You’ve finally finished off the last of the leftovers from Thanksgiving, and now December is here, another year gone by. Your wallet is feeling the effects of those “doorbuster” specials from Black Friday. With the rest of the holiday activities looming, it sure would be nice to have some extra cash.

However, many people are nervous about approaching their boss to talk about their performance. They have questions. Is now a good time to ask? How should I approach the topic? Will I seem greedy? To make things easier, it helps to have a plan. Let’s call it

The Past, Present, and Future Plan

TIMING
First, let’s talk timing. Many companies determine their budgets at other times during the year, or they may have already submitted their numbers for 2012 in early November, but there’s a chance that there is still some number-crunching being done right up until the end of the year. Ideally you want your voice heard before things are locked down, so don’t delay.

GOAL-SETTING
Next, if you feel that setting up a meeting to talk about a raise will immediately put your supervisor on the defensive, I recommend a somewhat softer approach. Tell your boss that you are planning your personal goals for 2012, and that you’d like to run them by him.

THE PLAN
Organize your notes into three categories, past, present and future. For the past, go back over your notes, files, and emails from the previous year and review all your “wins.” If your boss manages multiple employees, their accomplishments sometimes start to run together. It’s your job to succinctly remind him of all the positive contributions you’ve made:

Did you . . .

• Kick off the year with a great sales meeting?
• Land a huge account in the spring?
• Pull off a summer marketing promotion on time and under budget?
• Increase website traffic or the number of Facebook followers to your brand by 25% compared to last year?

Walk your boss through the highlights to give her a refresher, making sure to illustrate with revenue statistics how these tasks contributed to the bottom line.

Now on to the present. Many companies see a larger majority of their revenue realized in the fourth quarter. Talk about the most important project you are working on right now, and talk about how it will influence the numbers to end the year. While the rest of your colleagues are already starting to mentally check out as holiday parties, travel, and New Year’s Eve approach, show that you are ready to end the year strong, with one last push.

Looking toward the future, lay out your personal goals for next year. Are you looking to increase your sales, take on new and more interesting work, or move up to a new position? Your boss won’t know unless you tell her.

As you discuss your personal goals, the key phrase to ask is, “Can you tell me how well these personal goals align with your goals as a department head, as well as the overall company goals?”

What this plan does is remind your boss of all the hard work you’ve done all year, show that you are going to finish strong. It also demonstrates that not only do you care about your career path, but that you want the company to succeed as well.

Asking for the raise. If you’ve done your homework up to this point, the story might already speak for itself. You might transition by saying something like “When I sat down and ran all the numbers, I was even a little surprised myself to see that the projects I managed contributed more than $86,000 to the bottom line. Based on the work I’ve done this year, my plan to finish my current projects, and how I’m lined up to help the company in the future, can we talk about an increase in my compensation to reflect the work that I’ve accomplished this year?”

You’ve now opened up a dialogue with your manager to discuss any raises and promotions. This will probably go one of three ways:

1) If your boss doesn’t see the value of your work or you’re met with a negative reaction, well, all the homework you did summarizing all of your projects will look nice on your updated resume should you decide to look for new opportunities.

2) If your boss is supportive and wants to work with you, but postpones the subject of raises until next year, push harder when discussing your personal goals. Request a review a few months into the new year and increased compensation if you meet agreed-upon goals.

3) Lastly, if all goes well and you receive a nice fat bonus or an increase in your year-end paycheck, pay off a few of your outstanding bills, make sure you have an emergency fund set aside in case an unforeseen layoff does occur, and hey — maybe a new outfit for that upcoming holiday party is in order.

Note: This article first appeared in a post for The Hired Guns. Check out TheHiredGuns.com to Get Hired, Find Talent, or Rock Your Career.

There are many hurdles to clear on your path to getting your dream job—at a dream salary. You’ll need to make your resume stand out to merit consideration, perform better than the other candidates during interviews, and go toe-to-toe with the hiring manager or HR representative and prove your value for the salary you desire. But there’s one barrier that could stand in your way before you even get out of the starting gate: the online application form.

The forms, put out by “talent technology firms” such as Taleo and BrassRing, all usually start similarly:
- Basic personal information, such as name, address, email, and phone
- Education history, including degrees earned
- Work history
- Special skills and activities

But many forms also include an innocent-looking “current salary” or “desired salary” field. Although it’s easy to answer the question—just type in how much you’re being paid right now—savvy job seekers know that this is an incredibly important question.

In fact, your answer is crucial, for two reasons:
1) It will affect how you are screened for the job and whether or not you’ll even make it to the next round.
2) If you do make it to the next step, your answer immediately sets a framework for how much the company will pay you, and in some cases, what title and level you’ll be considered for.

Remember, when it comes to negotiating a future salary, the golden rules are:
- Do not be the first person to bring it up
- Defer all salary talk until you know they want you
- Get the company to reveal its number first

Knowing these rules, but with that question staring you in the face, you ask yourself what you can do to avoid answering with your salary.

If you are filling out an application on paper, or if the online form allows you to type in whatever characters you want in that field, then leave an open-ended response that defers the answer until later. For example, you could write “Negotiable.” or “To be discussed during interview.”

