During a three or four month period last year, approximately 20% of my friends at my old employer, including myself, left the company in search of greener pastures. Some left entirely because of compensation, others left for job growth opportunities (that is to say, more compensation in the future), and others left simply because their job was boring and they had no opportunities for change. Either way, the question of compensation was always in the mix because, let’s face it, we all want to make more money than we do now, no matter how much we make now. If you made a million dollars a year, you’d want a million and a half. If you made ten million, you’d want fifteen million or even twenty. If you made twenty? Well, you’d want a hundred.

So, what’s a greater incentive to work hard, money or the potential for more money?

And, as a corollary, if you are paid more, does that make you work harder?

A lot of the jobs in the latest list of high paying jobs, provided by MRINetwork and Spherion (headhunting shops), are a case of demand being so much larger than the supply of good talent. In a lot of these industries, they’re looking for folks with experience, not kids coming out of college, so if you’re looking to this list for inspiration then you’re at the wrong place. If you’re already in one of these fields, consider that a change might bring something bigger at the end of the month.

Medical science liaisons - Basically they’re pharmaceutical company employed medical professionals on the education and experience level of doctors that provide “peer-level” interaction with those practicing medicine. The idea is that these folks supplement the sales reps and provide a level of expertise a business person is simply unable to. Expect to start off making $115k-$120k plus 10-20% bonus, after five years expect to see $125k-$135k plus bonus.

Internet sales and marketing Account directors - The internet is back and better than ever, demand for experience Internet sales and marketing folks with 7 - 9 years of online marketing and sales experience can expect to fetch $150k in big markets like New York and $120k-$130k in smaller markets like Atlanta or Cleveland.

General managers of premier resorts and hotels - If you can’t tell we’re in a period of prosperity, look no further than the fact that resorts and hotels really need some solid GMs. For resorts, if the place specializes in something (golf anyone?), then it helps if that GM has some experience with that activity. This is an industry where you have to pay your dues and it takes 12 - 18 years before you’ll make it at a top tier location - when there, expect to pocket between $150k and $250k depending on location.

Designer of athletic and active wear - Again, another product of prosperity is that people want more stuff and they want to do more stuff: look to clothing design. “They might get paid $30,000 to $40,000 right out of school, $50,000 to $60,000 after a year, and $80,000 to $90,000 after three to five years. Beyond that, if they’ve survived and had some successes, they can pull down anywhere between $90,000 and $200,000.” (90k - $200k, that’s a huge range…)

Construction: Estimators and Program Managers - Two of the ten jobs were in construction, no surprise there considering our economy, and both start off making the $55k - $65k range. After five years though, estimators can expect to see $75k whereas program managers can expect a six figure salary.

SQL DB Administrators and .NET/Java developers - And what top paying job list would be complete without at least one programming job, this time it’s SQL DB Admins and .NET/Java developers - the cornerstones of the internet. DBs run the world and we use .NET/Java to talk to them. In a large market, DBAs can see $100k+ and even $75k - $85k in smaller markets. .NET/Java developers can expect the same.

Staff accountants, Financial Analysts - Two words: Sarbanes-Oxley. A staff accountant with two to four years can earn between $50k - $70k in a large market, $40k - $50k in small market. A financial analyst can expect $75k - $100k in a large city, $55k - $75k in a smaller market.

Enjoy the slideshow…

I recently interviewed a candidate for a position in my company who had a resume that was four pages long. Not only was it four pages long but underneath each job title, the description was not a bulleted list of responsibilities or accomplishments but instead a paragraph of prose describing what he did in the post. Until that day, I never realized why job sites recommend resumes be limited to one page with accomplishments and responsibilities bulleted… it’s to help the reader understand what you’ve done and what you’re capable of without having to digest your writing like they’re taking the SAT.

I think the hard and fast rule of one page isn’t so much as important, especially if you have many years of experience, as the bulleted rule but two pages is really the maximum you can have on a resume. If your resume is longer than two pages then you’re really putting too much on that sucker and no one is going to be able to give it the level of attention they should if pressed they’re for time. While a long resume isn’t a deal breaker, you had better make it easily scannable by using bulleted lists or other visual cues. Please please please use bulleted lists or people looking at your resume simply won’t be able to review it effectively - especially if you’re just one in a stack.

Lastly, make sure you only put things that are relevant. If you’re going for a position doing software development, your experience as a retail sales clerk at Gap when you were in high school isn’t relevant. In fact, it’s a distraction because the reviewer will wonder why you even have it on there and whether you’re just taking up space. If you want to show a soft skill, such as sales experience even though it’s not 100% relevant, you had better make sure your bulleted list of responsibilities highlights those soft skills in a quantifiable way in order to dispel disbelief as to its relevance.

Lastly, look at your resume as if you were going to hire yourself for the position and you only had one shot to get it right. Would you give yourself the time of day or would you move to the next resume in the stack?

Everyone who works should read this CNN Money article, which outlines the three salary secrets and three salary myths CNN Money has identified in our modern workplace. Some of these make sense, especially at the company I used to work at, and some I had no idea about so this was an eye-opening article for me.

