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Handling Salary Questions in an Interview

How do I find out what a job pays?

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  • Karen Chopra

    Licensed Professional Counselor

    www.ChopraCareers.com  
     

    Karen James Chopra, LPC, MCC, NCC, has been counseling career clients since 1999 and has helped hundreds of clients change careers, find new jobs and deal more effectively with workplace challenges.In addition to her private practice, she has worked for two national corporate outplacement firms: Lee Hecht Harrison and Resource Careers. These are the organizations that help people who have experienced a layoff or downsizing to find new jobs, and their programs are usually considered the gold-standard of job search technique.Ms Chopra is a regular presenter on career issues, having taught career theory at the graduate level, designed and delivered numerous workshops, and served as a regular guest commentator on WMAL’s career radio show Your Career Life.She isa career-changer herself. Before entering the counseling field, she worked for nearly a decade as a trade negotiator for the United States Government, first at the Department of Commerce and then at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.Ms. Chopra holds a number of relevant licenses and certifications: licensed professional counselor (LPC) in the District of Columbia; Master Career Counselor (MCC), a designation of the National Career Development Association (NCDA); and National Certified Counselor (NCC), a designation of the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC). Shebelongs to all of the relevant national and local associations involved in career counseling, including the American Counseling Association (ACA), the National Employment Counselors Association (NECA), the National Career Development Association (NCDA) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Career-Life Planning Network (MAC-LPN).HerB.A. is from the University of Virginia, and she received a masters of science in foreign service from Georgetown University, and a masters in community counseling from George Washington University.

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  • Transcripts

    Karen Chopra: Hi! I am Karen Chopra, I am a Career Counselor in Washington, DC. and now we're going to talk about how to handle the questions about salary in an interview.

    Host: How do I find out what a job pays?

    Karen Chopra: There are couple of ways that you can find out. The most important way is to ask people who are in the field. The way to do this is to interview people who are in the company or in the field and just say, what's the salary range for a position like this? And most of the time they'll say, ah, I don't know. Just give me a ballpark, and I'll give you a range based on what they make, what they know other people make, what they seem jobs posted at.

    If you ask that question of enough people overtime, you'll get a pretty close to six on the range. Toss out the really high numbers, toss out the really low numbers, and you've got a range for the position and it's probably pretty accurate.

    You may also find it from job posting, some jobs do list the salary and so you can do some website research and just see what jobs at that level are paying. There are salary surveys available but normally you have to pay for salary surveys then I don't really advise clients to do that. If you just do little bit of networking and asking a question you can get information.

    The final place to look for salary information, if you happen to be looking at a non-profit is to dig up their 990 on the Internet. The 990 is their tax return, and non-profits must file this publicly, and make it publicly available, and on their, they will list the top five salaries within the organization. That will help you see -- even if your job isn't at that level, it will help you see what the top people in organization are making, and can help you figure out approximately where you are likely to fall.

    For example, if the executive director makes 90,000, chances are quite good that your job isn't going to pay 90,000 within that organization. So these are all some ways to research salary.

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