If you are graduating from high school or college and you are out looking for a job, you have probably learned you are not going to start out at the top of your chosen profession. As with any job, you must build your reputation in your chosen field before you can expect to excel or make “gobs” of money. Many call this “paying your dues.”
A lot of students and recent graduates expect to start out at the top and at the highest salaries. After all, that’s why they went to college, right?
They fail to understand you must have credibility before the owners of companies or your managers or supervisors will have the confidence in you to give you the choice assignments. Of course, those assignments carry risk; and before anyone will trust you, you will have to prove yourself.
The key to making money is in the amount of risk involved in your assignments. The more at risk, the higher you can justify your salary request.
So, what should you say when they ask you, “What do you expect to be paid?”
Answering the question of how much you want as a salary is a hard question. Ask for too much, they might not be able to afford you. Ask too little, they may question your suitability for the position. What to say…
I have a friend who had the perfect response when his potential employer asked, “So, how much are you worth?” As a college student, my friend never thought about his salary requirements before.
“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never worked in the field before.” What followed next was a period of silence as the business owner stood quietly contemplating the college student standing before him; a student who was looking for his first job in his chosen profession.
As the silence began to become unbearable for both, my friend looked at his potential new boss and said, “Tell you what, why don’t I come in tomorrow and work for you all day and at the end of the day, you can tell me what I am worth.”
In the strangeness which sometimes occurs in the universe, I later became friends with the boss. I was able to talk with him about the day he hired my friend to work in his shop.
What the boss said was, “He didn’t know it at the time, but he had the job the moment he said, ‘you can tell me what I am worth.’ The next day I gave him a menial task to check his enthusiasm and attitude. He passed on all accounts.”
The boss went on to say my friend would always be welcome to work with him as long as he desired. But the boss also knew the position was only a stepping stone to future success.
Which my friend attained – with the help of his grateful and loyal boss.
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© 2010 J. Clark
Great post. The two kinds of people my husband doesn’t have time for in the work situation are “Can’t” and “Won’t”. He wants to hear a willingness to learn something new from an employee if they don’t know how to do something rather than “I can’t.” He doesn’t want to hear that they won’t do something because it’s not “their job”.
He also wants a immediate response from an employee when they are asked to do something by him. Not eye rolling or being ignored like they didn’t hear the request. It’s okay to say I can do that in 5 minutes if that will work for you. It’s not okay to not respond. At least your employer will have some idea whether the task will be done or they should try asking someone else if you don’t have the time available.
Thanks, Jeanne. My friend is now an airline captain and like many, his first menial task was sweeping out a hangar…
One of my first jobs at McDonald’s when hired was picking up trash in the parking lot and surrounding neighborhood. At that point in time I was too young to understand how important image was to business. I understand now. The little things matter in a big way.
I remember doing exactly the same thing and when I was the same age for MacDonald’s. It was great for a high school kid… especially for teaching the very important life lessons of which you write. Now, how do we pass those lessons on to this latest generation…
Did your MacDonald’s store ever partake in a spring cleaning competition? The owner of the store I worked at also owned 8 other stores in St. Paul. Each spring we had a competition for spring cleaning and maintenance. We cleaned every inch of the store, rooftop vents included as well as the parking lot and basement.
The winning store got a trip to Met Stadium for tailgating at a Minnesota Twins game. The employees from the other 8 stores covered our store while we were at the game so all of our employees could go. Great memory!
Jeanne, that must have been something they did up in MN – down here, we didn’t do anything so cool… What a great way to motivate and get the job done.
I think his response was genius! And so believable, because it’s so naive and innocent and commonsense.