquire it yourself.

 

Objectivity: career coaches are independent of your career, company, and personal situation. This removes potential bias from their advice to you. For example, a company may have a leadership development program to help you improve your leadership skills, and this may be necessary for progression to more senior roles at the company. However, those skills, while transferable, are designed to enable you to work as an effective manager in that company’s management system, and not necessarily designed to help you achieve your career goals.

 

Perspective: career coaches in many cases have dealt with hundreds of clients or more, and have the perspective on market trends, career choices, and interview strategies that few others have. If you want to know how to negotiate a compensation package, wouldn’t the thoughts of someone who’s done it over and over be valuable to you?

 

Capacity: making career moves is hard even at the best of times, but with the advent of job search aids such as Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, you’d think that all this was getting easier. In reality, the competition for good roles is getting tougher, and the expectation is that you are engaged in both in-person networking and having a strong online presence. A career coach can objectively help you determine how to market yourself and what will make you competitive, as well as providing expertise on where to invest your efforts. All of that is not to mention the time it will take you to do these things well. Time that, if you’re still working in your current role, is most likely in very short supply.

Return on Investment: While hiring a career coach does have a cost, if your resulting salary increase will pay for that cost in six months, and then continue to pay you more for the life of that role, that starts to look like a very smart investment. Outside of salary increase, many clients find that making a well-thought out decision is the best return of all, because they are more likely to land a job they really want rather than settling for what is most available to them.

As you can see, the factors that might influence your decision around engaging expertise for career-related decisions is not a simple one, and is not the right choice for everyone – but for many of us there are compelling reasons for choosing to engage outside help at pivotal moments in your career.

 

How to be Ready for Change

Make a Plan | Prepare Your Network | Take the Leap | P.S. Your Career

You know you need to change something up in your life, but it can seem scary and full of uncertainty – especially these days! Moving from an acceptable situation that works, even if it isn’t all that exciting, to something unknown is scary and can be very unsettling. While it can feel overwhelming, especially if you aren’t sure exactly what change you want to make, a few key steps can set you up to handle the transition successfully.

Make a plan

As frustrated as you may be with your current situation, you don’t want to make any rash decisions. Quitting your job and rebuilding your resume with a now-expired job is not the best way to move into a new role. Not only have you potentially lost a number of useful contacts from quitting unexpectedly, it pits you against the clock and sets you up for falling into another uninteresting position to make ends meet. Instead, devise a plan that helps move you into your next position by utilizing the network you have built in your current position or industry. Be realistic in your plan, which is probably somewhere between the best and worst case scenarios you’re imagining. Include in this plan some time for reflection on things like your goals for the transition and why you want to make this transition. In addition, think about how you plan on getting to the next opportunity, what you can do in the short term, and what contingencies you could expect that may throw your plans out of whack. When you’ve visualized a realistic plan and timeline, it starts to feel more manageable.

Prepare your network to support you

There is nothing wrong with discretely searching for opportunities to help you better understand what it is about your current role that is unfulfilling. Having some key relationships in order will make your transition much easier, both practically and emotionally. It is important to build communication with your superiors and coworkers so that you have a productive and healthy relationship before attempting to navigate a departure. It is much better to be exiting a role in a place of trust and understanding with your coworkers than to be suddenly jumping ship. If they are managing you or will have to take on part of your workload, they will need to be in the know, just as you would hope to be. These people should be your best references moving forward, so it behooves you to ensure that the relationships are healthy.

In addition to practical support from your coworkers and boss, you’re likely going to need to lean on people in your personal life as well. Talk to friends and family members who will be understanding, and explain to them that you are thinking about taking on a transition. If they know what you’re going through, they are likely to be there with a helping hand, whether that’s cheering you up after a setback or introducing you to someone who might have an open role.

Take the leap

When it is time for you to make the transition you have been planning, be sure to execute it effectively. Be clear about when you will not be completing duties pertaining to particular roles anymore, when your last day will be, etc. as your coworkers don’t want to be blindsided by the work you are no longer doing. If you’re moving to a new role right away, make sure that you have a plan in place to stay in touch with coworkers from your current role. It will be easy to get caught up in a new company and lose touch with people who were valuable friends and colleagues. Writing down a concrete plan will help you stick to it. If you’re planning to take a break between jobs, know how you will structure your time once you’re not working. Are you planning a trip, planning to do work around the house, or jumping into a full-time job search? All are great options, and it helps to set reasonable expectations for yourself about what your life will look like during the transition period.

In order to be prepared for a change, it is important to take proactive steps to manage it before the time comes to act on it. Ensure that you have a well-thought-out plan, and prepare your network in advance to control any collateral effects of your change. When it is time to execute on your plan, do so with thoughtful intentionality whilst maintaining the relationships you made in your previous role.

The Importance of Your Personal Brand and How to Improve It

CEO and Career Coach Kate O. discusses the importance of understanding and expanding upon your personal brand.

