Relocating for work can be a good move for your career. If you’re planning to relocate, it’s important to remember that not every company offers relocation assistance. Understanding what to do if it’s not included in your signing offer or benefits package can help you find other ways to make your move easier to afford. In this article, we discuss what relocation assistance is, review what the package typically includes and give suggestions for approaching a situation where a company doesn’t offer this assistance.

What is relocation assistance?

Relocation assistance is a potential item in a business benefits package. It offers compensation to help an employee move to a new city, state, or country to work for a specific company. Organizations may offer relocation assistance to employees who are a good fit for the company but may have to move away from their current homes to join the team.

Companies may try to pay as little as possible for this type of assistance while still providing the necessary compensation to help an employee live near the office and get settled in a new place. Only certain items may fall under the acceptable expenditures for relocation assistance. These can vary depending on what type of move you’re making.

When to ask for relocation assistance

Situations where it’s acceptable to ask for relocation assistance from an employer include:

If you’re moving to a new city

To qualify for most in-state city-to-city relocation assistance packages, your new city must typically be over 50 miles, or over an hour’s drive, from your current location using highways or toll roads. If both cities have connecting public transportation, such as subway systems or bus services, you may not be eligible. It can still be appropriate to ask for assistance in a city relocation situation because it may cost the company less than moving someone across the country, and they may be more willing to hire someone closer to the job.

If you’re moving to a new state

Moving to a new state for a job requires logistical planning and strategy to make it happen. It may also cost more than moving within your current state. Consider asking for relocation assistance in this situation to help offset the costs of your move. As with a city-to-city move, there may be some exceptions to this situation.

For example, those working in a place like New York City, which offers direct train and light rail transporting to other nearby states like New Jersey and Connecticut, may ask for transportation assistance instead. Another exception may be employees who live near state borders, working in one state but living in another. People near the Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio borders may do this and have less than a 50-mile commute, even if they cross state lines.

If you’re moving to a new country

Moving to another country is one of the biggest moves you can make for work. It requires not just travel costs for you and your family but also shipping costs of personal possessions, such as cars. Ask for relocation assistance in this instance. You may try to get more than just monetary payments from the package. Consider requesting help with services such as securing visas or coverage of travel visits to explore your new country before the move.

If you have a quick start date

If the company asks you to start your job in a new location less than a month after your interview, it may be appropriate to request relocation assistance. This is because there are many steps that go into moving, including selling your current home or getting out of a lease, packing and shipping your possessions, and securing a new place to live. It may take longer than one month to complete the full process.

Consider sharing these concerns with the company’s human resources (HR) department. They may either provide relocation assistance or delay your start date to give you more time to complete moving tasks.

What does relocation assistance typically include?

The exact details of a relocation assistance package may vary by company and the type of move you’re making. Some potential items in your package could include:

·         Reimbursement for moving costs

·         Temporary lodging, such as hotel payment

·         Travel expenses, such as airfare or payment for a rental vehicle

·         Home sale help for a current residence

·         Classes to learn a new language

·         Loading and unloading of moving trucks or shipping containers

·         Visa application guidance

·         Travel, home, or moving insurance

·         Full packing services

·         Storage

·         Spousal employment assistance

·         Rental guidance

·         Pre-move visits to your new city, state, or country

Lump sum

A lump sum is a one-time payment provided by the company for moving-related expenses. You negotiate this amount with HR before your move. You can decide where and how to spend the money based on the type of move you’re making and the services it requires.

Reimbursement

A reimbursement is when the company pays you back for moving expenses you charge to your own accounts. You pay for the services initially, then receive payment from the company after you’ve completed the move. Most organizations cover a reimbursement up to a certain dollar amount. The HR or finance departments may ask for receipts, proofs of purchase, and other documentation of services rendered to approve the reimbursements.

Direct bill

With a direct bill, the company pays for some or all of the relocation expenses without your intervention. Moving companies and services send the bills to the company’s accounting department instead of coming to you. Another way an organization may cover direct billing is by providing you with a company credit card to charge travel expenses. Some may also combine direct billing with a lump sum or reimbursements to cover more of your moving expenses.

Third-party relocation

With third-party relocation, the company hires an outside organization to provide all your relocation assistance. This advisory team coordinates with you to set the logistics for the move. It also coordinates with your company to receive payment for services.

Tips for what to do if a company offers no relocation assistance

There are several actions you can take if your company does not initially offer relocation services. Here are some tips to consider:

Request it

If a company is used to hiring employees within its geographic area, the HR department may not consider that you’d like relocation assistance unless you ask. Be polite but direct when speaking to a company representative. Be clear about how you’re excited to work for the company, but that you may need help to make the move and live close enough to work for them. Making this claim may be enough to encourage HR to put together a relocation package for your approval, which you can accept, reject or negotiate.

Ask for an advance

If the company doesn’t offer a relocation package, you can ask for an advance in your earnings to cover some of your moving expenses. If HR agrees, you earn more money at the beginning of your tenure, either as a lump sum or in installments, to help supplement the immediate costs of moving. Asking for and accepting this type of offer means you may make less money later in the year, something to remember when creating your household budget. Another option could be accepting a lower base salary for a relocation package.

Ask for a bonus

If an advance isn’t available, ask HR if you could work together to create an incentivizing goal program to earn bonuses in your new position. Together, you can set certain criteria or performance standards to reach within a certain period to earn more money. This could be an option to help you cover some moving costs without actually calling it a relocation assistance package. When making this suggestion, communicate that it’s to help compensate for your move.

Do your research

If your company doesn’t offer relocation assistance, HR may not understand just how much it costs to move from one place to another. Research moving costs from your current location to that of the new job. Compare facts like costs of living, price of moving all your belongings, taxes in the new location and any other monetary expenses to prepare for the move. You can use this information when making your case with the company to show why a relocation package is necessary.

Practice your negotiation skills

Even if your company offers some relocation assistance, you may negotiate to get certain aspects of your move covered. Doing your research can help, but so can practicing your persuasive skills. Learn how to construct a factual argument and how to negotiate for compensation you think you deserve. This can help you feel more confident when approaching HR and also makes it more challenging for the company to refute your claim. One negotiation tactic may include leveraging other job offers that provide relocation assistance to convince your company to create a competitive package.

