Wednesday 23 September 2009

Salary Negotiation Do's and Don'ts

Here are the keys to successful salary negotiation. Follow these simple rules and you should achieve success in this important strategic tool of job-hunting.

  1. Do make sure you’ve done your research on the salary you should expect for the position you’re seeking. And do use sources such as salary.com and others.
  2. Don't bring up salary before the employer does. And do delay salary negotiation
    for as long as possible (until you know exactly what the position entails).
  3. Do be aware of your strengths and achievements. And do be sure to demonstrate the value you’ll bring to the employer.
  4. Do let the employer make the first salary offer. And do, if asked, say you expect a salary that is competitive with the market - or give a salary range that you find acceptable.
  5. Don't inflate your current earnings just to get a higher salary offer.
  6. Don't feel obligated to accept the first salary offer. And do negotiate salary if the offer made is inadequate.
  7. Don't get overly aggressive in negotiating the salary you want.
  8. Don't just focus on salary. Do look at the entire compensation package.
  9. Do try to obtain other concessions (shorter review time, better title, better workspace) or benefits (bonuses, vacation time) if you aren’t successful at negotiating a salary you want.
  10. Don't enter salary negotiations as part of an ego trip or part of a game.
  11. Don't accept the first acceptable salary offer you receive if you’re not sure about the job or the company.
  12. Do get the offer in writing.

To Your Success,
Trinity Washington University

Monday 21 September 2009

Salary Negotiation Strategies

Successful negotiation is based on preparation and patience. Always anticipate what you may need to know when you next speak with any potential employer.

  1. Research your value: Research the value of your talent in the employment marketplace. Find sources that tell you what companies pay for the job you're considering. The sources should take into account the size of the company you work for and its industry and region. It is even more helpful if you can use a source that helps you calculate the potential value of your personal skills and background such as education, length of experience, certifications, and management responsibility.


  2. Don't be the first to disclose a number: If possible, try to get the employer to disclose the pay for the job before you tell your requirements. If you find this too difficult or awkward, consider providing a broad range (based on the research you did above) and say you expect "a fair total pay package for the job and my unique set of skills, including…." It is also fair to ask the employer what the market data says the job is worth.


  3. Prepare a counteroffer: About half of all job seekers accept the first offer that's put on the table, but most employers make offers expecting candidates to counteroffer—so go ahead, ask for what you want. Remember that your counteroffer can include more than just base pay; it can include bonuses, stock options, vacation time, and a flexible working schedule. Every time you speak with a potential employer, you should be prepared with a complete, prioritized summary of your ideal offer, and you should know in your mind how negotiable you are on each item.

To Your Success
Trinity Washington University

Time Quotes

Use your time wisely

  • "Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week." Charles Richards
  • "The key is in not spending time, but in investing it." Stephen R. Covey
  • "A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life." Charles Darwin
  • "Make use of time, let not advantage slip." William Shakespeare

Check your priorities

  • "If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got." Lee Iacocca
  • "It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?" Henry David Thoreau
  • "You’re writing the story of your life one moment at a time." Doc Childre and Howard Martin

Focus on the present

  • "Never let yesterday use up today." Richard H. Nelson
  • "I don’t think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present." W. Somerset Maugham
  • "The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something." Carl Sandburg

The importance of time

  • "Time is money." Benjamin Franklin
  • "Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend." Theophrastus
  • "Your greatest resource is your time." Brian Tracy
  • "Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend." Laertius Diogenes
  • "Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose." Thomas Edison
  • "Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else." Peter F. Drucker

Sunday 20 September 2009

The Coffee

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee in most cases, its just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink.

What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... and then began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee, and the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of Life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee."

What are the Three Biggest Mistakes Made by Jobseekers When Negotiating Compensation?