You’ve probably heard the buzzword “personal brand.” You might have even rolled your eyes when you heard someone say it. I know that it’s easy to dismiss words that get thrown around a lot, especially when you’re dealing with the hard work of a career transition. The reality is, however, that whether you’re transitioning internally or looking for a new role externally, your brand is one of your most powerful tools to help you land the role you want.

What do I mean by personal brand? The simplest definition is that your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

Let’s take the internal candidate example first. I recently had a client who was up for a big promotion to partner at her consulting firm. He was passed over for a promotion on the first round of consideration, even though his reviews and project had all gone very well. The feedback he ultimately got out of his manager was that “the partners weren’t sure he was ready based on some things they’d heard.” What a maddeningly vague piece of feedback! This is a great example of personal brand, however. When my client asked around some more, he learned that certain partners had an impression of him as being a micromanager and not focused enough on building client relationships. He didn’t think this assessment was accurate, but it doesn’t really matter what he thinks if that’s the view the decision-makers have. Armed with this knowledge, he could take concrete steps to show the partners his focus on clients and change their view of him. He was able to do this over the next 6 months and secured his promotion.

A similar situation happens when people are searching for a new role externally. Especially if you’re looking to pivot to a new role or industry, understanding your brand and how you may need to proactively shift it is vital. Shifting your brand in this instance can be as simple as removing old content from your resume and focusing on more recent projects and accomplishments. Or you may need to explicitly tell some stories in your resume and your interviews to explain how your skills transfer to the new role. This is all branding, and it will make all the difference in how people see you and whether they think you’re qualified for new opportunities.

In both cases, the person needs to identify what their target role is, and what desirable attributes are for that role. This will tell you what some elements are of your desired brand. You layer that in with the strengths and interests that make you tick.

The second step is to assess the current state of your brand. What would your managers say about you if they were to review you for a promotion right now? What does the hiring manager say about you after an interview? That’s your current state.

Lastly, think about how you can strategically evolve your brand to suit your goals. It might take some time, and it definitely takes some thoughtful planning, but you can absolutely shift your reputation and the impression you make on people.

In summary, if you know what your brand is, you can make the adjustments necessary to shift and improve it. Take the time to learn what people think of your job performance and take proactive steps to manage it in order to set yourself up for success when the time comes to move up or move on.

#career #personalbrand #promotion

How to Conquer the 6 Second Resume Screen

CEO / Career Coach Kate O. discusses tips from her time as a resume reviewer that can drastically affect your resume’s chances at being completely reviewed.

Introduction: Did you know that most hiring managers only spend 6 seconds reviewing a resume before they decide whether to keep reading or toss it into the reject pile? That might sound harsh, but as someone who used to review up to 100 resumes a day, I can tell you that it’s a matter of necessity. So, if you’re applying for a job and you know you’re qualified, your challenge is: how do you get past the 6-second screen and get to the interview stage? Here are my top tips for how to make your resume stand out:

1) Before you start writing your resume or hit send on an application, make sure that you’re sending the version of your resume that best positions you for the role you’re applying to. This concept of positioning is crucial. The idea is to think of yourself as a product and the hiring manager as your target audience, then follow the basic rules of advertising. What does my target market care about the most? How can I make it very clear to them that I provide exactly that value? This might require taking off some experience and expanding on others or rebranding your key skills to match what’s in the job description. A little bit of effort towards positioning yourself correctly can make all the difference.

2) Include an Executive Summary section at the top and avoid the Objective section at all costs. An executive summary is key – it may be where your reader spends all or most of the 6 seconds. You can use the summary to include key pieces of information like your top skills, years of experience, and an overview of your career trajectory. I don’t recommend an objective because if you’ve submitted your resume, your objective is already clear: you want to get a job. You don’t want to use limited space to say something that your interviewer already knows. You DO want to use your space to summarize your experience and present a clear personal brand.

3) Vary your format but be sure to keep it focused on Accomplishments vs. Tasks. The biggest mistake I see people making on resumes is they want to convey everything they did and were responsible for on their resume, and the result is that it ends up reading like a long list of tasks. This doesn’t do anything to set you apart from other applicants who have held the same role. In other words, it doesn’t give a clear sense of the unique value you will add to a company. Instead, consider using multiple formats or frameworks, and always be sure to quantify the scope and impact of your work whenever possible.

3 Surefire Ways to Maintain Balance While Working From Home

Work-Life Balance | Habit-Building | Personal Development | P.S. Your Career

Working from home (WFH) is the new normal whether we like it or not. Due to the pandemic and the resulting stay-at-home orders, millions of Americans are spending the entire day inside. For some, this has resulted in a less productive workday as the distractions range from family / roommates engaging with them to easily appeased hunger pangs. For others, it has exploded their work into a full-day event with only a few small breaks. For most of us, an adjustment needs to be made to ensure the work-life scale remains balanced for the long haul. Here are 3 sure-fire ways to improve your work-life balance.

