Be prepared to relax your salary requirements to secure a new job - bizjournals:

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“A year ago, we never saw a resumw for a senior accountant crossour desks,” says Larry director of Bethesda accounting business LLC. “Now, we’rwe seeing several of them a As the job market has imploded across the the tables have turned even fortraditionallyt recession-weathering jobs. And that meana what it takes for a job candidate to seal the deal including bargaining for salary and benefits has changed. Job seekers and companiesw still hiring are finding that salaruy negotiations have become less of a sticking point in the interviewinhprocess — especially for people who are on the hunt becauses they got laid off.
Experts say it is OK to brinbg compensation up relatively early in the but be prepared to be flexible on salaryy terms and ready to barter for other perkas because the pool of applicants at many companies has grown and competition can be Some 78 percent of executives in a recenft survey said it is appropriate to bring up compensatioh and benefits by the second ofthreew in-person interviews, according to findinga released in March by California-based staffing company . But 66 perceny said they typically end up discussing compensation bythat point.
Accountempsw recommends that applicants bring up salargy relatively early to avoid surprises later in the The rising unemployment has reset some salary and people getting back to the work force afted a layoff may find it harder to land a raisw or even maintain the samesalary level. Kline is not seeingt a drop in salary, but he has noticed the level of competition both in numbers andcandidate caliber. Debbie Shalom, a Pikesville, Md.-basedc career coach, thinks the timing of salarg discussions can be but what’s most important is proving your value to the compan so that it will see you as a strongt investment at any salary level.
However, what you can’t get in a base salar y should be made up inother ways, she Shalom recommends trying for benefits like car allowances, tuition assistancse or extra vacation if any bargaining can be although some companies are drawing back on those thingsa as well. At , a Hunt Md.-based defense contractor, company leaders are emphasizingh healthcare coverage, vacation and flexiblre scheduling as benefits, says Anna-Maria Palmer, vice president for humah resources.
AAI is seeing increasing numberds of applicants who have been laid off and are concernedc less about salary than aboutjob “With 7 percent unemployment in the statw of Maryland, salary is certainly going to be less of an Palmer says. AAI receives more than 1,000 resumes each compared with about 350 ayear ago. Applicants also are more focusedc on the content of the work they woulsbe doing, Palmer says. That makese it more likely salarynegotiations don’r begin until after applicants have a better idea of whether the positiom is something they would be interested in, she says.
“Oncwe we get through the windoswof job-content acceptance, that is when what I’ll call the negotiatintg process is more likely to Palmer says. Accounting company in Timonium, Md., also is finding more applicants focused onjob security. Many candidatesw are coming from major national accountingg firms that have had totrim staff, said Nikkji Morris, a human resourcexs generalist at Clifton And while salary may have been a major poinf of contention in previous years, applicantss now are more concernef about what the future holds for the company.
“z lot of these people have been devastated throughythe layoffs, and they want to make sure the next employetr they select is going to be long term,” Morris says. Companiese in some other fieldsx may not be wielding thatmuch though. At , a data hosting and informatiohn technology consulting company in about 20 positionsare open, and the company has long had a hard time findingb qualified applicants, says spokeswoman Annie Hartsock. “Ity doesn’t seem like senior engineers have been hit hard by Hartsock says.
“It is as hard as it was priord to the economic situation that has to fillthe