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Throughout your job search you need to seriously consider several questions about your financial value and future income. What, for example, are you worth? How much should you be paid for your work. How can you best demonstrate your value to an employer? Salary negotiation is something at which hiring managers are usually a lot more proficient than the people they hire are. In the interest of leveling the playing field, here is a list of tips for salary negotiation that has worked for many people.

1. Maximize on your past experience. Understand what you have achieved. Bring your past experiences to the table as a tool when negotiating for your salary.

2. Make a list of what you have to offer. Know what you have to offer a future employer. Make a list of your skills, abilities, talents, and knowledge. Be prepared to show your employer what capability you bring to their company. Make sure you have some firm basis for added compensation, i.e., skills, abilities, and value to the company.

3. How badly does this job need to be filled? Find out what you are worth to the employer and how badly (or not) they need to fill this position with a qualified candidate. This gives you more negotiating power.

4. Wait for an offer. Delay discussing salary until you’ve been offered the position.

5. Demonstrate excitement for the job. First, make sure you want the job and are excited about the job, then let the employer know that you really want the job, but that you are only hesitating because of salary.

6. Do not bring personal needs into the discussion. Don’t discuss the monetary needs for your family or the cost of living. This will not get you very far in most cases.

7. Be prepared with salary options. Come up with three salary figures for yourself: the low-ball (not in your life) offer, an offer that would make you smile, and one that would make you jump up and down and call all your friends. Shoot for a salary between your middle figure and your high figure.

8. Remember that the employer has a budget. Understand that most employers have a range in mind (budgeted for the position) and will actually start at the low end of that budget to give themselves some negotiating room. This does not mean they will try to low-ball the position and pay less than they think the position is worth. This is usually not in their best interest since they are looking for qualified candidates.

9. Know your absolute bottom line. Know what your minimum salary range must be to support the life you want to live. Although it is not advisable to bring this up in the interview, you will need to know what your absolute bottom figure is.

10. Let the employer bring up salary first. Wait for their offer. Stall when asked directly what your salary requirements are. For example: “I would consider any reasonable offer.” If the salary question comes up too early, try side-stepping the issue with a statement such as, “I’m open to discussion about salary and compensation, but I’m sure that will be no problem once I’ve shown how my experience will be of great benefit to the company.”

11. Employers like negotiating. Remember that negotiating for salary is often looked on favorably by potential employers. It reinforces the idea that they’ve made the right decision in offering you the position. It lets them feel confident that, because you can keep your best interests in mind, you can probably look after the best interests of the company as well.

12. Do your comparative salary research. Know the going rate or fair market value for your position. Be prepared to discuss these figures once salary negotiation has come up. Have a salary range in mind.

13. Understand your geographical area strengths and weaknesses. When tracking down your worth, make sure you look at similar positions at similar companies in your geographical area. Salary ranges vary dramatically across the nation and even from rural to urban areas.

14. Be prepared to market yourself. Emphasize the reasons you should get the offer and de-emphasize or OMIT any reasons you should not.

15. Be prepared to explain your salary history. If your previous salary has been at a high rate, be prepared to freely let the employer know what you have been making in a previous position, i.e., a written salary history.

16. Anticipate the employer’s objections. Anticipate that the employer will have objections for the salary range you want, i.e., they can’t afford more, don’t think you’re worth more, etc. Know in advance how you will overcome them.

17. Make your salary discussion a friendly experience. Assume amiability when discussing salary, not conflict or controversy. You should make the employer feel that you are on the same side and working together to find a compensation package that would satisfy everyone’s needs. Anticipate a win-win situation.

18. Dispute any doubts about your suitability for the position. You will have the most influence if salary is the only source for hesitation. Make sure that there are absolutely no other concerns from your employer or doubts that you are the best candidate for the position.

19. Justify your cost-effectiveness. Try pointing out to the company how your ability will help reduce costs through your performance so you can justify higher pay.

20. Remain calm and poised. Once the offer has been made, and appears too low, remain quiet as though you were pondering the offer. This will imply your dissatisfaction with the offer and the uncomfortable silence may prompt the interviewer to improve the offer on his/her own.

21. Be creative. If the company just can’t afford a higher salary, try asking for other benefits, a company car or allowances, bonuses, 3-6 month performance raises, stock options, profit sharing, vacation days, or temporary housing.

22. Be flexible. Consider working fewer hours, on a consulting basis, four days a week.

23. Consider other options and perks. Sometimes companies offer one-time cash bonuses, or “hiring bonuses,” to help entice waffling candidates. Try to find out how the company feels about this issue.

24. Count on the future. Remember that even if you aren’t able to increase the salary (because of a fixed company cap—not because these tips weren’t helpful) that the employer will feel reinforced from your negotiations—as though he got a good deal. This will play better for you when raises are taken into account in the future.