This article is for information purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal advice. Consult with an attorney or lawyer for any legal issues you may be experiencing.

The post What To Do When an Employer Offers No Relocation Assistance appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

Millions of employees started working remotely after the pandemic first took hold in 2020. But now, more people are returning to the office – and they’re being greeted by much higher prices for just about everything. Food. Commuting. Daycare. Rising gas prices and soaring inflation have made going back to the office more expensive. And that is eating into workers’ incomes, especially if their pay increases aren’t keeping up.

Here are some daily costs that have crept higher, making the return to post-pandemic office life more expensive.

Eating at the office
Coffee runs and long lunches with colleagues are one of the perks of returning to the office. But they come at a higher price these days.

The index for food away from home increased 7.2% over the last year, the Labor Department reported earlier this month. Food prices were up 9.4% in April from the same time last year – the biggest jump since April 1981, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported. And grocery store prices increased 10.8% for the year that ended in April.

Office workers are seeing higher costs for everything from their morning coffee to their lunchtime salad: Starbucks raised prices in the US earlier this year and in October 2021 – and said prices could continue to rise.

“We have additional pricing actions planned through the balance of this year,” said then-CEO Kevin Johnson during an analyst call in February, citing cost pressures such as inflation.
Salad chain Sweetgreen has raised its menu prices by 10% since the start of 2021, the company said in its most recent earnings report.

“Lunchflation is 100% real, everything is more expensive,” said Kelly Yau McClay, who lives in Potomac, Maryland. “Before, you could get lunch for $7 to $12. Now there is no way you can get a decent lunch for less than $15.”

Yau McClay had just started a job doing branding and marketing for a real estate company as everything was shutting down in April 2020. She had been working remotely full-time until October 2021. But now she’s on a hybrid schedule, going into the office three days a week, and estimates she spends around $30 to $35 a day on work-related expenses, like lunch, coffee and snack runs, and parking.

But for other workers, returning to the office has brought some relief – at least on some fronts. Consumers changed the way they spent during the pandemic, with expenses like dining out at restaurants getting replaced with higher grocery bills and more meals at home.

Sara Hill, who works in the insurance industry in Buffalo, New York, saw her food budget increase when she and her four children were home full-time.
“I was eating more food because I am closer to the kitchen… my food spending was still increasing because we were all home,” said Hill.

After working remotely full-time during the height of the pandemic, she is now going into the office two days a week.

Before the pandemic, she spent around $25 to $30 a day on breakfast and lunch when working from the office. But now, with many of the food businesses near her job closed, she regularly brings lunches with her. “I pretty much bring things from home, whether it’s leftovers or a cup of noodles to get me through the day.

Getting to the office
A return to commuting has also meant more gas usage.
With gas prices hitting record highs recently, it’s an expensive time to be filling up more frequently. According to AAA, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is now $4.60. In February 2020, it was $2.44.

In Orlando, Florida, Mike Tobin upgraded to a minivan in August 2020. At the time, he said it cost about $40 to fill up the tank – but now it’s closer to $75.
“My biggest driving thing is going to the office…everything else is really close to where we live,” said Tobin, who works for a wholesale electric distribution company.

For Hill, the higher prices at the pump have made her change her routines to try and fill her tank up just once a week. She fills her truck with premium gas, which she said costs between $110 to $120 a tank.
“That is extremely crazy for gas,” said Hill. “I try to pack the days when I go to the office – if I can do anything right after work or on my hour lunch break I will try to squeeze things in because…it’s a day I am already driving.”

She tries not to leave her house on the three days she works from home.

For Yau McClay, any day she goes into the office she has to pay for parking. It used to cost $1 per hour but increased by 50 cents earlier this year. Now she is paying $12 a day – up from $8.
Ditching the comfy sweatpants and dressing up for the office again is also costly. Apparel prices were up 5.4% in April from the same time a year ago.

“Now that I am going into the office, I have to go buy new makeup sets – so I am spending money there when I wasn’t before,” said Yau McClay. “The things you used to spend money on, like hair cuts, makeup, manicure and pedicures, and updating your wardrobe, those things were essentially on pause for two years. Yes, I was spending it before… I got so used to not spending that it was really nice. And now everything is more expensive.”

Caring for the kids
Childcare costs tend to be one of the biggest expenses in working parents’ budgets – and that is getting more expensive for some parents, too.

In 2020, the national average annual cost of child care was $10,174, according to Child Care Aware of America.

In September 2020, Yau McClay put her three-year-old daughter in a new daycare facility full-time for $2,150 a month. Though child care tends to get cheaper as a child ages, a series of price increases has eaten into those savings, Yau McClay said.

“Every time she got bumped up [to an older age group]…later, they would announce: ‘Sorry we have another price increase,’” Yau McClay said. “Between when we started there and now, the price [for her current class] has gone up almost $200 net.”

The post ‘Lunchflation’ is real. Returning to the office is costing us a fortune appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

You may feel like shouting a triumphant ‘yes!’ when the recruiter offers you the job, but you need to play it cool.

Accepting a job offer is a triumphant moment for any job seeker. After all the work you’ve done researching, applying to jobs on Monster, and interviewing, you’ve finally been offered the position you’ve been aiming for. Go you! You’re understandably psyched. But don’t be so quick to jump on board right away. Knowing how to accept a job offer is a key skill every job seeker must master.

When an employer makes a job offer, they’re effectively laying their cards on the table and they want you to do the same—meaning they want you to also put your cards on the table and accept the position right then and there. Do that and you’re giving up your negotiation power. Bad move.

To understand how to accept a job offer the right way, follow these steps:

1. Express Your Appreciation for the Job Offer
Whether you’re communicating in person, on the phone, or via email, thank the person who made the offer and say how excited and grateful you are before you do anything else.

Whether you’re going to come back with a negotiation or accept the offer without changes, starting off this way sets a good tone for the conversation.

Keep up the enthusiasm as you move forward. Remember that the company is vulnerable—you might not accept their offer—so make them feel less so with your interest in the role. Using words like “excited” and “thrilled” will get the point across, without saying you’re accepting the position.