  1. Accepting the first salary offer: Because employers anticipate a counteroffer, many include room for negotiation in their first offer. This is truer for jobs at a higher level or higher salary. If you accept the first offer, you may be leaving money on the table. This could be compounded as future bonuses, salary increases, and insurance coverage are often based on the base salary level. Regardless of whether the employer has room to increase the salary offer, you should be comfortable asking. But be careful: don't make demands or issue ultimatums unless you really are willing to walk away from the existing offer.

  2. Not being prepared with relevant information: Too many people rely on the potential employer to determine the fair compensation for the job. Spending a little time learning how the relevant labor market values a particular job and how your unique skills may further increase those values can have a dramatic impact on your ability to maximize your total compensation. Knowing the facts and being able to speak intelligently about them can support and justify your desired pay.

  3. Neglecting to negotiate things beyond base pay: Base salary is just one of the negotiation points. There are many more items to consider when negotiating your initial employment package, such as variable pay, performance expectations, benefits, perquisites, schedule for salary increase, and minimum severance. Once the salary negotiation is complete, moving on to the other components of total pay can be rewarding.

To Your Success,
Trinity Washington University

Saturday 19 September 2009

Apache Seasons

There was once a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said “the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.” The second son said “no, it was covered with green buds and full of promise.” The third son disagreed; he said “it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing I have ever seen.” The last son disagreed with all of them; he said “it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.”

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree's life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. “If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, the fulfillment of your fall.”

Thursday 17 September 2009

The Butterfly Effect

It was 1960 and meteorologist Edward Lorenz was working in his lab. He was entering data into his computer in the hope of modeling weather patterns when he stumbled upon a theory that is known as “The Butterfly Effect.” He was entering wind speed, air pressure and temperature into three separate equations that were linked in a mathematical feedback loop. This equation allowed Lorenz to predict weather patterns.

One day Lorenz was in a bit of a hurry and opted to take a shortcut when entering the data. He rounded the numbers to the nearest one thousandth rather than to the nearest one millionth (for example, .407 instead of .407349). As a scientist, he knew this would change the result; however, he expected only a minor change. Lorenz was astounded to discover that this tiny change made a profound impact on the final resulting weather pattern. This discovery led Lorenz to ponder: Does the flap of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil cause a tornado in Texas? Thus, you have “The Butterfly Effect” theory.

This theory has been applied to all areas of science since Lorenz’s 1960 experiment.

What does it mean for your life?

It means that every decision or action that you make—no matter how small—could potentially dramatically alter the course of your life. My life, as I am sure is the case with yours, is a testimony to “The Butterfly Effect.” When I was 12 years old, I met a friend named Brian in P.E. class. More than two decades later, Brian is still my best friend. At the age of 12, Brian had a thirst for learning and studying (the other 12-year-olds called him a nerd), and he was a fitness fanatic. He still has these qualities, and because of our friendship they rubbed off on me. At the age of 18, I needed a job and he secured me a job where he worked as a telemarketer. My third day on the job, I made a telemarketing call to someone in the seminar business. He thought I was a good telemarketer and offered me a job over the phone.

Did you follow that?

You might read my books or come hear me speak because I was offered a job at the age of 18 from a seminar company. I would have never been offered that job if Brian hadn’t gotten me the telemarketing job, and Brian would never have known me if we hadn’t met at the age of 12 in P.E! I have an insatiable desire for learning that began at age 12 and have developed into a fitness fanatic as well. Most of the major events in my life can be traced back to a conversation in a gym more than two decades ago—that is “The Butterfly Effect.”

ACTION POINTS
- Realize that “The Butterfly Effect” is very real and small decisions or actions can make a huge impact on your life.
- Take responsibility for your decisions, actions and friends—even the tiny decisions—realizing that they can dramatically alter the course of your life.
- Understand the importance of attention to detail. Years before 1986, the smallest flaw was overlooked in a Space Shuttle O-ring. That flaw led to a horrific “Butterfly Effect”—the deaths of seven astronauts years later in January 1986.
- Do not allow “The Butterfly Effect” to paralyze you in inaction. Instead, use it as the spark of motivation to fan the fire of action, realizing that you control your destiny even in the tiniest of ways.