You might be asking, “Couldn’t I just put in a range?” Putting a range comes in a distant second. Let’s say you currently make $50,000 and are hoping for a decent increase, so you enter a range of $55,000–$65,000. The problem here is that you broke one of the golden rules by providing a number first. What if the number the employer had in mind was $57,000, or worse, $67,000? Either way, you might be screened out for having too high a range, or you might leave a lot of money on the table if you “settle” for a number less than the mid-$60s.

But what if the “desired salary” field on an online application requires you to enter a number, and it won’t let you proceed without your entering something?

There are a number of ways you can handle this:
1) You can take your best guess and enter a number you’re aiming for. Again, the risk here is that you will be screened out or undersell yourself.
2) You can enter $0.00. By doing so, the interviewer will know you are trying to avoid giving a number, but might think you’re willing to work for free.
3) You can enter $1,000,000 (or the highest amount listed on the form). Believe it or not, I feel that option C—if played correctly—can be a useful way to approach this situation. If there is a “notes” or other free-form field in another part of the application, refer to the salary question and say that you’d like to discuss it in person.

What happens if you then get the interview and the evil HR person gets right to the point and says, “Um, you really don’t think you’re going to get paid a million dollars here, do you?” This is an opportunity to show your negotiation prowess and address the question head on. Be prepared with a response like this:

Well, clearly I understand that the starting salary for this position isn’t seven figures, but let me explain why I answered that way on the form. For me, there are many things that go into the perfect job.

First, there should be a good fit between the individual and the company. Next, having a supportive manager is very important. And finally, coming to the office every day to work on projects that I am truly passionate about is very, very important. Without having gone through the whole interviewing process yet, it’s hard to tell if that’s the case. But if it does work out where everyone is happy, in essence it feels like a million-dollar job for me, and we can work out the details of what the realistic salary would be that we can both agree on. So, would it be OK if we talk about the other items first?

Sure it’s a bit of a stretch, but what you’ve done here is show that the job and people you work with have to be a priority first, not the money, and it’s hard for a manager to dispute that. Still skeptical or worried that the company will just move on past your application because you didn’t take it seriously? OK, fine.

Here’s the best way to answer a job application with a salary field: Don’t be in that position in the first place. Studies show that upwards of 80% of jobs are secured through networking. Eighty percent!

When you spend your time networking instead of filling out random applications on job boards, you build relationships and get direct connections to hiring managers. When that is the case, and you have a personal connection at a company, often you avoid having to fill out an online form in the first place. Thus, you avoid competition with hundreds or thousands of other candidates and most important, avoid the salary field question completely.

By using the steps above, you can remove another hurdle between you and your job—and do so leaving your desired salary intact.

“In these uncertain economic times…”

That phrase entered our lexicon within the past few years, becoming the default lead-in sentence for politicians, newscasters, and CEOs alike before delivering bad news about jobs or the economy.

The recession took its toll on the workforce in different ways:

- Many fell victim to cutbacks and were laid off, as an estimated 8 million U.S. jobs were lost from 2007-2010.

- College graduates that eagerly entered their freshman year in the fall of 2005 or 2006 when unemployment was around 4.6% walked across the stage and directly into a buzz saw of twice that rate in May 2009 and 2010.

- Those remaining hunkered down at their current jobs during the “budget freeze” era, accepting that “not getting laid off is the new getting promoted.”

When will the economy fully be recovered? No one can say for sure as various industries will rebound faster than others, and some segments have been forever altered.

One thing’s for sure, a lot has happened during this time. Whether you’re ready to redouble your job search efforts, determined to get that first job and move out of your parent’s basement, or have decided to search for greener pastures, it’s a good idea to make sure your job search skills have evolved to match the new economy.

The new networking

A common mistake some job-seekers make is spending too much time searching for the perfect position on job boards. In reality, studies have shown that upward of 80% of jobs are found through networking.

So while “SuperMegaJobSite.com” is fine for seeing what companies are hiring and what positions are in demand, a better use of your time spent online would be cultivating your network.

Clearly, many people got the message and built out their network during the recession. Between March 2008 and March 2011, LinkedIn.com jumped from 20 million members to 100 million, making it one of the largest social networking sites on the web. A new person joins every second.

Instead of: Shotgunning resumes to random companies that you might want to work for

Try: Target a handful of places where you’d love to work, then use LinkedIn to cultivate a broad network and find a connection to someone that works there.

Sitting down for a cup of coffee with your old fraternity brother’s cousins’s girlfriend might seem like a long-shot, but if she knows of a job opening that hasn’t been advertised yet, she can hand deliver your resume to HR and bypass hundreds of competing candidates.

The new resume

There are some basic tips to make sure your standard resume is up to par:

- Save it as a PDF format so that it can be universally read. There are still just enough differences in Microsoft Word versions and Mac vs PC conversions that someone opening your perfectly aligned resume with the Copperplate Gothic Bold font could see something quite different than what you intended.

- Name your document Firstname_Lastname_Resume.pdf.  If you name your file something generic (resume.pdf) or unique to you (Mktg-Res-RevisedVer3.4.pdf), it will get lost if a recruiter saves all the documents in one folder.