Build a balanced schedule and social routine

It is important to ensure you make time for the pieces of the day that don’t contribute to work stress. Though seemingly unimportant components of the day, showering, eating and enjoying a home-cooked breakfast, and enjoying your coffee as you digest the news are examples of ways to improve your work-life balance and are often the first to get nixed when stress gets turned up. A way to improve this situation is to plan these rituals into your day. Block them out in your schedule, prioritize them, and resist the urge to jump straight into your email when you wake up. This way, when work begins to challenge you, you aren’t starting from a place of stress.

Another component of a day to enforce in your schedule is in social interactions. In this time of video conferencing for work and alone time at home otherwise, it is even more important to take deliberate steps toward calling a friend or family member to socialize with them. The more regular, the better, as it will play a key role long term in improving the overall balance between work and life. Humans crave social interactions and support, especially in challenging times such as the one we are all navigating right now. For the P.S. Your Career team, that means a weekly happy hour where we talk about anything other than work. For you it may mean a regular time to connect with family and friends.

Maintain a consistent health regimen

The importance of a good health regimen – regular exercise, a healthy diet, and a regular sleep schedule – should never be overlooked! Simply stated, you feel better when you do these things. Physiologically, your body undergoes a slew of hormonal changes before, during, and after exercise that increase your mood -- making you feel more hopeful, euphoric, and relaxed -- while repairing damage from and building immunity to high levels of stress. Along those lines, a regular sleep schedule can contribute to all of these by supplementing the recovery, from both the exercise and a stressful day, and ensuring you feel well-rested for the next one.

Enforce regular hobby / personal development time

Make the time to do the things you want to do and enjoy doing as if your mental health levels depend on it. This could range from potting plants to photographing airplanes. While professional / career development could be included here, even better would be a completely non work-related hobby. One that allows you to completely disconnect from the workplace and any stress that comes with it.

As creatures of habit, humans need to understand that there are healthy and unhealthy habits. Though success at work can be a large contributor to overall happiness, it is important to realize that it can often come with continuously high stress levels when one fails to take steps to mitigate them. Implement healthy, balance-positive routines to promote a sustainable system for the long haul.

A Search Consultant’s Thoughts on How to Approach a Job Search Right Now

Search Consultant | Pandemic | Job Search | P.S. Your Career

P.S. Your Career had the opportunity to speak to Chris Corwin, a healthcare executive search consultant, organizational strategist, and executive coach – to get her insights into career changes amid the pandemic. Specifically, we wanted to hear her thoughts on how someone should approach looking for a job, any lasting changes she predicts to the way we work, and what you should do if you find yourself with extra free time.

Is it the right time to be looking for a job? Is it worth following up with the firm you were engaged with before the pandemic took hold?

Corwin urged readers, “Continue the job search and continue being as ‘top of mind’ as possible. Companies (especially those in tech and others with alternative work environments) are still hiring and moving on, whether it is faster or a little slower than before.” Though the rules and the speed at which we may have been used to engaging with companies is changing, it doesn’t mean it is a time to be complacent about how you present yourself to them. Corwin adds, “Don’t be overly prescriptive…listen to what people are saying they need. Talk to people first, then send your resume so that it is more tailored to what they are looking for.” If you aren’t hearing back from a potential employer, it might be a good idea to ask when you should follow up again so that you can balance staying top of mind for them and respecting that they may have paused hiring for the time being.

What are the effects of the pandemic in the near term and long term?

While many people are suddenly out of work as a result of the pandemic, other industries are actually busier than ever. Corwin says, “It is not all being frozen. People are needed!” She noted that many companies deemed necessary are ramping up hiring amid the pandemic. In the short term, that likely means thinking about new roles and industries that you may not have considered before.

For lasting effects, most experts agree that the business world will not return to the pre-pandemic ways of working. The biggest change is likely to be a move towards more remote work. Chris believes the pandemic really will force many businesses to consider the necessity of the brick and mortar offices. She says, “While an unfortunate forcing function, the pandemic is, at minimum, challenging the assumption that an office is necessary for workers to remain productive.” This means that if you haven’t already gotten some good practices in place for working productively from home, it might be worth it to invest in these as we can reasonably expect that some businesses will keep people remote even when offices are allowed to open again.

How could someone in-between jobs or suddenly finding themselves with extra free time, spend it productively?

“There are tons of training courses out there. Read books, take self-assessment leadership/strengths tests.” She reiterated the importance of growth during these times, “Take advantage of the time off to reflect internally on what it is you want to do as you approach the market…update your resume and continue to network! Check-in with people…now is the time to be empathetic and sympathetic. Bring out the compassion right now.” Doing so will reinforce the connections within your network, even if it is unable to provide tangible outcomes at this time. While we’d surely prefer to be meeting up with people for an in-person coffee, we can still create connections while social distancing. Use this time to set up some informational interviews via video chat or catch up with old coworkers you’ve lost touch with. If you have extra free time, they may as well, and connecting during a difficult time is a great way to deepen a relationship.

We know these are stressful times, and especially so if you are dealing with job loss or were in the middle of a job search when the Coronavirus started to dominate our lives. We hope these tips are helpful and can prepare you to move forward with your goals.