To Your Success,
Ron White

Personal Responsibility

Don’t become a victim of yourself. Forget about the thief waiting in the alley; what about the thief in your mind?

It is not what happens that determines the major part of your future. What happens, happens to us all. It is what you do about what happens that counts.

You say, “The country is messed up.” That’s like cursing the soil and the seed and the sunshine and the rain, which is all you’ve got. Don’t curse all you’ve got. When you get your own planet, you can rearrange this whole deal. This one, you’ve got to take it like it comes.

Walk away from the 97% crowd. Don’t use their excuses. Take charge of your own life.

Take advice, but not orders. Only give yourself orders. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Since I will be no one’s slave, I will be no one’s master.”

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. You don’t have charge of the constellations, but you do have charge of whether you read, develop new skills, and take new classes.

Your paycheck is not your employer’s responsibility; it’s your responsibility. Your employer has no control over your value, but you do.

Accepting Responsibility—a Story of Bill Russell

Most people dread accepting responsibility. That’s just a fact of life, and we can see it in operation every day. Yes, we can see avoidance of responsibility all the time in both our personal and professional lives. And here’s something else we can see just as often: We can see that most people aren’t as successful as they wish they were. Do you see there is a connection between these two very common phenomena?

It’s in your best interest to take responsibility for everything you do. But that’s only the beginning. Many times it’s even best to take responsibility for the mistakes of others, especially when you’re in a managerial or leadership role.

During the years when professional basketball was just beginning to become really popular, Bill Russell, who played center for the Boston Celtics, was one of the greatest players in the pro league. He was especially known for his rebounding and his defensive skills.

But like a lot of very tall centers, Russell was never much of a free throw shooter. His free throw percentage was quite a bit below average, in fact. But this low percentage didn’t really give a clear picture of Russell’s ability as an athlete. And in one game he gave a very convincing demonstration of this.

It was the final game of a championship series between Boston and the Los Angeles Lakers. With about 12 seconds left to play, the Lakers were behind by one point and Boston had the ball. It was obvious that the Lakers would have to foul one of Boston’s players in order to get the ball back, and they chose to foul Bill Russell.

This was a perfectly logical choice, since statistically Russell was the worst free throw shooter on the court at that moment. If he missed the shot, the Lakers would probably get the ball back and they’d still have enough time to try to win the game. But if Russell made his first free throw, the Lakers’ chances would be seriously diminished. And if he made both shots, the game would essentially be over.

Bill Russell had a very peculiar style of shooting free throws. Today, no self-respecting basketball player anywhere in America would attempt it. Aside from the question of whether it’s an effective way to shoot a basket, it just looked too ridiculous. Whenever he had to shoot a free throw, the six-foot-eleven Russell would start off holding the ball in both hands about waist high, then he’d squat down and as he straightened up he’d let go of the ball. It looked like he was trying to throw a bucket of dirt over a wall.

But regardless of how he looked, as soon as Bill Russell was fouled, he knew the Celtics were going to win the game. He was absolutely certain of it because, in a situation like this, statistics and percentages mean nothing. There was a much more important factor at work, something that no one has found a way to express in numbers and decimal points.

Simply put, Bill Russell was a player who wanted to take responsibility for the success or failure of his team. He wanted the weight on his shoulders in a situation like this. No possibility for excuses. No possibility of blaming anyone else if the game was lost. No second-guessing. Bill Russell wanted the ball in his own hands and nobody else’s. And, like magic, even if he’d missed every free throw he’d ever shot in his life before this, he knew he was going to make this one. And that is exactly what happened.

That is what virtually always happens when a man or woman accepts responsibility eagerly and with confidence. I’ve always felt that accepting responsibility is one of the highest forms of human maturity. A willingness to be accountable, to put yourself on the line, is really the defining characteristic of adulthood.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn