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I’d like to put my expertise to work for you.
I’d be pleased to demonstrate my abilities firsthand.
HOW TO RESPOND TO SALARY QUERIES
Frequently, employment advertisements ask you to reveal your current salary, or
your salary history. Should you do it? What you should not do is to ignore the
question. Prospective employers may assume that your salary requirements are
too high to be realistic, or too low to admit. They may assume that you feel above
answering their queries, or that you are less than thorough in your efforts. If they
assume any one of these things, you’re out of luck.
How should you handle this irksome issue? An excellent strategy is that used
by the author of Letter 5-1, written in response to an ad in a trade publication,
which read “Serious candidates will provide salary history.”
This writer knew that the ad would generate a great deal of interest, and pro-
duce a multitude of responses. He also realized that the employer would be look-
ing for ways to reduce the number of candidates to a reasonable size, such as re-
jecting those who ignored the request for a dollar figure, rejecting those whose
salary history was too low to indicate a sufficient degree of authority in past jobs,
or rejecting those whose salary expectations were too high. He believed that stat-
ing a specific figure could eliminate him immediately from consideration. Fur-
thermore, his primary goal in writing this Cover Letter was to secure an interview,
during which he would have the opportunity to discuss benefits, perks, and other
issues affecting salary. As you’ll see in the final paragraph of his letter, he effec-
tively shapes a deal with his reader: If you give me what I want (an interview), I’ll
give you what you want (a salary discussion). In this way, he has not avoided the
question of salary. Instead, he used it to his advantage. In fact, he was selected to
be interviewed.
There are other options, as well. You may simply state that salary is a nego-
tiable issue for you, one that you will be happy to explore in an interview. If you
feel compelled to include a dollar figure, you may prefer to give a broad salary
range, or state an amount that reflects your total compensation (some combination
of salary, bonus, anticipated raise, incentives, benefits, and perks such as a car, ex-
pense accounts, and club memberships). Your industry may dictate the way in
which you will calculate such a figure. For instance, someone who works only
three days each week might calculate what her salary would be if she worked five
days. A teacher might calculate what his annual salary would be if he earned it for
12 months rather than the 9 he actually teaches. Whatever you decide, be sure you
can substantiate it during the interview.

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