2. Ask to Get the Offer in Writing
Learning how to accept a job offer means you need to know exactly what you’re saying yes to. Once you’ve thanked the employer, request to have the offer put in writing. An official job offer letter should include, at the very least, the name of the position, a start date, a salary, and details about benefits.
This step does two things:

1. It makes the offer official.
2. It gives you a chance to review the details thoroughly to make sure you completely understand what you’re being offered.

Ask how long you have to give a final answer after receiving the letter. If the employer says they need an immediate answer, that’s a bad sign. Accepting a job offer properly requires due diligence, and a company is very much aware of this. Pressuring you doesn’t give the best impression and tends to be used as a scare tactic. A responsible employer wants prospective employees to have some time to think—usually a day or two—before accepting a job offer.

But if you want to negotiate the terms, respond by saying: “I’ve considered the offer and it’s a wonderful opportunity; I would want to discuss the details more carefully. When can we set up a time to speak or meet?”

Be prepared with the right questions to ask when negotiating salary, and remember that you should take a collaborative, not confrontational, tone in your negotiation. After all, both of you want the same thing—you in that job.

3. Know What to Say When Accepting a Job Offer
When you’re through negotiating and ready to accept, reiterate all the details as you understand them in your acceptance. You can say: “It is my understanding that I will be eligible for X days of vacation, Y amount of bonus payable on Z, the company covers 75% of my health care costs and matches my 401K contributions up to the first 3% of my salary.”

This is especially important if you’ve negotiated up from the initial offer. In fact, you should also ask to get the final, official offer in writing.

If the negotiations took longer than expected, acknowledge that in your acceptance. Negotiation is stressful for both sides and expressing appreciation for your new employer’s time and effort once you finally accept an offer shows you’re ready to move forward.

Finally, ask about the next steps. For example, is there any onboarding paperwork you should get started on after accepting a job offer? Will there be an orientation? And how can you prepare for your first day? This shows your interest, which will reaffirm to the company that they made the right choice in hiring you.

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If you’ve been laid off recently or think you might lose your job in the near future, you need to respond strategically and massively. The hard reality about layoffs is that how you respond may depend on your financial and emotional state.

You may have predicted this event and prepared for it, or you may view the layoff as a blessing in disguise if it forces you to make a change you’ve wanted to make for some time. In these cases, it’s time to crank up your search efforts with focus and confidence.

If, on the other hand, you are totally blindsided by the layoff and/or unprepared for it, your first step is to take stock. What is your cash position? Do you feel strong, and can you see the situation as an opportunity to move into something better? Or are you at a loss about what to do next? What kind of support can you get to help you through? What do you have to do to ensure that you survive—financially and emotionally?

While feelings of panic and uncertainty are normal, remember that the most effective job searches are not scattershot approaches but rather targeted strategies that leverage your past experience.

In either situation, a strategic job search is in order. Based on my report, “How to Manage Your Career in Scary Times,” here are eight top-level tips to ensure your response to a layoff is focused and effective.

1. Breathe
Find your center. You are a professional and there is a place for you out there. You will get through this. And the best way to do so is to focus on what you offer and take massive action.

2. Get out the contact list
Make a record of the people you worked with and dealt with. Put that address information into your own system and contact people using your personal email address.

3. Inventory what you offer
Take time to develop a sound understanding of your abilities, skills, experience, and fit. This includes really analyzing your professional background to identify stories, evidence, and data about your job performance that you can use to better market yourself and prove your candidacy. What are you interested in doing next? What is the next logical step for you? Depending on your position and situation, you may be looking to move forward or you may need to focus on where you are most employable.

4. Define your targets
You are not equally valuable everywhere. Define A, B, and C target groups. A is the perfect home for your offering. B is acceptable. C will pay the bills. Use information like job title, organization type, organization size, industry, and market to make your targets as defined as possible.

5. Cultivate multiple channels
Work more than one channel to find those target opportunities. By all means, use online job postings and apply selectively to jobs. But realize this is only one channel. Develop a multichannel strategy and invest your time accordingly. Those channels might include recruitment agencies, professional associations, and, of course, your network.

6. Create channels for people to find you
Nothing is better than receiving a call about an opportunity. It puts you in the driver’s seat, at least for a bit. Ensure your network contacts know what you’re looking for so you are top of mind when they can make a referral. Use social networking sites as another way to accomplish this.

7. Follow the Pareto Principle
This is otherwise known as the 80/20 rule. Analyze your network for the people who are hubs of contacts and information. Who do you know who can hire or refer you? When you’re ready, get in touch with them. And remember, the actions you might resist are usually the most valuable, high-impact ones. In my experience, successful job searches are often the result of that one, correct call.

8. Get out and talk to people
The worst place to conduct a job search is in your pajamas at your family computer. Yes, there are a lot of important activities you can do from your computer, but schedule them outside of prime meeting time. You must get out there—every day.

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These days, phone interviews are an unavoidable part of the job interview process, and for good reason: They save everyone involved time and effort. But that doesn’t mean that phoners require zero energy on the part of the candidate. Yes, you should spend more time preparing for an in-person interview, but many companies treat phone screens as the official first round of the hiring process. That means candidates are expected to go into them prepared with as much information about the company, position, and their own skills and strengths as possible.

We asked HR pros about their top phone interview pet peeves, they had no shortage of advice to offer. Apparently, it’s quite easy to mess up your phone interview. But here’s the thing; it’s also not hard to come across well if you keep some key things in mind.

1. Never Take The Interview Somewhere Noisy
It might seem like common sense, but you’d be surprised what interviewers say they can hear in the background of their phone interviews—everything from barking dogs to screaming children. “Prepare for the interview by securing a quiet space in advance, even if it means escaping to your car parked in the garage,” advises Chere Taylor, founder of Fulcrum HR Consulting. “If you can lock your home office door, by all means, do it. We’ve all been there and sometimes things just happen, but the more time spent anticipating what could go wrong, the better prepared and organized you will appear to the interviewer and the greater likelihood of success.” That doesn’t mean that if your washing machine beeps once in the background all hope is lost, but the more effort you put into being in a quiet place, the more focused you’ll be.