25. Be prepared to walk away if necessary. You can always walk away from the negotiating table if you just aren’t getting into your minimum range.

Are you suffering from resume-writer’s block? Does everyone else’s resume seem more professional and better worded than yours? The following are some guidelines to help you create a better electronic resume:

1. Be neat and error free. Catch all typo’s and grammar errors. Make sure to have someone proofread your resume, preferably someone attentive to details. Even the smallest error could land your resume in the electronic recycle bin.

2. State specific objectives.. Form a solid, clear objective that will help you carry a focused message throughout the resume. The objective summarizes your skills and emphasizes your strengths.

3. Why does the employer need you? Focus on highlighting accomplishments that will arouse the interest of employers who read resumes asking themselves: “What can this candidate do for me?” Remember that the goal is to get the interview.

4. Make a good first impression. On average, employers spend less than 30 seconds scanning each resume. Most employers are more concerned about career achievements than education. Place the most interesting and compelling facts about yourself at the beginning, such as a list of accomplishments in order of relevance.

5. Emphasize your skills. Use a skill-based resume format that is organized around the main talents you have to offer. Prioritize everything.

6. Use keywords. Include specific key words and phrases that describe your skills and experience, such as Product Launch, Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Sales, Account Management, C++, Visual Basic, Word Processing, MS Excel, Adobe Illustrator, Graphic Design, and Advertising.

7. Use buzzwords. Use industry jargon and acronyms to reflect your familiarity with the employer’s business, but not to the point where it makes your resume hard to read or understand. Spell out acronyms in parentheses if they are not obvious, such as TQM (Total Quality Management).

8. Use action verbs. Portray yourself as active, accomplished, intelligent, and capable of making a contribution. Examples: Managed, Launched, Created, Directed, Established, Organized, and Supervised.

9. Avoid Personal Pronouns. Never use personal pronouns such as ‘I’ or ‘me’ in your resume. Instead of complete sentences, use short action-oriented phrases: “Coordinated and published a weekly newsletter concerning local community events.”

10. Highlight key points. Although most formatting such as bold, italics and underlining is lost in an electronic resume, you may use capital letters, quotation marks, even asterisks, to emphasize important words or section titles.

11. Summarize information. While electronic resumes may exceed the traditional one to two page limit of paper resumes, in most cases, it should not exceed three pages.

12. List only recent information. The general rule of thumb is to show your work experience only for the last 10 to 15 years.

13. Quantify your experience. Numbers are a powerful tool. Instead of saying “Responsible for increasing sales in my territory,” use “Increased sales in my territory 150% in 6 months. Managed 30 accounts for annual revenues of $2M.”

14. Be organized, logical and concise. In addition to reviewing your experience, employers also use the resume to get a sense of whether you are organized, logical and concise.

15. Just communicate. Abandon the utilization of exorbitant, exquisite vocabulary. In other words, don’t try to impress employers with the depth of your vocabulary. Use words everyone can understand.

16. Omit salary information. Never make reference to salary in your resume.

17. Avoid questionable subjects. Never make references to personal information such as race, religion, marital status, age, political party, or even personal views. In all but a few instances, it would be illegal for the employer to consider such issues. Also, avoid the use of humor and cliches in most resumes.

18. Be honest. Lying or exaggerating your abilities will always come back to haunt you. Since employers usually check into serious candidates, you will want every detail to check out.

19. Sell yourself. Do not under-emphasize your strengths and experience. Portray yourself in the best possible light. Skills that come naturally to you, others may never grasp.

20. Write your own resume. Be personal, yet professional. Create a resume that is personalized to reflect you.

21. Personal traits. If you decide to include personal traits, such as “Dependable, Highly-Organized, Self-Motivated, and Responsible,” make sure they are applicable to the position desired. Will the employer consider them valuable?

22. Show consistency. To de-emphasize glaring gaps in your work history, consider using a Functional resume, which focuses on your skills and accomplishments rather than a Chronological format, which emphasizes the progression of your experience.

23. Be balanced and neat. The effective resume is balanced, neat, visually appealing and flows consistently. Clearly separate sections and emphasize section titles. Leave sufficient blank space between sections for easy reading.

24. Stick with common section headings. Use common section headings. Examples: Objective, Experience, Employment, Work History, Skills, Summary, Summary of Qualifications, Accomplishments, Strengths, Education, Professional Affiliations, Publications, Licenses and Certifications, Honors, Personal, Additional, and References.

25. Be positive. Remove any negative comments or feelings conveyed in your resume, especially when it comes to previous employment experiences. Emphasize a positive, can-do attitude.

1. Proofread your letter for errors and tone before you mail it. Writing like a professional assumes that your letter contains no spelling, typing, or grammatical errors. Job applicants are frequently deselected because of such mistakes.

