Okay. I’m looking for a job. I have a likely and a possible, to which I sent resumes, but they also both want me to list my salary requirements.
Yikes. What are my salary requirements?
(1) I should get one
(2) As high as possible
(3) Negotiable depending on other things, like how far/difficult the commute is, what the benefits are, and whether the person I report to is or is not a jerk (which I won’t be able to tell until I’ve already got the job)
I hate this . . . and I probably won’t get either job. But one of them sounds like my ideal dream job, the kind of thing I would do for free if I were independently wealthy which, as the subjunctive indicates, I’m not. Similar jobs, according to a not terribly inclusive web search, go for $28K-$63K, which is a helluva big range. Some of the higher end salaries are in NYC, but so are some of the lower ones, and none are given for my area (Colorado). So, if I price myself in the middle of this range I could look cheap, or I could look expensive. I don’t mind looking expensive, but I could also look like I have unrealistic expectations. $28K won’t cut it, I would feel like I didn’t have to work very hard, and $63K would give me anxiety attacks. (It’s the kind of job, though, where anxiety attacks are probably a given, no matter what, so I might as well get paid for having them.) Somewhere there is a number that would feel right, but I can’t find it.
Fellow dopers, how do you deal with this?
Simply provide your prospective employer with salary statistics from a reliable source. Salaryexpert.com is a good one.
You don’t need to quote a specific figure, but you should lead your prospective employer to offer something reasonable. Give him the range (supported by statistics - quote your sources), and then give him a way to place you wiithin it, by comparing your skills and experience to that of the average person in that salary range. Technically, you leave the decision to the employer, but with cleverly presented documents you can just about force the offer to a specific figure, without having to ask for it.
-FK
I get the shakes just thinking about it! I hate this part of the job hunt with a white-hot passion.
MSN’s careers pages has some info last time I was bored enough to click through… ah, here ya go.
Personally, I’ve never known how to handle this. I’ve always just shot for an increase of a couple thousand bucks over my previous salary. Of course, I’m currently woefully underpaid for my current position (as are all of the technical people in Dallas), so what do I know? 
Thanks! Both sites were very helpful. Salaryexpert.com showed a higher salary at both ends for my area, which gave me hope.
The whole job hunt is a nail-biting annoyance but I ought to be good at it–I’ve had way more than the 8-12 lifetime jobs mentioned by MSN’s career pages. (Hmm, maybe that’s the problem . . .)
Thanks! Both sites were very helpful. Salaryexpert.com showed a higher salary at both ends for my area, which gave me hope.
The whole job hunt is a nail-biting annoyance but I ought to be good at it–I’ve had way more than the 8-12 lifetime jobs mentioned by MSN’s career pages. (Hmm, maybe that’s the problem . . .)