Job boards like Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com and DICE allow candidates to provide a salary range for their job search. We recently stumbled upon a candidate who posted theirs. The numbers provided a staggering variance of over nine hundred and seventy-five THOUSAND dollars. Honestly, what kind of thought went into putting that kind of range into a profile? “Based upon my previous experience pumping gas, I think that I’m worth $10.00 per hour. But then again, if the hiring manager has no concept of math, maybe they’ll pay me fifty times that amount…” 

The question that these job boards are asking you is not “How much money would you like to make if the whole time/space continuum ceases to exist and monkeys fly out of my private regions?” They are asking for a range of acceptable pay based upon the reality of your experience, your previous salary, your education and maybe even market conditions and demand for a specific skill. 

I will give you a recruiter’s view of the situation. If I am recruiting for a position paying fair-market salary and you’ve put a salary range that exceeds market salary by over 20%, I am probably going to ignore your resume. Why? Here’s a clue. It’s not because I don’t think that you’re worth the salary that is being offered. It is because I have the distinct impression that you really don’t care about the overall opportunity that I’m contacting you about. All you care about is the money.

I gave a career-day discussion at a local middle school. By a show of hands, I asked the kids if they wanted to make a million dollars. All the hands went up. Then I asked if they still wanted that job if it meant that they could never leave their desk during the working day. Several hands lowered. Then I asked if they still wanted the job if it meant they’d have to do something wrong. A few more hands went down. After a few more make-or-break questions, I asked those kids who still proudly had their hands in the air if they would want the job if it meant that they would actually hurt someone. To my surprise, a few hands remained up. Obviously, these kids had no sense of job satisfaction. Not one asked about the stability of my million-dollar proposition. Nor did they care about the location of the position, the benefits I was offering or the opportunity for advancement. They cared only about the money.

These were kids. What did they know about 401k’s or working conditions or the need to have a long-term stable position to support a family? Nothing. But we’re adults. We have mortgages to pay, mouths to feed and futures to consider. We want to be happy in our jobs and to work for companies that treat us well. If you don’t take all this into consideration when you’re calculating a true salary range for yourself, you’re probably not much better off that the kids who left their hands up when I asked them about accepting one million dollars for the purposes of hurting someone. Unfortunately, the person you’re hurting is yourself.