How do I answer questions about salary?

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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 is a 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).  She belongs 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).

Her B.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.

How do I answer questions about salary?

 

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Transcripts

Host: How do I answer questions about salary?

Karen Chopra: Questions about what you make now or about salary history are questions that should be answered with not a number, but with an explanation. What they are looking for is a number, so that they can determine whether you are too expensive or indeed too experienced for the position that they have got, and that's not a game you particularly want to play. So, what you are looking to do is to say, you know salaries what I make is personal, and I don't give that out to anybody, but if you are asking about whether what this job pays is going to be adequate for me, let me assure you that based on my research, I am not anticipating any difficulties with salary.

Then here is the tricky part, make sure that you don't just stop after saying, I am sure it will all work out, then go on and say, now tell me something else about the company, so that they have to answer a question for you and that they don't get wrapped up in, no, no really I need to know what your salary requirements are.

So move them off of the salary question. After you have said, that's personal I don't want to talk about it, but I am sure it will fine. Now tell me little bit about what your expectations are for the coming three months for this organization? They'll spend their time answering that and hopefully they won't come back to salary too soon.

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