- Likewise, use a professional email address. Firstname.Lastname@Gmail.com is good.  SuprKitten34@aol.com is not.

But the traditional resume is not enough. You should also have a web presence.

For writers, designers, videographers and other creatives, a professional looking, up-to-date website with examples of your work is a must.

But what about your average Joe? Having your own website presence gives companies a landing page when they Google you (and yes, they will Google you), and is easier than you think.

Step 1) Secure your URL

Head over to a site such as GoDaddy.com and register your name. Of course, the chances of the domain being available is a lot greater if your name is Horatio Knickerbocker vs John Smith, so you might need to get creative by adding your middle initial, a nickname, or another word such as “online” to the name.

Step 2) Set up your website

One of the fastest and easiest ways to set up a web presence is through a site called About.me. (www.about.me) This allows you to add a description of who you are and what you do, a quick photo, and links to your social media profiles.

Step 3) Redirect people to your profile

Go back to GoDaddy.com and find a “URL Redirect” section under your account and point your personal domain name (HoratioKnickerbocker.com) to the about.me page that you created (www.about.me/horatioknickerbocker). This gives you an easier to remember, more streamlined version that will appear higher in search engines.

Note: For a more robust website, see my article “How to Create a Personal Website.”

The new power suit

In simpler times, picking out an outfit for an interview was easy. For men, it was as simple as getting a navy suit, a crisp white shirt and a power tie. But now that some offices seemingly mandate hoodies and jeans as standard dress, things get complicated.

To be clear, when on an interview, you should always look as professional as possible, and in many cases that means a suit and tie. But the key is knowing your audience. A Wall Street finance job will be much different than a startup in Silicon Valley.

If a full suit and tie feels too much for the company culture you are meeting with, you could lose the tie. Another option is to keep the dress pants, dress shirt, and tie, but lose the jacket. And in some cases, the best mix of “casual yet respectful” is a dress shirt and jacket paired with a pair of new, clean, dark jeans.

Consider the advice of former Apple, Inc evangelist Guy Kawasaki, who encourages people to “dress for a tie” in business meetings. He says:

If you show up wearing ripped jeans a hoodie to a formal meeting where everyone else is wearing suits, you’re saying “I don’t respect you”… if you show up wearing a suit and oozing style to a casual meeting where everyone else is dressed down, you’re saying “I am better than you”… shoot for a relatively even match.

The new portfolio

The photos we take, the videos we shoot, and the journalism we read have all gone digital. No longer the sole realm of design and photography creatives, the portfolio has gone digital as well.

The concept is simple… why tell the interviewer about the skills you have, when you can do one better and show them?

- Are you a marketer that worked on an extensive online campaign? Take screenshots of the website, ad banners, and emails that were sent.

- Are you an event planner that hosted a successful event for a client? Display promotional materials, multiple photos from the day, and written testimonials from clients.

- Are you the director of fundraising for a non-profit? Wow them with a short video of the kids that your company is striving to help.

Best of all, you no longer need to lug in a heavy laptop, power it up, and find room on someone’s desk to display your highlights. With the advent of the Apple iPad and other tablets, you can create a compelling portfolio and simply hand the device to the interviewer for them to swipe through at their own pace.

The new negotiation

In the past, when pressed for salary requirements, you might have taken your current compensation, added 20%, and hoped for the best. Or took a wild guess at what the job was paying. Or outright lied through your teeth.

Now, technology has leveled the playing field. Sites like Payscale.com and Salary.com give you up-to-date, competitive salary ranges for most every job in every industry. On the site Glassdoor.com, you can even see specific feedback on specific companies.

While many are hesitant to haggle over salary at all given the recent job climate, the fact is that if you do your homework and approach the conversation with data to back up your argument, most companies have wiggle room above and beyond their initial offer. The key is to ask.

Summary

As “these uncertain economic times” start to develop a bit more certainty, there are several key things that you can do to improve your chances at landing the job you want. Update your job skills to the new economy and give yourself the best possible chance to succeed.

You’ve had it up to here. Your boss is a jerk. You work way too many hours. You just got passed up for a promotion. You know you should be making more money. It’s time to find a new job. Maybe you got laid off.

Or maybe you’re a 19-year-old college sophomore looking for a summer internship. One day you’re surfing the job listings and there it is… the proverbial dream job. You want this job so badly you can taste it. They want a cover letter and resume. You can’t screw this up.  What do you need to do?

Flash back to the mid 1990s, where I’m the third employee at a tech startup. Unfortunately, this was back when you still had the long hours and low pay of a new company, but before they handed out magical stock options that made you a millionaire in 14 months.

We were growing like crazy, and during that time I was the de facto HR department. I sorted through hundreds of resumes and conducted dozens of interviews. Back then, it was just you and your paper resume.

Flash forward to today, where, as a marketing director at Wired.com in New York, I’ve conducted 5 searches for an intern with both marketing and tech skills over the last few years. My how the rules have changed.

Now of course, you send your digital resume via email, attach your cover letter as a nicely formatted PDF, and there are a host of sites, from online portfolios and blogs, to social networking sites and Google searches, that can both help – or kill – your chances of getting that dream job.

