The three things to bring to the negotiating table

y client has been invited to interview for a network technician job. He's not quite done with his CCNA, so that's a wonderful thing. The catch is it's about 70 minutes from his home where his wife owns a business. He lives in a place where winters mean blizzards and bad roads. Can he afford to commute or rent a studio apartment to reduce driving time and in case of storms?

He needs to find three pieces of information to be prepared to negotiate:

1. His personal wants and requirements.
2. The range the company will pay or what the former employee was earning.
3. The average salary paid in the geographical area where you plan to work.

First, he gets out the household budget and figures out the minimum he will accept. This process should also define and prioritize the benefits he needs and wants and what he is willing to negotiate away.

Second, if there is no salary range listed on the job posting, he calls the company's HR Department and asks what the salary range is for the job. If they say there is none, or it depends on experience, he asks what the current employee in that position earns. If that is not forthcoming, as well, he networks his way to someone else in the company who may know or can find out.

Third, he determines what the average salary is in the company's geographic area. The best place to look for that is www.Indeed.com. On the main page, he clicks the salaries link in the upper left corner of the screen. He fills in the search fields and scrolls down to see the average salary, national salary trend, and average salaries of jobs with related titles (with links back to those jobs).

Other places to search include:
• http://online.onetcenter.org/
• Compensation.BLR.com (offers free trial)
• Salary.com
• www.payscale.com
• Library Resources

Research companies and job search specialists are also available to complete research. They often require completion of a form or a phone interview to define the desired position.