Salary Requirements on Resume?

[pace]

should you include your salary requirements on your resume, or cover letter? Or not at all?

[XJETGIRLX]

Unless specifically requested by the organization the general rule is to not include it. Too high and you might be too rich for their blood. Too low and they may not think you're qualified enough.

When requested, salary requirements should be included in the cover letter, and salary histories should be included on the resume along with each position in your work history.

Here's a brief article that does a good job of covering the topic.

[RealityChuck]

There's a saying: whoever mentions salary first, loses. Don't put it on the resume, and only put it in a cover letter if it's requested. Also, put in a range, and add "but the salary is less important to me than the oppotrunity."

[CookingWithGas]

I agree with RealityChuck. Never be the first one to bring up salary. Salary discussions will never help you get the job, only rule you out. You should not allow salary to come into play until they are making you an offer. You may be required to put a salary history on an application, but avoid it unless specifically asked to.

Remember that the purpose of a résumé and cover letter is to get an interview. You want to give them enough information to get them interested, but not so much as to knock you out. Résumé reviews are usually an exercise in weeding, and reviewers love it when they can throw résumés out--less to do later.

[Si Amigo]

Another vote for "Don't do it!". It's akin to asking for sex on the first date. It implies that you are only after one thing, MONEY. And god help you if someone hires you after being so forward, you may regret getting the job.

[DarrenS]

How do you find out if you're in the same ballpark as the employer, though? You could end up wasting a lot of your time and theirs if you want $120k and they're thinking $80k, to give an extreme example.

[pace]

Thanks everyone! I'm going to wait until it's requested.

[Burrido]

The two times I included my previous salary, I've gotten the same amount everyone else once. The last time I ended up making nearly 4k more than everyone else. In that case, it most certainly did help to include it in my resume.

[jjimm]

Asked my HR wifey. RealityChuck has it perfectly. Definitely not on résumé, since you'll need to distribute that widely. Only on cover letter if requested.

Further subjective advice from me: when it comes down to salary negotiations, always ask for $5-10K over what you actually expect to get, and say that's the market rate for your line of work. This has paid off for me several times.

[CookingWithGas]

Originally Posted by DarrenS

How do you find out if you're in the same ballpark as the employer, though? You could end up wasting a lot of your time and theirs if you want $120k and they're thinking $80k, to give an extreme example.

You have a good point there, and sometimes this will happen, but that's part of the risk of job hunting. (This happened to me about four years ago, but it didn't come out until two phone interviews and an in-person interview that we were $25K apart. When the subject did come up they said they didn't want to insult me by making a low offer.) You could make the same point about almost other aspects of a job, like finding out late in the interview process that heavy travel is involved but you don't want to travel. Salary is the one that is most often negotiated. If they get to the point where they're making you an offer, you know they're interested and you could try to negotiate salary.

(When I took my second job I tried to negotiate salary up and they flatly refused. When I took a job more recently I turned down the offer, and they came back with an unsolicited counteroffer of a higher salary with a signing bonus. All kinds of stuff can happen.)

[gigi]

Originally Posted by XJETGIRLX

When requested, salary requirements should be included in the cover letter, and salary histories should be included on the resume along with each position in your work history.

That's tough, as in the article, when your history and your new requirement are far different from one another. It's easier to ask for a huge jump that they don't know is a huge jump!

[bordelond]

I've been in a recent situation where an interview wasn't going to be granted until I gave a salary number :shrug:

Doesn't seem to be a "one size fits all" answer here. Withholding salary requirements as long as possible seems to be general good sense.