2. Don’t Talk About Your Personal Life
…Unless you’re directly asked a question about what you like to do in your off hours. “The point of a phone interview is to focus on getting to know a candidate’s professional experience and goals,” says Mckenzie Roark, campus talent specialist at Lithko Contracting. “A recruiter is trying to qualify them to see if they are the best fit for a role, and learning about their personal life doesn’t help. For example, when asked where you see yourself in five years, we don’t want to know that you hope to be married or that you want to buy a new house. That is nice but that isn’t relative to anything professional.”

3. Resist The Urge to Multitask
It might be tempting to cross something off your to-do list while on a phone interview, but recruiters and hiring managers can easily tell if your attention is elsewhere. “My number one pet peeve is people who decide to multitask while on the phone interview,” says Dan Krupansky, Talent Acquisition Manager at PrimePay. “I have heard candidates washing dishes, making lunch in the microwave, going for walks, letting their dog out, and grocery shopping during the interview. I even had one person use the bathroom and flush the toilet while speaking with me.” Needless to say, this doesn’t reflect well on your level of interest in the position you’re interviewing for.

4. Skip The Money Conversation
To put it bluntly, it’s simply too early in the process for you to be the one who brings up salary expectations. “Chances are if a candidate is participating in a phone interview, this is the first time they have talked with the company, and the first call isn’t the appropriate time to talk about ‘what’s in it for you,’” says Justina Strnad, the Talent Acquisition Manager for Shiftgig. “Trust me, if you are a great candidate and make it to the next steps, the hiring team is going to be very transparent about what’s in it for you later on!”

5. Never Put Your Interviewer On Hold
Phone interviews don’t take that long, and there probably isn’t anything else going on that is really truly so urgent that you need to pause your interview. “Do not put me on hold to take an important call that just beeped in,” advises Jeremy Payne, head of people operations at Remote Year. “I am your important call. If you are expecting extremely urgent news (like information about a family illness), be sure to preface that in the early minutes of the interview, so the recruiter is aware of the situation and so you can work with them to reschedule if that interruption does occur,” he says.

6. Never Skip The Q&A
“After wrapping up a phone interview, it is typical that the interviewer will ask the candidate if they have any questions. I can’t stress this enough: ALWAYS ask questions,” says Roark. “If we have had a great phone interview and then we wrap up and they don’t have any questions for me, it pretty much ruins the whole interview. It tells me that the candidate is uninterested in the role, which in reality, might not be the case at all,” she notes. But surely, if you’re interested in a job, you can think of something to ask your interviewer.

7. Don’t Be Late
It seems basic, but surprisingly, many people are late to phone interviews. “About a quarter of the people with whom I schedule phone interviews aren’t on time,” says Sophie Cikovsky, who handles the U.S. recruiting for Infinite Global. “While this bothers me personally, it’s also indicative of someone who isn’t very detail-oriented,” she explains. “In order to identify this early in the hiring process, I started asking all candidates a few years ago to call me as opposed to calling them at an agreed-upon time. That way if I hear from them at 1:13 pm or 12:49 pm instead of our planned 1:00 pm interview time, I have an early indicator that they might not be a great fit.”

8. Don’t Assume Reception Is Good
“Make sure you test your headset and connection before dialing in,” recommends Payne. “There is nothing more frustrating for a recruiter who has a structured interview guide in place having to repeatedly ask the same question over and over because they could not understand your answer due to static or dropped signals.” Test call a friend beforehand or even call yourself from a landline if necessary; it will take less than a minute.

9. Never Talk Over The Interviewer
You might be eager to get your point across or talk about your experience, but interrupting the interviewer is awkward and rude when you’re speaking on the phone, even more so than in face-to-face interviews. “Interviewing can be stressful and sometimes that stress manifests itself in speaking too fast, speaking too loud, talking over the interviewer, or attempting to answer the interviewer’s question before they have actually finished asking the question,” says Taylor. “Don’t do this.” There’s a big difference between being assertive and being aggressive, and interviewers can always recognize it.

10. Skip Filler Words
It’s tough not to say things like “um,” “uh,” and “like” in everyday speech, but these verbal habits become much more pronounced when speaking on the phone, says Chris Dardis, a recruiting expert and HR professional with Versique Executive Search. “In face-to-face interviews, they’re not as noticeable because there are other things like your hair, suit, or body language to distract people,” he explains. But in a phone interview, the only thing you have to go on is what you say and how you say it. “That’s why it’s so important to eliminate these words from your speech when doing a phone interview.”

11. Don’t Go In Blind
Not knowing anything about the company or job you’re interviewing for is way more obvious than you’d think. “Many people think that a phone interview means they’re getting away with something, that they don’t have to put as much effort into researching the role or company,” says Steve Pritchard, HR Consultant for giffgaff. And if you have your laptop in front of you during the interview to do a few quick searches, they won’t know the difference, right? Not exactly. “Seasoned interviewers will know whether an interviewee is researching while on the phone; they will take too long to answer the question and punctuate their answers with a lot of ‘ums’ and ‘errs’ as they type. The interviewer can often even hear the typing as they ask the question,” he adds.

12. Nix Long-Winded Answers
“The key to success during a phone interview is clear and concise answers,” says Dardis. “People’s attention spans tend to be shorter over the phone. You don’t want your future employer to lose interest in the conversation.” He recommends practicing answers to questions you know will be asked ahead of time in order to be clear on what you’re going to say. That way, you can prevent rambling before it starts.

The post 12 Things to Never Do During A Phone Interview appeared first on Résumé Writing and Career Services.

These days, phone interviews are an unavoidable part of the job interview process, and for good reason: They save everyone involved time and effort. But that doesn’t mean that phoners require zero energy on the part of the candidate. Yes, you should spend more time preparing for an in-person interview, but many companies treat phone screens as the official first round of the hiring process. That means candidates are expected to go into them prepared with as much information about the company, position, and their own skills and strengths as possible.

We asked HR pros about their top phone interview pet peeves, they had no shortage of advice to offer. Apparently, it’s quite easy to mess up your phone interview. But here’s the thing; it’s also not hard to come across well if you keep some key things in mind.