Secret 1: Your pay doesn’t necessarily reflect performance and seniority
At my old job, incoming college graduates were making approximately the same as people who had been there three years. In fact, I was willing to bet that the people who had been there for three years (I was there for three years) were making about as much as the people who had been there for six. “Some companies are proactive about performing an equity analysis on a regular basis and correcting for the problem. If they discover that the gap between your pay and the newer hires isn’t wide enough, they may give you a larger bump in salary than the usual merit increase.” But then again, some companies don’t notice and in those cases you should bring it up to your manager - hopefully they’ll do something about it, if they can.

(read full article…)

Let me paint the scenario: You interview for another job in another company and are offered a 20% raise above your current salary. You return to your current employer and ask for the current company to perhaps match that offer. They do. You’ve been at your current company for three years and feel you’ve built up somewhat of a name for yourself. Both companies are in the defense industry. For all intents and purposes, everything else is the same…. what would you do?

Personally, I’d take the 20% at another company mostly because after you get an adjustment at your current company for 20%, you’re put far past the other employees in your organization. You probably can’t expect sizable raises for a few years, whereas if you start “clean” at a new company, you’re not making more than your market value and so you won’t be penalized.

Now add into the fact that the people you work with know you received another offer and so in order for you to stay, you likely got accelerated on the pay scale, which is like to engender some spite. Also consider the fact that your original company does value people who leave and come back (more varied experience, plus you demonstrate value by virtue of the fact another company is willing to pay to acquire you).

What would you do?

In my post of five cities where real estate is bubble proof, many of the cities were deemed bubble-proof because they had strong job growth. That particular article was penned by someone in Business 2.0, so when I read an article about the ten best cities to find a job written by the folks at Forbes (hosted by MSN), I wanted to see how the cities matched up.

Well, surprise, none of the top ten cities were on the list of bubble-proof housing markets:

1. Washington D.C.
2. Phoenix, AZ
3. Las Vegas, NV
4. Orlando, FL
5. Bethesda, MD
6. Richmond, VA
7. Raleigh, NC
8. Jacksonville, FL
9. Oklahoma City, OK
10. Virginia Beach, VA

In fact, Forbes discovered that New York City (5th Bubble Proof), San Francisco (1st Bubble Proof), Los Angeles (2nd Bubble Proof), and Chicago (not on the list) were at the very bottom of the list of best cities to find a job. Part of the reason for their low scoring had to deal with the data they used (the dot-com bust hurt) but it still doesn’t really add up with some of the “reasons” the other article used.

So… either the theory of “limited land” (which has had a couple of well-reasoned holes poked into it by critically thinking readers) is more significant that we thought or Business 2.0 just made things up. Thoughts?

Source: MSN.

My friend Miller, who started a personal finance blog My Pocket Change, sent out an email to a bunch of his friends from work (where I used to work) with a revelation he had regarding how long it would take for someone who stayed at a job (a non-quitter) to catch up to someone who left that job (a quitter) for greener pastures. The average raise at my former employer was approximately 4%, which is a pittance compared to the generally accepted historical inflation rate of 3%, and a source of ire amongst many of the young professionals at the company. So, after a recent rash of departures (a count of approximately 50 folks we all personally knew and who joined within the last years), people started playing with numbers to see how long it would take for a non-quitter to reach the same point, salary-wise, as someone who quit. So, what did my friend Miller conclude?

You’ll just have to read it and find out! It was pretty surprising for me to hear too.

I found Anna Ivey’s blog, The Ivey Files: Musings on the big, bad world after college, because I saw through Technorati that she linked to me in her sidebar, and in digging around at her main site I found a great article about 5 Mistakes College Grads Make When Looking for a Job that you should read if you’ve been looking for a job. While she lists five mistakes, the main thrust of the article revolves around how you, as a job candidate, should try your hardest to project professionalism at all times. Give it a look at let me know what you think, she makes some good point.

This article is part of a new series I’ve started called Personal Finance for College Students (hence, PF College).

Finding a part time job while you’re in college is usually pretty easy. There are always computer labs that need staffing or libraries that need clerks and while they do provide value in terms of cold hard cash, especially if you have work-study financial aid, they do little in providing depth and breadth on your resume. Your resume is your other transcript, some would say more important than your academic transcript, and so you should populate it with jobs that give you valuable work experience in your intended field and let the money flow later.

(read full article…)

If you’re like me, you probably will have a handful of jobs during your college undergraduate career ranging in length from a real summer internship all the way to a simply work-study at the college bookstore during the semester. No matter what it is, it’s important that you keep your resume up to date every semester because you never know when 1) you’ll need a copy of your resume 2) how much of your work experience you’ll actually remember.

Recently, I was trying to recall all the jobs I held during my college career and while I remembered most of my “real” jobs, I completely forgot about the semester I was a teaching assistant and the one where I was a work-study in some department’s IT group. Honestly, those two jobs aren’t truly resume worthy, I had meaty enough internships to take up the space, but had I needed them I didn’t remember enough to even try to make them resume worthy. That’s why you need to write your work as you do it (or soon thereafter) so that you accurately capture what you did.

This was a suggestion I mentioned in a prior post (update your resume every 3 months) but I felt it was an important enough tip to bring up again.

This article is part of a new series I’ve started called Personal Finance for College Students (hence, PF College).