It’s so very simple! So very, very simple! The first law of economics: “All money value is created through and backed by the production of commodities, trades, goods and services.” I will never quite understand why people who are looking for a job, even if they have one, don’t understand this simple law. Applied to the practice of finding a job, it simply states, “Your value is created through and backed by the (perceived) services you will provide.” It is that simple. If you show a prospective employer that you can provide better service than any of the other candidates, the more money you will receive.

A week or so ago we were working with a client who was looking for a controller and told us they would pay between $100,000 and $150,000 base salary along with some bonus. They made it very clear that the very top, top, top of their scale was $150,000 and they weren’t likely to pay anywhere close to that. They must have repeated it as a mantra at least a dozen times.

They hired our candidate. They paid her $185,000 and were so glad to do it they couldn’t see straight. In fact they were almost apologetic. The reason? She gave them so many good value propositions that she could do for them they were compelled to hire her. Now, she knew before she went to the interview that these people wanted to pay $100,000. She went anyhow. She barely even talked about money, except to say that the money was important but not the most important thing about the job. She just simply gave them so many really good reasons as to why they should hire her and what she could do for them, they raised her salary $35,000 more than the top of their scale.

If people looking for a job simply paid attention to the track record that they might offer a prospective employer and then present that value proposition to as many people as possible could they would have no trouble finding a job. She went into absolute detail, addressing just about every aspect of the financial picture of the company That she had researched from just about every source, the company’s bank, the company’s manufacturing companies, their customers, their competitors. She knew more about the company than the hiring authority did. She communicated what she suspected to be the biggest financial problems of the company and the three or four things she would do to address them. She did absolutely thorough research.

After two interviews our client was absolutely sold on her. Because they didn’t want to mess around and lose her, they simply told her, “the highest base we thought we were going to pay was $150,000, but with your skills and experience we are willing to offer you $185,000.” And she was thrilled.

What’s even more interesting about this is that she’s making $200,000 in her present job. She took a cut from her present salary because the opportunity and the company were so good. He makes both sides of the desk look good,