2. Address your letter to the person who can hire you—hiring managers and department heads. Call the company and find out the name and title of the person to whom to address your letter. It shows initiative and resourcefulness, and will impress your reader that you figured out a way to address him/her personally.

3. Send your letter to an individual, not a company. Use their name and title, when available. Do not guess gender when addressing a letter. Your goal is to get your letter to the person who is actually doing the hiring and for whom you would be working.

4. Write in your own words. Make sure that your letter sounds like you, not like something out of a book. Your cover letter, as well as your resume, should be an accurate reflection of your personality. Employers are looking for knowledge, enthusiasm, and focus.

5. Check out reference tools to help with grammar, spelling, etc. Because it is so critical to be as accurate and professional as possible with your cover letter, don’t hesitate to utilize the variety of reference tools that are available to help you with grammar, spelling, and letter writing.

6. Show you know something about the company and the industry. This is where your research comes in. Don’t go overboard—just make it clear that you didn’t pick this company out of the phone book. You know who they are, what they do, and you have chosen them.

7. Use terms and phrases that are meaningful to the employer. Customize your letter as much as possible to the needs of the employer. This requires that you think about the company, their customers, and the work you see yourself doing for them.

8. Be sure you include a return address and phone number. Your return address includes your street address, city, state, zip code, and telephone number.

9. Adapt a formal tone to your letter to promote yourself as a professional. Your letter should be as close to a business proposal as you can get—not a plea for an interview. What do you offer that is of value. What objectives can you help them achieve.

10. Downplay “i” and emphasize “you.” Try to convert “I haves” into “you wants” for the employer. What can you do for the organization that will create interest and arouse a desire for an interview with you?

11. Sound confident, but not cocky. If you meet all the stated requirements for the job, spell this out in your letter. Accentuate the good match between your skills and their needs. Doing so will emphasize your viability as a candidate.

12. Make sure your letter provides readers with some insight into you as an individual. Make your accomplishments, skills, and background the subjects of your sentences, and emphasize what these can contribute to your reader’s organization. Use concrete, specific language so that the reader gets a good sense of what you have done and who you are.

13. Draft your letter in a way that shows how you will fit into the organization. State who you are and what you want in terms of what you can do for the company. Appeal to the self-interest of your employer.

14. Structure your letter so that each part achieves a particular goal. State the purpose of your letter in your opening paragraph. Keep the letter organized. Decide on the focus of your letter and ensure that all points reinforce the topic.

15. Visually call attention to your qualifications by underlining them, bolding them, or indenting them in lists with bullets. You have to be careful with underlining because the line is often printed too close to the word, and reduces its readability. Use these kinds of emphasis sparingly just to make the highlights stand out when the reader gives your letter a quick skim.

16. Keep it short. Keep it simple and clean…not cluttered. Use no more than seven lines, and preferably five or fewer, per paragraph. Vary the sentence length. None of the sentences should be very long, but you don’t want a staccato stream of very short sentences. One page is the maximum for letters.

17. Demonstrate your skills. For any position, there are two types of skills: core skills that any serious applicant will be expected to have, and a much broader range of skills that would be useful to the employer but go beyond the basic requirements. Having the first kind gets you in the door; the second makes you stand out from the competition.

18. Send original letters. Do not send copies that look mass-produced and do not use form letters. Do not use dot matrix printers. Do not hand-write your letter.

19. Keep the letter interesting. Your cover letter should cover two important points: (1) what you can do for the company (2) what the company needs that you have to offer. Most people miss the most important point. They spend all the time telling about themselves when they should be concentrating on how they will benefit the company. That is what the employer will find interesting.

20. Include a copy of your resume. Remember that the one purpose for a cover letter is to get your resume into the hands of the employer and to obtain an interview. Don’t forget to enclose a copy of your resume!

21. Avoid vague statements. A letter that could be sent to any employer merely by replacing the name of the company is called a broadcast letter. It can be improved with more specifics.

22. Open with an attention grabber that generates interest immediately. There are many ways to open your letter. Whatever opening you use, get to the point quickly, but engage your reader’s attention. If you quickly focus on discussing how you can contribute to the organization, you have a strong opening.

23. Do not enclose a photo. Unless you are seeking employment in modeling, acting, or other performance industries, it is not appropriate to send a photograph with your cover letter. An employer will see what you look like, should you reach the interview stage. Until then, a photo will not help you get a foot in the door!

24. Do not write in all caps. Do not justify right margins. The contents and organization of your letter are the most important elements, but presentation has an effect too. Be sure your letter has a professional appearance.

25. Finish your letter with a request. The primary goal of your cover letter is to get an interview. Be sure and ask for one at the end of your cover letter. Be prepared to initiate the follow-up communication yourself and let your prospective employer know you will be doing this. This may be just enough to get them to hold onto your letter and give it a more thorough reading.