1. Never Take The Interview Somewhere Noisy
It might seem like common sense, but you’d be surprised what interviewers say they can hear in the background of their phone interviews—everything from barking dogs to screaming children. “Prepare for the interview by securing a quiet space in advance, even if it means escaping to your car parked in the garage,” advises Chere Taylor, founder of Fulcrum HR Consulting. “If you can lock your home office door, by all means, do it. We’ve all been there and sometimes things just happen, but the more time spent anticipating what could go wrong, the better prepared and organized you will appear to the interviewer and the greater likelihood of success.” That doesn’t mean that if your washing machine beeps once in the background all hope is lost, but the more effort you put into being in a quiet place, the more focused you’ll be.

2. Don’t Talk About Your Personal Life
…Unless you’re directly asked a question about what you like to do in your off hours. “The point of a phone interview is to focus on getting to know a candidate’s professional experience and goals,” says Mckenzie Roark, campus talent specialist at Lithko Contracting. “A recruiter is trying to qualify them to see if they are the best fit for a role, and learning about their personal life doesn’t help. For example, when asked where you see yourself in five years, we don’t want to know that you hope to be married or that you want to buy a new house. That is nice but that isn’t relative to anything professional.”

3. Resist The Urge to Multitask
It might be tempting to cross something off your to-do list while on a phone interview, but recruiters and hiring managers can easily tell if your attention is elsewhere. “My number one pet peeve is people who decide to multitask while on the phone interview,” says Dan Krupansky, Talent Acquisition Manager at PrimePay. “I have heard candidates washing dishes, making lunch in the microwave, going for walks, letting their dog out, and grocery shopping during the interview. I even had one person use the bathroom and flush the toilet while speaking with me.” Needless to say, this doesn’t reflect well on your level of interest in the position you’re interviewing for.

4. Skip The Money Conversation
To put it bluntly, it’s simply too early in the process for you to be the one who brings up salary expectations. “Chances are if a candidate is participating in a phone interview, this is the first time they have talked with the company, and the first call isn’t the appropriate time to talk about ‘what’s in it for you,’” says Justina Strnad, the Talent Acquisition Manager for Shiftgig. “Trust me, if you are a great candidate and make it to the next steps, the hiring team is going to be very transparent about what’s in it for you later on!”

5. Never Put Your Interviewer On Hold
Phone interviews don’t take that long, and there probably isn’t anything else going on that is really truly so urgent that you need to pause your interview. “Do not put me on hold to take an important call that just beeped in,” advises Jeremy Payne, head of people operations at Remote Year. “I am your important call. If you are expecting extremely urgent news (like information about a family illness), be sure to preface that in the early minutes of the interview, so the recruiter is aware of the situation and so you can work with them to reschedule if that interruption does occur,” he says.

6. Never Skip The Q&A
“After wrapping up a phone interview, it is typical that the interviewer will ask the candidate if they have any questions. I can’t stress this enough: ALWAYS ask questions,” says Roark. “If we have had a great phone interview and then we wrap up and they don’t have any questions for me, it pretty much ruins the whole interview. It tells me that the candidate is uninterested in the role, which in reality, might not be the case at all,” she notes. But surely, if you’re interested in a job, you can think of something to ask your interviewer.

7. Don’t Be Late
It seems basic, but surprisingly, many people are late to phone interviews. “About a quarter of the people with whom I schedule phone interviews aren’t on time,” says Sophie Cikovsky, who handles the U.S. recruiting for Infinite Global. “While this bothers me personally, it’s also indicative of someone who isn’t very detail-oriented,” she explains. “In order to identify this early in the hiring process, I started asking all candidates a few years ago to call me as opposed to calling them at an agreed-upon time. That way if I hear from them at 1:13 pm or 12:49 pm instead of our planned 1:00 pm interview time, I have an early indicator that they might not be a great fit.”

8. Don’t Assume Reception Is Good
“Make sure you test your headset and connection before dialing in,” recommends Payne. “There is nothing more frustrating for a recruiter who has a structured interview guide in place having to repeatedly ask the same question over and over because they could not understand your answer due to static or dropped signals.” Test call a friend beforehand or even call yourself from a landline if necessary; it will take less than a minute.

9. Never Talk Over The Interviewer
You might be eager to get your point across or talk about your experience, but interrupting the interviewer is awkward and rude when you’re speaking on the phone, even more so than in face-to-face interviews. “Interviewing can be stressful and sometimes that stress manifests itself in speaking too fast, speaking too loud, talking over the interviewer, or attempting to answer the interviewer’s question before they have actually finished asking the question,” says Taylor. “Don’t do this.” There’s a big difference between being assertive and being aggressive, and interviewers can always recognize it.

10. Skip Filler Words
It’s tough not to say things like “um,” “uh,” and “like” in everyday speech, but these verbal habits become much more pronounced when speaking on the phone, says Chris Dardis, a recruiting expert and HR professional with Versique Executive Search. “In face-to-face interviews, they’re not as noticeable because there are other things like your hair, suit, or body language to distract people,” he explains. But in a phone interview, the only thing you have to go on is what you say and how you say it. “That’s why it’s so important to eliminate these words from your speech when doing a phone interview.”

11. Don’t Go In Blind
Not knowing anything about the company or job you’re interviewing for is way more obvious than you’d think. “Many people think that a phone interview means they’re getting away with something, that they don’t have to put as much effort into researching the role or company,” says Steve Pritchard, HR Consultant for giffgaff. And if you have your laptop in front of you during the interview to do a few quick searches, they won’t know the difference, right? Not exactly. “Seasoned interviewers will know whether an interviewee is researching while on the phone; they will take too long to answer the question and punctuate their answers with a lot of ‘ums’ and ‘errs’ as they type. The interviewer can often even hear the typing as they ask the question,” he adds.

12. Nix Long-Winded Answers
“The key to success during a phone interview is clear and concise answers,” says Dardis. “People’s attention spans tend to be shorter over the phone. You don’t want your future employer to lose interest in the conversation.” He recommends practicing answers to questions you know will be asked ahead of time in order to be clear on what you’re going to say. That way, you can prevent rambling before it starts.

