Know your worth before negotiating pay

What are your skills worth in today's job market? The newly released 2011 Salary Guides from Robert Half can help you answer this question. The guides feature starting salary information for a broad range of positions in the accounting and finance, information technology, administrative, legal and creative fields. It pays to research the going rate for your skills and experience before entering negotiations with an employer. You don't want to shortchange yourself - or come across as out of touch by asking for far too much. Consider the very different expectations of these two recent graduates:

SALARY REQUIREMENTS: "No free work."

Fair enough.

SALARY REQUIREMENTS: "I'll tell you what I want to earn: a million dollars in my FIRST year."

That's on the high end for an entry-level candidate.

Unless a job ad specifically states that applicants should provide salary requirements, leave those details off your resume and wait for the hiring manager to broach the subject during the interview. These job seekers were not on the money:

SALARY REQUIREMENTS: "I don't get out of bed for less than $30 an hour."

We'll have to sleep on it.

When discussing your compensation requirements, provide a specific range. These vague comments missed the mark:

RESUME: "I recently left my job and have a chequing account that is growing quite hungry."

We'd like to learn about your qualifications, not your personal finances.

SALARY REQUIREMENTS: "Good money! Between rent, student loans and life in general, this stuff adds up. Ack!"

"Ack" is right.

SALARY REQUIREMENTS: "$$$! Have you seen gas prices lately?"

This resume doesn't fuel our interest.

Finally, watch out for typos with numbers, not just words.

SALARY REQUIREMENTS: "$20 to $.25/hour."