Check out this great post on salary disclosure from Nick Corocodilis on Ask the Headhunter as well as the 100+ comments around this subject on Laurie Ruettimann’s Punk Rock HR blog. I agree with Nick and Laurie…A candidate’s past salary is not a relevant benchmark for deciding compensation in a future position. The way I see it, hiring managers hold all the cards…they intimately know the job description, salary range, salary of the person who last held the position, and the salaries of their colleagues. If employers expect transparency from candidates, why shouldn’t candidates expect transparency from employers? Hiring managers often claim that they want to know what the candidate made in a previous position so they don’t waste their time pitching a job that is not aligned with the candidate’s salary expectations. If that’s really the case, doesn’t it make sense for the hiring manager to disclose the salary range for the open position first to avoid the candidate’s dance around the salary question?

When I want to get an important piece of job search information out to my readers quickly, I often write a mini blog post on the microblog Twitter. I’ve culled my top ten tweets over recent months and posted them below. If you want to read all my posts on Twitter you can find them here or set up your own account on Twitter and start receiving my updates.

1. Are you a member of the networking hall of shame? 
2. Has your interview wardrobe passed its expiration date?
3. This is why non-competes are so lame. 
4. Will resume copyrighting be the next big thing? 
5. 46% of people want to know what salaries their colleagues make but 89% won’t share what they make with colleagues.  
6. Looking to save some coin? Check out ten financial moves to make now.
7. Severance benchmarks from Compensation Force.
8. How to keep your salary up in a down economy.
9. 37 excellent tips on networking from Job Mob.
10. Do you have a business card that conveys your brand?

ABC’s 20/20 recently ran a story on salary transparency and interviewed Suzie Orman and Penelope Trunk who advocate for full disclosure of all employees’ salaries. I can’t agree that knowing the exact salaries of everyone in your office is a sound management practice and I can’t imagine it would fuel retention or performance management strategies. In my opinion, the story misses the point of what salary transparency should be.  Salary transparency should be the disclosure of the possible range of salaries one can earn in a given position, not the exact salaries of each person in that position or department. This type of transparency can actually motivate and retain employees because it gives them a meaningful perspective on how the job is benchmarked and valued in the organization and what the financial trajectory in the position will be. Check out the Compensation Force blog post about how pay transparency can be better managed in an organization to better understand this process. Salary transparency can also be a great recruiting tool and employment differentiator. Knowing the salary range of a position is one way to know if the job is a potential fit. Wouldn’t you be more likely to apply to a position where you had an idea of what the salary range was? But have you ever noticed how many employers who post their jobs on the boards fail to include a salary range? My guess is that this is because ranges are not shared internally in the organization and posting the ranges would reveal inconsistencies in the current employees’ salaries. Every day I meet people from big, well known companies where employees never knew what their potential earning power in a position was.I keep hoping to meet that person who worked for a company that was forward-thinking enough to share their salary ranges. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting.

Great words of wisdom from Nick Corcodilis over on the Ask the Headhunter blog…Nick reminds job seekers that the job boards put all sorts of limitations on the job seeker. You can’t be an empowered candidate when you use job boards as your only source for job leads. The job boards put you at a distinct disadvantage because they don’t let you “pass go and collect your $200″ unless you follow their rules.

And their rules are many. Often the listings on the boards screen candidates by salary requirements and don’t let applicants complete the application process without supplying this information. Offering up salary information before you have a conversation about what the job entails is counterproductive and it could screen you out of a position where there is a good fit.

Instead of being a sheep, be a lion and seek out the real decision maker in the hiring process. Market your qualifications directly to that person and build a relationship based on the value you can bring to the organization, not a reference to a salary requirement. Create a compelling arguement for why you are the candidate of choice and move the conversation away from “too expensive” to “I’ve got to have this person on my team.”

Over on the WorkIt, Mom! blog, there’s a thought provoking post referencing a recent Wall Street Journal article that describes how mommy “swat teams”(smart women with available time) are being recruited through networking and staffing firms to handle crash projects for corporations.

What I love about the concept is that women are working through their social circles to find opportunities that leverage their skills and keep their minds stimulated while allowing for the flexibility of raising a family. The red flag here is that in some cases, the companies seem to be getting women “on the cheap”.

Women should remember that compensation is a function of what the market will bear, not what they think they need. Even if money is not the main motivator behind the desire to work part-time, it is still in a woman’s best interest to benchmark the market and compare the offer against other similar positions. Talk to past colleagues, recruiters and members of professional associations to gain a better understanding of what organizations might pay for similar full-time work and use this information to help gauge what a fair and reasonable part-time or project-based salary might look like. Also check out salary.com and payscale.com for additional salary information.

Stay at home moms can offer incredible value to organizations and as businesses become more virtual, professional opportunities for SAHMs who have continued to network with clients and colleagues in the corporate world will continue to grow. Be sure to leverage these same networks to validate that you are being paid competitively for any assignments you take on. Happy Mother’s Day!