How are things different in the digital age? Here’s what I recommend:

Lets start with your opening email, which serves as a cover letter. Remember, like a good company, you’re trying to brand yourself and paint a picture that the interviewer can relate to:

• Are you an entrepreneurial self-starter?
• A whiz kid with stats and technology?
• A creative wordsmith and copywriter?

Here’s what to do:

Adapt your tone and style to that of the job posting. The first email I received did an excellent job of doing just that, responding to the fun, conversational tone of the job posting, with a similar style cover letter.  So I responded and let her know.

To use a pop culture reference, I felt like an American Idol judge telling her… “You took a risk by going outside the traditional formal business approach, but you made it her own and you nailed it.”

Here is what NOT to do:

1) For the love of Pete, get a normal email address. I don’t care if your name is Yazmin Suchetti, but like, everyone you know, like totally calls you Yaz. The “from” name on your email address should not be simply Yaz. Do you know who Yaz is? I’ll give you two choices.

Yaz is Carl Yastrzemski, one of the greatest players in baseball history, the Boston Red Sox’ all-time leader in career RBIs, runs, hits, singles, doubles, total bases, and games played, and the last man to hit for the triple crown.

or

Yaz is an 80’s synthpop duo from Britain who made the platinum selling album Upstairs at Eric’s.

You?  If you’re going for a professional job, you’re Yazmin_Suchetti@gmail or yahoo or hotmail. That’s it. No excuses. It’s FREE!

2) Match the job description.  If I am clearly looking for someone that knows technology and marketing, do not list artwork, poetry, and the choir in the first sentence of your pitch to me.

One person listed data entry, broadband/router setup, and computer maintenance as the first three bullet points of a job. Great. But the next two bullet points were building repairs and custodial duties. Should have quit while you were ahead.

3) Do not make me work and don’t be lazy.  One candidate wrote: “Attached is my resume. If you require a cover letter, please let me know and I will attach it in another email.”

You know what? Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’re too busy to spend 15 minutes writing an introductory paragraph or two that would separate you from everyone else. Meanwhile, I’ve got plenty of time on my hands to get in a back and forth conversation with you. That’s why I’m looking for an assistant.

4) Spell-check and proofread everything. Twice. If it’s not bad enough that I’m the type of guy that likes to search for typos on restaurant menus, if the job position asks for strong copywriting skills, know that your writing and grammar will be scrutinized more than most.

I am extremely impressed with your resume by the fact that you were Salesperson of the Week twice, Salesperson of the Month once, and have personally raised over $60,000 fundraising.  But when you describe yourself as the “Lead money getter” in your cover letter, that doesn’t cut it.

Now let’s go to your resume.  Listen, this is the digital age. And this is a marketing internship for Wired.com.  So say you’re a college student.  Listen, I understand that you might have switched from political science to computer science three weeks ago, and you’re really not sure what you want to do with your life.

But try to focus on the moment. Why not take THREE MINUTES and change the objective on your resume to say “My objective is to get this internship at Wired”!

I was shocked that not single applicant took the time to do this.

I know I sound like a grandpa when I say that before high quality laser printers and ubiquitous email, you finalized your resume and then went to Staples and bought a box of ecru-colored, 20-pound weight, nicely textured paper. Then you printed out 50 copies to bring on all your interviews. You had one, maybe 2 versions.

But now, it literally takes seconds to tweak a resume to match a specific job, export it to a PDF, and email it to the hiring manager.

And as long as we’re saving the file… there is only one way to name your resume:

Firstname_Lastname_resume.pdf

Why that way?

1) By saving it as a PDF – which by now is an industry standard that any hiring manager has installed – you ensure that any fonts and formatting will not be thrown out of whack when converting across various versions of Microsoft Word, or from Mac to PC.

2) You need to assume that the hiring manager might be saving all the potential candidates in a single directory with other files, and if you just call it resume.pdf, they won’t be able to distinguish yours from the others.

3) Calling it something that makes sense to YOU, but not to the hiring manager, such as jpfw-version1b_revised-09032010.pdf just looks sloppy and unprofessional.

OK, on to the lightning round of resume ranting:

- Put your name and contact information on your resume. Believe it or not, not one but two people did not have their name on their resume

- Do NOT send your resume as a jpg. Yes, I got a jpg resume.

- Do not put your references on your resume. When I’m ready for them, I’ll ask.

- Do not have a 2-3 page resume for an internship or your first job out of school.  You’re 19 years old!  Fit it on one page!  And I said one page! If it’s 1 ¼ pages long, edit!

- Please… show a little effort. This is the digital age of graphic design, Photoshop, and multimedia. You are going for a tech position. Go crazy and, oh I don’t know… Change the font!  Add a line break!  Add a hint of color. Put something interesting in the “other activities” section to make yourself memorable.  Of course it’s the CONTENT of the resume that I pay attention to, but if you start me out staring at 12pt Times New Roman, chronological order in the MS Word “resume” template, what does that say about your creativity and initiative?

Of course, all this is assuming you actually INCLUDE your resume.

I received an email that said “Please find my attached resume.” There was not one attached.

Now, I easily could have written them off instantly as someone without attention to detail. But I let this one slide. I simply hit reply and said… “I didn’t receive the attachment.”

