Employment experts usually advise job seekers to dance around the question about their salary requirement. Giving a prospective employer a figure upfront could take you out of the running even before you land an interview.
But some employers in competitive job markets are making it more difficult, if not impossible, for you to gracefully sidestep the salary question. They demand a figure by saying they won't consider you unless you include one in the cover letter.
Now what do you do?
"Put a smart number down," says Tim Besse, co-founder of Glassdoor.com.
Salary sites such as Glassdoor and Jobnob.com that have sprung up within the past year can help you do that. They give you salary information at specific companies, so you won't ask for too much and weed yourself out of the job - or ask too little and shortchange yourself.
Workers are often at a disadvantage when it comes to income negotiations, says Julie Greenberg, co-founder of Jobnob.com.
Employers usually are mum on how much they pay. And our culture is one where we don't share income information, she says.
"People will talk about what medication they are on," Greenberg says. "But we won't state our salary."
Some older salary sites give pay ranges or average income for a position in a geographic location. But these newer sites hone in on what people make at particular employers. Wages can vary widely from employer to employer, even if the job titles are similar and the cities the same.
Jobnob, launched three months ago, posts more than 400,000 salaries and is uploading another 4 million it has collected from information reported by employers.
You can see the average pay, as well as the high and low range, offered by an employer. Based on salary information for seven assistant professors at the John Hopkins University, for example, the average salary is $81,000, while the range runs from $60,000 to $109,000.
You can also use Jobnob to compare your current paycheck with the salaries of others where you work. If you're on the low end, you can take the information to your employer to find out why and what you can do to earn more, Greenberg says.
Glassdoor, launched last June, receives its salary information from employees anonymously posting on the site. The site doesn't include postings that are too far out, and thus suspect.
Glassdoor has other features that are useful for job seekers.