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When you sit down for a job interview, it’s perfectly natural to want to know how you’ll be compensated now and in the future. After all, the average job candidate in the United States stays in the job for which they were hired for about four years. After that, it’s time to move up or move on.

But how do you ask about promotions in an interview without making it look like you’re going to move on quickly? Or without coming across like you think you deserve a better job right from the start?

It can be an uncomfortable conversation, but there’s no opting out. In order to choose the opportunity that best fits your career plans, you need to have accurate information about the position. That conversation must involve a glimpse of what promotions and raises might look like if you were to accept a job offer.

Here are three effective questions to help you ask about promotions in an interview without looking presumptuous:

1. Ask, “How do you help good performers grow in this position?”

Companies attract competitive candidates by offering growth opportunities. It’s very likely that the company you’re interviewing with will want to highlight its efforts to help employees grow and evolve through professional development, education, or experience opportunities.

Since “growth” can be a codeword for future promotions, asking this question will give the interviewer an opportunity to talk about people who started out in this position and grew into promotions or raises. If they don’t bring it up, follow up by specifically asking if anyone within the company got started in a similar position.

2. Ask, “Can you tell me how you’d compensate the person in this position if they went above and beyond your expectations?

Start by asking the interviewer to identify what achievements would indicate success in the position. Not only will this give you an idea of what kind of work you’ll be focusing on, but it will also show the interviewer that you understand that each position is part of a bigger picture.

Then, ask what happens if an employee completes all of those milestones and then achieves even more. If it’s a good opportunity, that will naturally lead to a conversation about the company’s compensation structure, including promotions and raises.

3. Say, “Your company culture values X. Can you tell me how that plays out in compensating and promoting employees within your organization?”

Because company culture influences the work you do and how you do it, it also impacts future earnings. Therefore, be on the lookout for culture fit when you interview for a new job. For example, if you’re really good at specialized, individual work, but you’re interviewing with a company that values teamwork above all else, there might be a fundamental mismatch. if the company flat-out says it values one skill over another, it’s not going to invest promotions and raises in someone with those unvalued skills.

As you learn more about the company, ask follow-up questions to see how the company’s culture impacts compensation and promotion. This question, in particular, will give the interviewer a chance to share examples of skills they value and how they have compensated and promoted individuals with those skills in the past.

Don’t shy away from a conversation about promotions and raises in an interview. It’s important information you need to be able to make an informed decision. But remember: no matter how strategically you ask about promotions in an interview, no promotion is guaranteed. Once you get the job, use these tips to set yourself up to get those promotions.

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When it comes to creating a supportive work culture, we all have a role to play.

The concept of workplace wellness is nothing new. These days, countless employers big and small tout their commitment to supporting their employees’ personal needs, usually through benefits packages and other health initiatives. Less discussed are the actual issues these programs seek to address—and in particular, mental health in the workplace tends to get the short end of the stick.

Even in our age of radical transparency, there’s an overwhelming sense of hesitance around discussing mental health at work out of fear that divulging a mental health issue could have a negative effect on overall job security.

But by the same token, mental health issues like anxiety and major depressive disorder are far from unusual. According to a Monster survey:

31% of US respondents have experienced anxiety because of their job
15% experienced depression because of their job
36% of women reported anxiety
26% of men reported anxiety
11% of women have experienced loneliness
17% of women have had physical ailments such as headaches because of their job
Wondering where to find support? Let’s dig a little deeper into mental health in the workplace.

Know Where to Turn
As the CDC notes, poor mental health can have a marked negative impact on factors like job performance, productivity, and relationships with one’s colleagues. But in terms of accessing the right resources to address mental illness in the workplace, it’s not always so easy to know where to start.

Some people might feel more comfortable talking to their manager or another supervisor rather than going straight to HR. But maybe it’s the exact opposite for you. What’s important is that you reach out to let someone know how you are feeling.

Of course, it’s also worth exploring your job’s benefits program and Employee Assistance Plans (or EAPs), which seek to address personal issues that can have an impact on job performance. While resources will vary from one employer to the next, many are placing an increased focus on mental health—particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. As an increasing reliance on remote teams blurred the line between work and personal life, more employers started offering mental health resources in the form of apps, videos, and webinars.

Additionally, take a moment to familiarize yourself with your rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. This law prevents employers from discriminating against job seekers with mental illnesses, and also includes rules stating companies must provide “reasonable accommodations” to employees protected under the act. If you suspect you’re being discriminated against at work due to a mental health issue, get in touch with an attorney specializing in employment laws like the ADA.

Create a Supportive Work Environment
When it comes to looking after your own mental health, there are countless strategies to consider—taking breaks, scheduling time off for mental health days at work, and knowing when to ask for help are all great, small ways of helping ensure your needs don’t get short shrift.

But supporting your colleagues is an equally important part of the equation. Check in with your coworkers to see how they’re doing, and give them a chance to respond in an authentic way. While it can be difficult or awkward to talk about mental health in the workplace, everyone plays a role in creating an environment that’s warm and supportive, not casually dismissive.

Company leadership should let employees know it’s okay to discuss mental health issues at work. An organization that provides resources and benefits that address the well-being of employees is a great sign of a supportive work environment. That includes regular reminders of how to access support as well as allowing for time off when it’s needed.

Your Wellbeing Is Essential to Your Career
Talking about mental health in the workplace is something that still needs to be normalized.

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From an employer’s perspective, bonuses are often preferable to raises because they’re generally a self-limiting cost. A company can give out bonuses when it has a year of strong sales, and halt that practice during a year in which sales drop. Raises, by contrast, are generally riskier, because once workers get a boost, companies are essentially locked into paying them more for as long as they remain employed.

Even if a given business decides not to give raises in future years, that business is still required to keep up with preexisting salaries. Furthermore, because certain benefits, like 401(k) matching dollars, are often tied directly to salary, increasing set compensation can cost companies in other ways. But while bonuses may be the safer bet for employers, that doesn’t necessarily hold true from a worker’s perspective. And though you’re better off getting a bonus this year than receiving no boost in compensation whatsoever, here are a few reasons you, as an employee, should push for a raise over a bonus.

