Torpedo Speak

What to Do If You Are Asked About Salary in a Job Interview

By David Moreno

So you’ve revamped your resume, applied for many jobs, went through several interview cycles, and now you are at the point where the interviewer is asking you about your salary expectations. What do you say?

Many job seekers find this to be one of the most difficult questions to answer. Why is this? The main reason is that they are afraid that if they ask for too much money, then they will price themselves out of a potentially great opportunity. Just as important if they ask for too little money, then they may be passing up a potentially significant pay increase.

Here is some guidance on handle to turn questions about salary in a job interview to your favor…

The first rule of thumb to remember is that ‘he/she who gives a specific salary figure first, is in a position of weakness from a negotiating position standpoint’. What this means is it is far better to understand what your employer has in mind around salary before you answer, so as to avoid pricing yourself beyond the position, or leaving too much money on the table.

The second thing to understand is that 99% of the time the employer will have already allocated ‘budget’ or a ’salary range’ for the position you are applying for. Even though the interviewer is asking for your salary expectations, they will have already clearly defined the minimum and maximum ranges for the role. Your goal is to position yourself for the maximum range.

A sad but true fact of employment is that the #1 determining factor in what your new salary will be, is what you made in your previous role. I’d like to tell you that the main factor is the value you will bring the role, and there is certainly some truth to that, but when it comes to the actual salary figure odds are it will be pretty close to what you are making now. In fact it is standard practice for many organizations to ask for your previous full year tax slip as part of your application process just for this reason.

So all that being said, what is the best way to answer the dreaded ’salary’ question.
Here is a specific example…

Interviewer: What are your salary expectations in this role?

You: Up until this point I’ve been more focused on understanding the requirements for the role and my potential fit for your organization, I haven’t thought much about the compensation piece at this point to be honest. Do you have a range for the role that you have in mind?

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What Is Success?

By: Roy Thomsitt

I recently read a thread in a forum in which somebody was dismissive of other people who wrote about success. His argument was that they wrote about success but were not successful themselves.

I made no comment, just smiled as others were diving in to dismiss what was nothing more than a self glorifying remark. To make such a statement he must have had a very narrow minded view of success, presumably relating success to massive wealth. Even on such a narrow, and plainly silly, definition, how on earth could he know whether others who wrote about success had been successful or not? Clearly, he could not.

With that statement he had insulted just about every person on the planet who could write. Success is a very personal and individual achievement. You could examine the life of any other person, and pinpoint successes in their lives; and if they could write, they could write about success. Those successes may be beyond the vision of somebody who is arrogant and judges people by their level of conspicuous wealth. However, those little successes in that person’s life may be of relative importance to that person, whether a child, teenager or adult, and also to their family and friends.

Success is always relative, and can relate to just about any aspect of human existence. Nobody should just be dismissed as unsuccessful by others. An individual can, of course, be unsuccessful in a particular endeavour; even so, if they set out on that endeavour at all, then they are more “successful” than somebody who never found the impetus to do so, even though they want to.

It is even possible to “succeed” and “fail” at the same time. Taking an example from my own life, in my late teens I wrote my first two novels. I felt very satisfied, and considered the second novel at least a success, even though I could not find a publisher and never made a penny from it. As a novelist, I was a failure; yet I felt success.

When considering your own success it is worth bearing in mind a dictionary definition, just to help keep it in perspective: success is “An event that accomplishes its intended purpose.” That is really all it is; it does not have to be about conspicuous wealth, nor does it have to be highly public.

The most obvious successes are, of course, visible in public and can often be accompanied by conspicuous wealth. However, you will usually find those successes have been preceded by a lot of smaller and less obvious successes, and failures as well, all of which were essential to that ultimate and big success that everyone sees today.

A famous and successful musician, for example, may have had their first success in mastering their first tune on a guitar. It was an essential success, but small and insignificant at the time. That same musician may have had their first public performance, when everything went wrong and the audience booed, and been dismissed by those present as a failure. Yet, it was an important step to their ultimate success.

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