Career News posted some great salary negotiation tips on their blog that are worth taking a look at. Here are a few of my own tips for improving the quality of your negotiation conversation.

1. Base your salary expectations on what the market will bear rather than on what you earned in a previous position. All a salary suggests is what someone was willing to pay you at a particular time. Past salary generally has little relevance to your current market value.
2. Discuss your salary expectations in terms of what is fair and reasonable. Don’t ask for a certain salary because that is what you think you need to earn in order to pay your rent…instead give an explanation for why the salary you are requesting is directly correlated to the value you will bring to the organization.
3. Uncover your competition. Before there is an offer on the table, ask the interviewer questions such as “Can  you tell me where you are in the hiring process?” or “How many people are you interviewing for this position?” to try to determine how many people you may be competing against for the position. If you discover that you are their only current candidate you will have more leverage during the negotiation process and may be able to command a higher salary.
4. Think outside the box and be flexible. If an employer can’t offer you the base compensation you had hoped for, maybe they can offer you a compelling performance bonus, a signing bonus or additional stock options.
5. Do your homework. Review sites such as Salary.com and Payscale.com to help determine your market value, calculate the value of your benefits package and assess the overall quality of your offer. Supplement this research with conversations with recruiters and industry professionals to further validate the acuracy of your findings.

Indeed recently added a feature that allows job seekers to enter a minimum salary requirement in the keyword search box. This feature will allow users to only receive information on jobs estimated to have similar salaries. Besides the obvious benefits of improving job targeting by creating search parameters around salary requirements, I see additional value in this feature including:

• a vehicle for validating if your salary requirements are realistic.
• a tool for career changers who are trying to understand their potential market value in a new industry/job function.
• a benchmark that can help drive the salary negotiation conversation.
• an indicator of how your current salary stacks up to similar positions.

Information is certainly power when it comes to negotiating your salary. Any conversations around salary expectations should focus on what the market will bear rather than what you want. Indeed’s tool can be leveraged to help build the credibility of your negotiation strategy and secure more of what you want. By showing yourself as an “educated consumer” who understands your market value, you are more likely to achieve your salary goals without compromising the relationship you have worked so hard to build with a hiring manager. In addition to doing online research, do off-line research by asking recruiters and colleagues about salaries for the types of positions you are exploring and benchmark these findings against your online data.

Over on the Compensation Force Blog, there’s a post about the recent increase in sign on bonuses for recent college grads. I think that this information suggests a growing trend towards more flexibility in negotiating sign-on bonuses across the board as companies continue to try to source creative incentives to attract top talent and keep employees motivated.

Sign on bonuses, once considered a perk for senior executives, have trickled down into lower levels of management and now seem to be a reasonable expectation even for recent college graduates.

When negotiating salary, it is important to recognize that base salary is just one aspect of total compensation that completes your total rewards package. Research from Mercer Human Resources Consulting indicates that employers continue to seek ways to attract and retain employees through variable pay incentives including monetary rewards for completing project milestones, spot rewards for exemplary effort on a one-time initiative, and cash incentives for employee referrals that turn into new hires.

So what does all this mean for job seekers? It means that you may have more options than you may realize when negotiating your compensation package. Think creatively about how to get to that magic number. If an employer can’t offer you what you would like in base salary, think outside the box to come to a consensus about what they can give you that would make the offer more enticing. This could take the form of a sign-on bonus, an earlier performance review, a financial reward somewhere down the line for a project well done, a different job title, a more generous expense account, a blackberry and a computer, or something else that is valuable to you.

Focus on building the relationship with the employer and getting them to love you. Once this is achieved, discuss your compensation needs in terms of what is fair and reasonable. Be flexible, acknowledge the employer’s needs and work together to find a solution and you will quickly achieve your goals.

Always get the offer in writing. Because of the large number of mergers, acquisitions, and downsizings, it’s important to get terms of employment in writing. Find out if the company routinely provides new hires with employment contracts. If this is not offered, use a confirmation letter to spell out the terms you have agreed to accept. During the negotiation process, use a follow up memo after each discussion. This gives you more control over the final agreement.

These seven tips remind candidates that the negotiation process reinforces individual empowerment and group cooperation. By viewing the negotiation as a step towards consensus building and understanding the psychology behind the exchange, candidates can improve their bargaining power significantly and begin new employment relationships on a positive note.

That’s it for this series. Good luck in your future negotiations!

Generally it is reasonable to request up to one week to make your decision regarding a position. As a matter of fact you should never accept a position on the spot. You want the employer to view you as a prudent decision maker and you want them to understand that you don’t rush into big decisions. Express your excitement regarding the offer, but allow yourself some time to think about the level of responsibility within the position and the associated compensation. Another reason for not accepting the offer on the spot is to make sure you have time to review the offer and determine what points you may want to negotiate.

I will post my last tip in this series tomorrow. Stay tuned!