1. It Could Pave the Way to a Better Salary in the Future
Have you ever been asked, whether during a phone screen or in-person job interview, how much you’re earning or earned in a given role? It’s a question that’s posed all the time*, but when you answer it, you’re supposed to simply talk salary, because bonuses don’t count. Now, imagine you’re planning to apply for a new job next year and currently earn $60,000. If your company decides to boost your salary by $3,000, you’ll get to tell your next company that you’ve been earning $63,000. But if your company hands out that $3,000 in the form of a bonus instead, that extra money won’t help for the purpose of that conversation.

One thing you must understand about salary is that the amount you make today will most likely dictate what you’re able to command in the future. If you let yourself remain content with a bonus in the absence of a much-deserved raise, you could end up limiting your earning potential for the remainder of your career. *Editor’s note: Depending on where you live, this question may be illegal — learn more here. 

2. You May Be More Inclined to Use That Extra Cash Responsibly
We’re all told we’re supposed to save a percentage of our salaries, whether for emergencies or the future. But the so-called rules surrounding bonuses are less clear-cut. After all, if that cash is really extra money, shouldn’t you get to use it for fun purposes rather than feel compelled to save it? Now here’s the thing: If your finances aren’t great, then the answer is a resounding “no.” No, you shouldn’t blow your bonus money on a fancy gadget or vacation if you’re behind on savings. And incidentally, most Americans are.

An estimated 57 percent of U.S. adults have less than $1,000 in the bank, while 39 percent have no near-term savings to show for at all. Most of us aren’t doing too great in terms of retirement savings, either. Households between the ages of 44 to 49 have just $81,347 stashed away for retirement, on average, while those between 50 and 55 have an average savings of $124,831. And while those numbers are far from impressive, what’s even worse is that nearly half of U.S. households have no retirement savings at all. All of this boils down to the following: If you get a salary boost, you’re more likely to use that money responsibly than if it were to come in the form of a bonus. And that’s the sort of pressure most working Americans need.

3. Bonuses Are Taxed Less Favorably
When you earn money as a salaried employee, you eventually get used to losing a certain portion of your paycheck to taxes. Bonuses, however, are taxed differently. In most cases, you’ll lose 25 percent of your bonus right off the bat because that payment will be considered supplemental, and therefore subject to a higher tax rate. But that 25 percent doesn’t account for Social Security and Medicare taxes, not to mention state taxes. Therefore, by the time you receive that check, you may come to find that your bonus has been whittled down to something in the ballpark of 60 percent of its original figure. And while you may receive some of that back when you file your tax return, it means you could end up waiting a year or more to get that missing money.

Obviously, if given the choice between a bonus or nothing this year, it would be prudent to opt for the former. But if you have a good relationship with your employer, it pays to make the case for giving out raises instead of bonuses if the option for both isn’t on the table. It’s a move that could end up paying off not just at present, but many, many years down the line.

This article was originally published on The Motley Fool. It is reprinted with permission.

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Employee compensation can be an emotional subject, especially if you’re the employee. It is often daintily tiptoed around in interviews and loudly complained about in bars. Personally, I’m a firm believer that compensation is a reflection of an employee’s value to a company. As the value goes up, so does pay. When I express these opinions, however, I often get disgruntled rebuttals like “Yeah, right. Corporations have no concept of loyalty,” “Layoffs are completely arbitrary—it doesn’t matter what you’re worth,” and “The only way to get a raise is to change jobs!” Since these complaints are made to me—the CEO of a company that clearly isn’t so callous—it’s obvious that these stereotypes cannot be universal.

Putting aside this irony, though, even if every company in the world were as ruthless and coldblooded as some believe, value and compensation would still be inextricably connected.

Let’s take a look at why this is the case and how you can increase your value as an employee to get paid what you deserve.

What Happens Behind Closed Doors… Let’s be a fly on the wall in that dim, coffin-shaped room where lanky, black-suited business misers drum their spindly fingers together and cackle over that most evil of subjects: layoffs. When they discuss the customer support floor, they decide they need to lay off one person, and gradually narrow the options down to two employees:

Option 1: “Bill” is an old-and-true company standby. He’s worked at the company for 20 years and has been completely faithful to his job expectations. He clocks in and out on time and delivers his customer support perfectly on script. As a result, he’s accumulated a number of raises over the years and now makes $20 an hour.

Option 2: “Shelly” has only worked in customer support for 5 years but has obtained advanced technical certifications, has an excellent interpersonal manner, and routinely turns upset customers into loyal patrons. Clients who get support from her are 30% more likely to purchase additional services and to refer friends. She talks off script a fair amount but keeps track of what she says and how customers react. As a result, she has submitted many helpful modifications to the basic IT script, resulting in a 10% increase in customer satisfaction for the whole floor.

Due to her high performance, Shelly also makes $20 per hour. Which one gets the boot? It’s Bill without question. The company is actually losing money on Bill. If they fired him, a new employee would work for only $12/hour and could read the script just as skillfully as him within 2 weeks. If Shelly were fired, however, the company would lose out on a major source of sales, referrals, customer satisfaction, and an internal system for improving the whole department—they can’t afford to lose her!

Value is Not the Same Thing as “Years on the Job” But what about faithful old Bill? It would be so mean to fire him! Bill’s problem is that he hasn’t really done anything to justify his increased wages. Small raises have accumulated on his paycheck like moss on an old river rock, but his real value is still around $12 an hour. However, since Bill has been working at the company for so many years, he probably “feels” like he’s worth $20 an hour. Never mind the fact that he couldn’t get paid $20 an hour at a different company, he’s “put in his time,” so he’s worth $20 an hour, right? Now, I’m not trying to understate the value of experience and wisdom.

Good employees learn and grow over time, so they provide more value for their employer. As a reward, they get raises. The problem is, that those raises are often based on meeting minimum standards for specified periods of time—not the value an employee brings to the table. As a result—when push comes to shove and a company needs to actually evaluate the worth of an employee— “years on the job” mean far less to the business than added value.