The next email that came in said “Hi Jim… apologies.  Resume attached.”

Guess what? NO RESUME.

Finally, the email after THAT said “Resume attached,” and it was on there.

Now I’m sorry if I interrupted your 10-hour non-stop Grand Theft Auto videogame marathon, but three strikes and you’re out.

And finally, I’ll leave you with these two doozies.

1) A candidate listed his work at the campus computer lab. Fantastic… I love tech geeks. But I’m guessing Microsoft Word incorrectly auto-corrected the word “Maintained” because what the bullet point said was “Marinating computer lab to ensure it was clean and orderly.” Marinating.

I can see the scenario: “Sir can you help me? My computer seems to be locked up.”

“Aha… I see the problem… you’ve got some Teriyaki sauce in the keyboard.”

2) Although the job said nothing about languages, there were a lot of resumes that boasted “Fluent in Italian,” “Conversational French,” “Read and write Spanish,” and so on. But I guess not everyone has actually finished their finals, because one resume said:

“Almost fluent Spanish”

See to me, “almost” means “NOT.”

Hey John, did you win the lottery? Well, I almost won the lottery.

Did the Yankees win last night? Well, they almost won last night.

I pictured the real-life scenario playing out, as my intern and I meet for lunch with an international ad agency, and the CEO says something in Spanish and I turn to him and ask what he said, and he pauses, thinks, and replies:

“Well, he either said that he’s very impressed with the great hunger with which we pursued this account and our thirst for knowledge, or he highly recommends the Nachos Grande Carne Asada and a pint of Dos Equis.”

And If you’re wondering if that last guy got the job, well, he almost got the job.

The person sitting next to you at work has been acting peculiar.

Nothing dramatic… after all, you’ve shared the same workspace for years, worked on several successful projects together, and survived a round of layoffs in 2009, coming out fine on the other side.

But it’s the little things…

- There’s a new hop in their step as they go to and from meetings
- You see them hanging out near the VP’s office more often
- And that outfit they’re wearing today looks great on them. Is it new?

Eventually you can’t help but think:

Did my co-worker steal my raise?

There’s no doubt the economy was down for the count in recent years:

- An estimated 2.6 millions jobs lost in 2008
- 32% of companies freezing salaries in 2009
-  Unemployment above 9% for all of 2010

But in many sectors, things seem to be turning around. According to a year-end survey by research group Mercer in December 2010, a whopping 98% of companies said they planned to raise base pay in 2011.  And those salary freezes? Human Resources firm Towers Watson said only 5% of companies planned on doing so in 2011.

So what are three things you can do to get your piece of the pie?

1) Ask

The first thing to do is the easiest. Just because revenue is rebounding doesn’t mean companies are automatically giving across the board bumps in pay. You’ll most likely need to ask, but you’ll need to do it the right way.

Let’s say you go in and complain that you need more money because your 401(k) tanked, the value of your house plummeted, and everything is more expensive. You whine about how cheap the company is for not giving you’re a raise for 2 years, and heard that Larry over in finance makes more money than you. Your boss says he’ll think about it.

Now let’s say your co-worker comes in with a plan, outlining the things that really matter:

-  How they made the company money
- How they saved the company money
- How they do something that no one else in the company can do

Who would you give the raise to?

Approach your boss with a detailed summary of your accomplishments in the last year, and how it has affected the bottom line. Tailor your message to suit your boss’ style. Are they a no-nonsense, bottom line bean-counter? Better bring some spreadsheets. Are they a laid-back, big picture strategist? Give them your vision of where the company can be in 18 months.

2) Be a Rock Star

We’ve told you the good news that raises are out there for people, expected to be around 3%.  The bad news is, that’s less than the 3.6% annual rate of inflation, meaning you’re not even breaking even.

The way to stay in the black is to outshine your co-workers and be the Rock Star of the office. If you’re staying in your current job, your best bet for a larger increase is a promotion. How to pull that off? Take on tasks that make your boss’ job easier. Volunteer to work on high-profile or revenue-generating projects. Be a mentor to newer employees. Come in early or stay late. Stay up on industry trends. Present a new way to make the company money.

In short, make your work stand out so that your boss can’t help but reward you.

3) If you don’t like the answer they give, it might be time to test the market.

You won’t be alone. A survey by job-placement firm Manpower showed that 84% of employees plan to look for a new position in 2011, up from 60% in 2010.

Even if you still enjoy your current job, going on an interview will let you know what your value is on the marketplace, and what skills are important. If it’s been awhile since you’ve looked, after you’ve updated that red power tie, make sure your other skills are up to date as well:

- Refresh your resume – Paying special attention to new technology and social media skills you may have learned. Better yet, build a digital portfolio.

- Tap into your network – Remember that upwards of 80% of all jobs are found through networking, and the web has made it easier than ever. Between March 2008 and March 2011, LinkedIn grew from 20 million to 100 million users. A new person joins every second.

- Hone up on salary negotiation skills – The HR manager on the other side of the table negotiates salary for a living. You don’t. But that doesn’t mean you should be unprepared and freeze up when they ask your salary requirements (hint: get them to say the number first). Learning a few insider secrets could make you thousands.

