Career Quiz

To follow, are a dozen salary questions to see what you know (or don’t know) about negotiating your salary. Do your best on each question, then click the Show answer link to reveal the correct answer. The Quiz is reproduced here with permission from my partner, Jack Chapman, author of “Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute” (10 Speed Press).

Question One

Salary Negotiations affect not only your paycheck, but your performance on the job, too.
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Question Two

If the employer’s offer is significantly higher than your market value, you should accept it and get it in writing right away.
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Question Three

Employers often will compute a salary offer as a percentage increase over your present earnings. To make the interview process go smoothly, get clarity on that range toward the beginning of the interview process.
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Question Four

Avoid interviewing for jobs whose salary is significantly below your expectations, because it wastes both your time and the interviewer’s.
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Question Five

At the time of final negotiations, you should start with a number that is at the high end of your range; that way you don’t come in too low, and still have room to negotiate.
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Question Six

Good benefits won’t make up for a poor base salary.
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Question Seven

To find your fair market value, you just need to find what others in similar positions are earning.
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Question Eight

Straight commission is the riskiest type of compensation, although you might have to accept it if you are inexperienced in the particular type of sales in question.
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Question Nine

An average wage earner would add an additional million dollars to his career earnings if salary negotiation skills increased his income ten percent.
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Question Ten

You should tell recruiters and employment agents about your current compensation in complete detail–even corroborating earnings with W-2s if needed.
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Question Eleven

One acceptable way to increase your negotiation leverage is to increase the answer to “What are your present earnings?” Add 10% to your base salary to cover benefits, and add in any anticipated bonuses when you give the employer or recruiter your “number.”
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Question Twelve

Companies today restrict their managers to a percentage-range for raises. The goal in raise negotiations is to get the maximum in that range.
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