Businesses Pay for Value To be honest, many employees are confused about what their salaries pay for. When people first enter the workforce as teenagers, they usually start with an hourly wage. The equation is simple: The more you work, the more money you get. Unfortunately, after a couple of years, many people begin to translate time into money and begin to think, “I’ve put in a lot of time at this job, so it stands to reason that I should be making a lot of money! I need a raise!” Allow me to burst that bubble. Value isn’t a function of time. There are 24 hours in a day whether a company pays for them or not—it’s what you do with those hours that counts.

Employees are Business Assets Even for hourly employees; businesses aren’t paying for time—they’re paying for value. To put it simply, an employee is a company asset and compensation is an investment in that asset. Let me explain what I mean. If I were to invest $5,000 in a new asset for my business—say an online marketing account—you might think that it would have to make $5000 in sales to justify the expense.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way. I won’t get too deep into the math of contribution margin, but in short, since my business expenses aren’t just limited to what I spend on marketing, it turns out that the account would have to make me at least 3 times my investment ($15,000) just to break even. If the asset started producing 4 or 5 times more money than I put into it, then it would really be profitable. In fact, I’d be willing to invest more if I knew my payoff would be that good. The same goes for employees.

If I’m going to invest in people, I need to know that having them around will make my company at least 3 what I’m paying them. The more revenue an employee drives for my business, the greater their value and the more I’m happy to pay to have them as an asset. An employee who produces less value, however, loses me money, and—unless they can become more productive—I can’t afford to keep them in the long run.

How to Increase Your Value Now, I think we’ve looked at things like a ruthless businessman for long enough to show why companies care about the value their employees bring to the table. In most real businesses with real, warmhearted people (like I try to be), the same principles are still at play, but the focus is more on encouraging employees to become more valuable than on eliminating dead weight.

In general, this encouragement comes in the form of salary. The more value an employee brings to the table, the more they deserve to be paid. The question then becomes, how do employees increase their value? There are three basic steps: 1) ensure that you’re meeting the basic expectations of your job, 2) you identify areas where you can add more value, and 3) create and execute a plan to exceed expectations!

Step 1: Meeting Expectations Before you start trying to expand your horizons, it’s a good idea to make sure that you’re at least fulfilling the minimum requirements of your role. Of course, it can sometimes be hard to figure out what those requirements are. A recent Gallup poll revealed that up to half of employees don’t really understand what is expected of them at work. Many companies have very little in the way of formal job descriptions.

Others have long lists of tasks and expectations around hiring time, but when you start the job, you find that half the stuff on the list you never do and half the stuff you do isn’t on the list. So, if you’re not what your job expectations really are, the easiest way to get that question answered is to talk to your manager. Have a discussion about what workplace success looks like. You might even ask how your position adds value to the company. This gives you a target for increasing your value later on. If in this discussion, you discover work expectations that you weren’t aware of or that you haven’t been meeting, your first priority should be to start meeting those expectations.

As Gallup’s poll also suggests, you may also find that some managers are just as confused about your role as you are. If this describes your supervisors, then a sit-down conversation is especially important. Defining together what your core responsibilities are will help them to know when you are exceeding expectations.

Step 2: Find Areas to Excel As part of your conversation, you should also determine a list of projects which could add extra value to the company that falls within the scope of your job. It’s important to choose these projects in conjunction with your manager because you need to be sure that when you go above and beyond, it’s in areas that your company finds important. What’s more, you want your extra efforts to be recognized for what they are. It’s helpful at this stage to come up with a way to document your performance. Remember Shelly—how she increased customer satisfaction by 10% and got 30% more referrals than average? These numbers make her value pretty undeniable, but they wouldn’t exist if she or her managers weren’t keeping track of them. If you work in an area like sales, it’s pretty easy to document your performance with hard figures, but for many other jobs, performance is less easy to quantify. Documentation is still important in these cases, but it may look a little different.

Step 3: Make a Plan and Execute It Finally, you need to put everything you’ve learned into action. If your goal is to increase your compensation at work, you can start by deciding how much more you would like to be making. Take your current job expectations and salary as the baseline for what you’re worth to the company. Then realize that for every $1 you hope to get in increased pay, you need to bring in $3-5 to the business for your raise to make sense. Pick from your “above and beyond” list some projects that would add this kind of value to the company. Make a plan to complete these goals in addition to your regular tasks and present the plan to your manager. Trust me, this will go over A LOT better than the old, “I’m getting married so I need a raise” conversation. Your manager may not agree with every detail of your plan, but you will definitely come off as a motivated employee who really gets it. And, even if your managers don’t buy in right away, it will be a great opportunity to discuss their priorities again and work together to come up with a plan that accomplishes things that really matter.

Don’t skip this important conversation. I’d hate to get a comment on this article saying, “I wasted six months doing what you said only to find out that nobody cared about my contribution.” If you haven’t figured it out by now, communication with your superiors is going to be a critical part of this whole process. Unfortunately, business plans are rarely static and you may have to chase a moving target, but if you’re willing to be flexible, you should be able to keep moving forward toward your goals.

Reaching Your Goals Now, I know you’re probably thinking, “This all sounds great, Jacob, but it also sounds a little too ideal. It would never work at my business.” Maybe not. I can’t predict every circumstance and there’s a chance that yours is an exception. But isn’t it worth a try? The relationship between employee value and compensation holds just as true in “big ruthless corporations” as it does in more supportive ones.

For example, one of my employees recently related to me his experience at a prior company. This was one of those stingier jobs and had a high turnover rate for entry-level employees. However, he applied the principles I’ve described. He developed a number of specialized skills and got deeply involved in some really important projects. The miserly company was happy to be getting more out of him for the same pay…until the day he started looking at taking his skills elsewhere. His value was so great by then that the company would be set back months or years if he left, so when he suggested that he would need a 40% pay increase to stay, they felt like it was a worthwhile investment.

Despite the money-grubbing attitude of this company, he was providing so much value that he had become an asset they couldn’t afford to lose. As a result, he was able to negotiate a much better situation for himself.

Conclusion The moral of the story? If you feel that you deserve a raise, don’t get drunk and holler about it every Friday night. Take inventory of your worth, talk with your managers and start working to become a more valuable asset. Jacob Baadsgaard is the Founder & CEO of Disruptive Advertising and a passionate entrepreneur on a mission to help businesses achieve online marketing success. 

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