So if you look over at your co-worker and they’re sitting there with a smirk on their face – and using a cashmere mousepad – they may be making more money than you. It’s time to take action.

Note: This article first appeared in a post for The Hired Guns. Check out TheHiredGuns.com to Get Hired, Find Talent, or Rock Your Career.

Conducting a job search often leads people through a series of highs and lows. You have a great lead, but it falls through. You haven’t had any interviews in a month, and then you get 3 in one week. Even the end of a successful job search can be stressful: the company offers you the job, but you’re unsure how to discuss salary.

Someone wrote to me with the following question:

“Good news. I received this email from the hiring manager and am a finalist for the job. But how should I respond to the salary question?”

“Hi Amy. We finished all our interviews and we will be making a final decision between you and one other candidate. Could you provide two references and also let me know your current salary so that we are in a position to make an offer.”

First of all, the approach this employer takes bugs me a bit. If you read between the lines, you can almost hear them saying “It’s between you and someone else, and since we’re not confident enough to know what this position pays and simply make an offer to the best candidate, we’re going let the two of you fight it out in a low-bidding war.”

Needless to say, I urged her to do the following
1) Respond excitedly, saying how thrilled she was to be considered, that she’s certain it will be a great fit, and reemphasize one of her skills
2) Provide the two references, saying they’d be happy to speak with you, etc
3) Then take on the salary question

In this scenario, should she Ignore or Reveal?

Let’s start with the easy one first:

Reveal?

In order to maximize the highest salary during negotiations, your goal is to never reveal your current salary. What you are making at your current job should have no bearing on the position you are applying for. You want to make sure you are getting paid the fair market value for the skills you are bringing to this new position.

Put it this way, when a graduating college senior with a degree in finance goes on an interview, does a company make an offer based on his “current” job of working the cash register at the university bookstore? No, they’re going to look at his skills and what an entry-level finance person should make.

Therefore, you need to address the issue without giving them your number. More specifically, you need to have the employer respond with their number first.

Ignore?

Let’s look carefully at what I mean by ignore. You definitely do not want to avoid the question completely. If she just responded with the references and didn’t say anything about salary, she might put herself out of the running.

So one option is to ignore the request for current salary and respond as follows:

“In terms of compensation, I’ve done my homework regarding comparable positions in the industry and have a pretty good idea of the market value for someone with my skill set. However, I know that this varies from company to company, so you are probably in the best position to know what [company name] feels is appropriate. If you can give me a range of what you have budgeted for this position, I’m sure we can settle on a number that works for both of us.”

By doing this, she has thrown the ball back in their court and is addressing the question while ignoring their direct request. I think answering this way is appropriate and effective, but it is up to the individual to gauge the relationship they’ve had thus far.

If you want to address why you are ignoring the salary question, you can lead with one of the following responses before going into the paragraph above, depending on your situation:

“In terms of compensation, unfortunately my employment contract at [current company] plays things pretty close to the vest in terms of sharing private company information, so I don’t feel comfortable revealing my current number. However, I totally understand that you want to get to a figure and I’m sure we can settle on a number that works for both of us. I’ve done my homework…”

or

“In regard to compensation, I understand your request in terms of my current salary to help settle on a number. However, when I started at [current job] in 2008, it was right as the economy entered its massive downturn. As you know, during this time many companies had layoffs, hiring freezes, and did not give performance raises, therefore, I don’t feel that my current salary level is a good representation of my current skill set, so I’d like to speak in terms of the [position name] role. I’ve done my homework…”

or

“In regard to compensation, I took the job at [current job] in order to make a career transition into [new field], expand my skill set, and as you’ve seen, I’ve now acquired some amazing experience that I am looking forward to bringing to this new job. So I’m not sure my current salary is a great indicator for this new role. I’ve done my homework…”

By tailoring your response to your individual circumstance, ignoring the question but addressing it head-on, and not revealing your current salary, you put yourself in the best position to respond to the range that they come back with, without getting in a low-bidding war with your competitor.

Hey everyone, pull up a chair. In fact, fill out a nametag, introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you, and tell us what you do. This article is about one of the single most important skills you can learn in life: Networking.

Maybe you’re thinking, hey, I network every single day on Facebook and Twitter. And, you’d only be half right. Yes, you might be social networking, but just because you have a few hundred friends on Facebook doesn’t mean you’re truly connected to them.

In fact, because it’s so easy to stay in touch electronically, meeting people in real life does two things…

1) It provides a much stronger connection when you do meet in person

2) It sets you apart from everyone else that does not make the effort

Granted, I’m not breaking any new ground here. But sometimes we all need a little reminder. You know when you run into someone quickly, and you both say “Hey we should get together some time?”  Don’t just let the opportunity slip by… make a significant effort to do that.

It’s too easy to use social networking as a crutch and just send them a Tweet that says “great running into you.”

Use these tools to truly connect with people on a different level. So pull out your Blackberry right that second to send yourself an email reminder to connect with them. Bring up your Google calendar to find an open date. Skip over to Yelp to find a coffee shop you’ve never tried. And put that shiny iPhone to good use and call them to get together. You won’t regret it.

