Personal Salary Requirement: How Much Are You Worth?

If you're thinking about applying for a new job in the near future or are planning to ask for a raise, you have to figure out how much you're worth. What's the value of your skills, knowledge and work ethic? Knowing what others perceive you to be worth is perhaps the single best negotiating tool that you have when it comes to asking for a raise or applying for a new job. Here's how to figure out what you're worth out on the open market.

Online Salary Listings - Salary.com is an excellent resource for individuals looking to gauge a general idea of what the market value for someone in their type of job is. It'll show you on a bell curve what the going rate for someone in your geographical location in your job position is. They offer a paid service with more advanced features, but if you're just looking for a general range, it's probably not worth the money.

Friends in Your Industry - Talking to friends and acquaintances about how much one makes can often be taboo, but the information you can get from other people you know in your industry is invaluable. You don't have to ask how much they make, but you can ask for general ranges as to how much employees in that type of position would make at their company. You can also reach out to people who used to work at your company and see what kind of salary people make at their companies.

Industry Surveys - Quite often large companies make their salary decisions based on what an industry salary survey says for your area. These salary surveys are produced by large consulting firms and sold to the major companies in the area. It might be difficult to get your hands on one of these industry surveys, but if you can get a hold of one, the information will be very valuable to you.

Head Hunters - Head hunters are great sources of information, since they work with these things every day. Often they'll be very happy to speak with you, especially if you can help them in any way, say referring them to a business contact who might fit a position that the head hunter was looking for. They often have a very good idea of what people can make in a specific industry in a geographical location.

Doing Interviews - Going in for interviews with companies is a very time consuming activity, but if you get a written offer from another company telling you that they'd pay you $X to do a specific job, that's the best validation you'll ever get as to how much you're worth. You can take the information from a company that you really don't want to work for, and show that to a company that you do want to work for in hopes of getting a better offer.

Don't guess what you're worth and ask for a raise without knowing the facts. Know what you're really worth and you'll have more negotiating power than you could have imagined.