What are you worth in the market?

You work hard, build your career, gain the skills, experience and training required and deservedly increase your salary and worth in the process. When it comes to applying for the next opportunity in your career, what are you worth to the next employer? What do they perceive you are worth and what is the new role in their company actually worth to them?

This is generally one of the hardest and biggest sticking points when looking to jump from your role to another – how do you answer the salary/remuneration question that always has to come up at some point “What salary range are you seeking?” There are many ways to answer this question and a lot of them can make or break whether you progress to the next stage. You just don’t get a second chance on this.

You need to do some research first before applying for any role, especially if it is a step up from where you currently are – talk to recruiters, study similar roles on job boards and talk to people in your industry. Your current employer may be paying you well above the market, in the middle or well below. If the role was advertised on a job board for example, you need to do some research first to evaluate where you sit in the market and where the role sits in the salary slider on the job board. At least 70% of roles advertised do not overtly advertise the salary band however every role that we enter onto a job board must have a salary band applied for us to load the job. Do a search on the type of role you are seeking, get your results and then use the salary slider function on the  job board to find out where the role that you are interested in lies. If it disappears from the salary range results you entered, it may not fit your criteria. On some occasions, you can  narrow this search to within $5000 increments.

Get informed so that when you get asked the question you are confident in your worth and also aware of where the role sits for the employer you are targeting.