Here are some of the networking tips you might find valuable:

1) Keep track of your contacts

As a data geek I started a Google Docs spreadsheet to keep track of networking connections. Not my best friends of course, but the ones that start out as loose ties. In other words, that person you met at a conference, the new business connection, or a friend of a friend. Before you toss that business card, take 1 minute to simply jot down their name, title, email, and where you met them.

2) Attend events.

Start with hobbies you love doing, and pick industry events that you actually like going to. Maybe it’s a dynamic speaker or a class or a meetup group. Force yourself to skip this week’s episode of American Idol, and aim to go to at least 2 every month.

3) Don’t expect the world.

I go into every networking event with 2 simple goals. If I can learn one thing that I can use in my job or in my life, or if I can meet just one person that I have something in common with, then it has been a success.

4) Have fun.

I’ll admit that it’s a lot easier for people to connect in a place like New York City… there is no shortage of after-work cocktails, weekend brunches, and countless events, all just a short subway trip or cab ride away. But wherever you live, do what works for you… it could be baseball in Boston, church in Chattanooga, or snowboarding at Snowbird.

5) Keep an eye out for super connectors.

As you make connections and build up your network, you’ll start to notice a few “super connectors” are responsible for a larger share of new introductions. These people seem to give you an exponential amount of key contacts just by being around them, so you should make an extra effort to stay in touch with them and find yourself at events they attend.

I hope you enjoyed this career advice from SalaryTutor.com. For tips on negotiating your salary on job interviews, check out Salary Tutor: Learn the Salary Negotiation Secrets No One Ever Taught You.

1) Misuse of Reply all, BCC, and mute: Don’t be that person.

Let’s start with the practical ones. Thankfully none of my interns had a problem with this, but clearly SOMEONE isn’t getting the word out so I told them anyway.

We’re in year 10 of ubiquitous e-mail communication in the workplace, but it’s still a common occurrence for someone to “reply all” to an all-encompassing company e-mail, usually with embarrassing results. Don’t be that person.

Ditto for composing an email in your work life or personal life and putting 30 people on the “To:” line. Not only does this expose everyone’s email to every other person on the list, which gets into privacy issues, guess what? It sets the stage for some moron to hit reply all with a dumb comment.

Lastly, if you don’t know how to use the mute button, you are not allowed to participate on a conference call. Really? You can’t hear yourself breathing like Darth Vader having an asthma attack? Everyone knows the first words ever spoken over a phone line were Alexander Graham Bell saying “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.” This was quickly followed by “Um, is someone on the line typing? Can you please put yourself on mute if you’re going to be typing!”

2) If you’re doing a presentation, something will go wrong.
Here’s the typical corporate conference room: a beautiful mahogany table surrounded by Eames chairs, a giant monitor at one end, and a rats nest of various wires poking out of a little trap door in the middle.

Even with modern advances, getting everything to work right is still very difficult. Every laptop has a different set of key commands to change from the laptop screen to the overhead monitor. There’s never the right dongle to connect to a projector. The speakers are always too loud or non-existent. The internet connection doesn’t work or is too slow.

I once did a presentation in front of 250 people involving a laptop hooked to a miniature camera on a tripod that was focusing on the beta version of live features on a prototype cell phone being held in vice grips. I was there an hour ahead of time, and checked everything over 5 times, and believe it or not, I was good to go. That was, of course, until 5 minutes before I went on, when the setup went dead. The unknown cause? The lamp on the projector overheated.

How can you overcome a nightmare presentation?

Preparation and alternatives.

• The more important the presentation, the more time you need for setup time before the meeting starts.
• Always bring paper copies, just in case.
• If giving internet presentations is a major part of your job, invest in a standalone internet card;

In my case, I quietly pulled the conference director aside, asked him to move the next speaker ahead of me on the agenda, and by then the fan kicked in, the projector cooled down, it came back to life, and I was good to go.

3) Learn about every part of the business.
My first internet job was on the west coast, as a technical producer building the product online. It was all about the product. Any interaction with the sales team was to fight them against putting banner ads that would take away from the user experience. Then I moved to New York, where I found, it’s more about the money.

I got to know the sales team, and gained a whole new respect and understanding of the business. I mean, these account reps walk into a major company and without blinking an eye, asks them for thousands of dollars to put that company’s logo on a 300 pixel wide banner. That takes moxie.

So get to know editorial and design. Get to know sales and marketing and finance. Read the weekly updates from the engineering meetings. The more you know about the entire business, the better you’ll be.

4) Numbers count.
It’s great to come up with creative ideas, but ultimately it’s the numbers that count. If you’re talking internet content, it’s uniques and sessions and page views. Drill deeper and you’ve got page views per session, time spent on site, and other analytics. Ask to see the marketing budget and learn how funds are allocated across various programs. And if there’s one lesson we learned from the dotcom bust, it’s to ask the question, so what’s the revenue model? Oh, and another place to have good numbers? Your resume.

5) Fail fast and test often.
This is one of the greatest strengths of the internet. Most everything can be measured. At my last job, a few of us were arguing over some language to put on an ad banner. I was strongly in favor of one message, and two other colleagues had different ideas. Finally, the director stepped in and said, you know what? It doesn’t matter what your gut feeling says. Don’t spend another second thinking about this. Do all three banners, throw them up, and see which one performs.

