I have recently been working with a gentleman with strong technical background in our local market. A very important portion in our process involves defining what our candidate’s hourly/salary expectations are. When I initially spoke with him, I was surprised when we got to the compensation portion of the screening process that he didn’t really have any idea of what his market value was. In his defense, he had been a direct employee for the last 6 years and admitted to not having really explored what else was out there during that time period. This is understandable and I do respect someone not exploring other options if not necessary. Where the problem arises is that many folks don’t know when is and when isn’t a necessary time to look for other options. In this person’s case, he had no idea that he would be in the market for a new position and it would be inside of 2012.
The market has changed tremendously since the last time he was on the job market. He even went as far to make the statement “I feel like I’m starting at square one”. When searching for a new position, it can become a full time job. After getting a better understanding of his skillset and his expectations for his next role, I realized that he was an excellent candidate! I let him know what we had recently seen regarding client requests in comparison to his background. I went on to share with him what hourly and salary ranges would look like respectively. He was very surprised to learn how different what he thought the value of his skillset is versus what he thought it was.
I would encourage everyone to spend a few minutes doing a bit of research prior to putting themselves on the market. This will allow you to avoid over or under valuing your expertise and will keep this part of the process very simple. When looking for a new opportunity, putting in the research can make a big difference. You never know what you may find or what it might cost you, if you don’t.