Of course, this doesn’t work as well for something like print ads, which have long lead times. But in the digital age, changing a layer in Photoshop to test Click Here vs. Learn More vs. Take our Tour takes about a minute, and with any basic analytics program you can get the results in a few days or less.

6) Keep a list of personal accomplishments.
This is a practice I’ve done throughout my career that has paid dividends. I simply keep a text file on my hard drive, and every week or so or every time I complete a major project, I jot down a line or two. At the same time, I make sure to take a screenshot if it’s a major project or marketing program. This comes in handy in a few scenarios:

• Most obvious is that the interns need to report back to their professor what they learned during their internship. Taking quick notes throughout the year is a lot easier than trying to remember at the end of three months.
• Next, it’s good to go back and do a quick review every once in awhile. Sometimes the projects that ended up having the most success were not the ones that took the most time or had the highest budget.
• It also comes in handy at review time, as it makes it a lot easier to print the file and run down the list of accomplishments with your boss. Call me crazy, but when there’s money on the line, I’m not leaving it up to my supervisor to keep track that we increased online subscription sales 14.5% in Q1.
• And if your fantastically organized performance review doesn’t go so fantastic? Well, you’ve got 80% of your resume done when you’re ready to start your next job search.
• Lastly, and I think this can be true not just for marketing, but for most any other field, putting together a solid portfolio of your work is the best interview technique I can recommend. For example, my previous portfolio contained magazine print ads, screenshots of web programs, offline collateral, marketing plan documents, project timelines, and sample spreadsheets.

7) Always keep learning.
As the saying goes, the only constant in life is change. That’s why it’s so important to keep up with the latest trends in your industry.

• I start each Monday morning by visiting every one of my company’s competitors and reading the latest industry news.
• You should attend at least 1 conference in your industry per year to see what other companies are doing and to make connections
• Subscribe to industry newsletters and emails.
• Subscribe to or read publications in your field. If you work in finance, I’m not saying you need to subscribe to “Accounting Illustrated,” but you might want to take a peek at Fortune or Money or The Wall Street Journal.
• Take at least 1 class per year in a subject you enjoy that is related to your job. Chances are, the company might even pay for it.
• Stay in touch with old co-workers and go to lunch with a different one every week or two. Not only does this help you with your current job, it builds a strong network in the event that you are laid off.
• One old co-worker when I was just starting out told me he tries to go on a job interview every six months. Even if you’re happy where you are, it’s good to know your value in the marketplace. And if your company shows signs of problems, it’s much better to be among the first people to leave, then to be the last one stuck with all the work when people start jumping from the sinking ship.

8. Connect with people.
It really is all about communication. Yes, if you’re an accountant you need to balance the budget or if you’re an editor you have to write the column. But the most important skill you can develop is dealing with your co-workers.

There’s going to be some office politics, guaranteed. There will be people that you can’t stand and others that become lifelong friends. You might even meet your future spouse at the office. But most every single “moving on to a new job” farewell email contains the line “The thing I will miss the most is the people I worked with.”

And don’t think that connection ends at 6:00pm. Sometimes social interaction outside the office is just as – if not more – important than what happens during the day. Don’t underestimate the importance of grabbing a beer with the department on a Friday night.

9. Do something you love.
You might not get your dream job right off the bat, but early in your career, make sure that every company you invest your time at contributes something toward your ultimate goal.

Let’s face it, a lot of people – too many people — will spend 45 hours a week for 45 years doing their “job,” maybe even hating their job, so that they can eventually retire and do what they really want to do.

I call these people morons.

But maybe that’s a little harsh. Phrased positively, I have been fortunate enough to make a living doing something I enjoy. Whether you’re a 20-year-old intern or have been in the workplace for years, it’s never too late to go after your dream job.

Take the pillow test to assess your career satisfaction. When you take your head up off the pillow in the morning, are you excited about going to work, or dreading it? And when you lay your head down on the pillow at night, are you happy about what you have been able to accomplish, or are you still carrying the stress of the day? The answer will not always be positive, but if it is consistently negative, it may be time to move on.

I once read a book titled Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow.

I think that sums it up pretty well.

10. Go Home.
Life is short. Impress me by working hard during the day, asking questions, challenging me, and doing quality work. Impress me more by knowing when to shut off the computer and go home to spend time with family and friends. Did you use all your vacation time this year?

Technology has almost made it too easy to stay connected to work, with cell phones on 24×7 and a Blackberry or Treo to check email at any time. Resisting the urge is difficult. I know. I worked plenty of 18 hour days or 60 hour weeks trying to prove myself when building my career in my 20s.

Ask any retiree for advice at the end of their career. They probably have a few regrets of things they wish they had done or trips they wish they had taken. But I challenge you to find one that looks back, reflects, and says “I really wish I had worked more hours.”

I hope you enjoyed this career advice from SalaryTutor.com. For tips on negotiating your salary on job interviews, check out Salary Tutor: Learn the Salary Negotiation Secrets No One Ever Taught You.