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Best College Majors for Employment

salaryfor.com — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:04:59 +0000

Not only is getting into the right college important these days, but also choosing the right major is a main factor finding lifelong sustainable and financially rewarding employment. The old saying “do it right the first time, or it isn’t worth doing at all” applies here. A recent study from Georgetown has ranked the top college majors with the lowest unemployment rates for graduates. Part of the reason for the high scores is due to the fact that these programs of study are not a high percentage of the majors that college students are gravitating toward. Nonetheless, it bears keeping in mind that as more students do choose to enter these select fields, the numbers could change based on the basic laws of supply and demand. But for now, these are the top picks for college majors that will have you successfully employed upon graduation and the percentage of unemployed in each field of study:

1. Actuarial Science—0 percent

2. Astronomy and Astrophysics—0 percent

3. Educational Administration and Supervision—0 percent

4. Geological and Geophysical Engineering—0 percent

5. Pharmacology—0 percent

6. School Student Counseling—0 percent

7. Agricultural Economics—1.3 percent

8. Medical Technologies Technicians—1.4 percent

9. Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology—1.6 percent

10. Environmental Engineering, Nursing, and Nuclear Industrial Radiology and Biological

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Companies with best 401K plans

salaryfor.com — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:29:31 +0000

Company Name	Employer contribution	Average employee contribution	Average employer contribution
1. United Airlines (pilot plan)	1,683%	$3,499	$58,901
2. United Airlines (ground employee plan)	511%	$735	$3,758
3. Nucor Corporation	400%	$4,476	$17,900
4. United Airlines (flight attendant plan)	354%	$1,254	$4,442
5. Shelter Mutual Insurance Company	270%	$3,267	$8,822
6. ManTech International Corporation	267%	$1,340	$3,583
7. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local No. 292	231%	$920	$2,127
8. Schindler Elevator Corporation	217%	$1,579	$3,429
9. The Procter & Gamble Company	188%	$2,578	$4,851
10. Brunswick Corporation	166%	$2,346	$3,891
11. Hercules Incorporated	158%	$5,756	$9,088
12. Fulton Financial Corporation	154%	$1,263	$1,948
13. Huntington Bancshares Incorporated	153%	$2,288	$3,497
14. The AES Corporation	151%	$5,774	$8,720
15. Safeco Corporation	139%	$4,532	$6,320
16. McFarland Clinic	137%	$4,062	$5,560
17. Texas EM-I Medical Services	135%	$3,964	$5,344
18. McDonald’s Corporation	131%	$1,099	$1,443
19. Greenwich Capital Markets	127%	$11,558	$14,629
20. AVX Corporation	121%	$4,127	$5,011
21. The Mosaic Company	121%	$7,141	$8,622
22. Constellation Brands, Inc.	120%	$4,967	$5,951
23. Amgen Inc.	116%	$8,169	$9,479
24. HNI Corporation	115%	$2,456	$2,836
25. Mylan Inc.	115%	$4,056	$4,655
26. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.	114%	$2,793	$3,170
27. St. Jude Medical, Inc.	111%	$4,251	$4,720
28. Nike Inc.	111%	$2,896	$3,171
29. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.	108%	$305	$329
30. Central Pacific Financial Corp.	106%	$3,598	$3,819

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Does Your Salary History Really Matter to a Future Employer?

salaryfor.com — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:11:58 +0000

Posted by Kristina Cowan

Your salary history tells an important story of how far you’ve come along a career path, so it’s fitting that a prospective employer might be interested in learning more about your past earnings. Yet it’s unfair to take a salary history at face value, because there are so often back-stories that need explaining.

Career experts say you should be prepared to discuss your salary history with a prospective employer, along with any back-stories. For example, if you changed careers and took a pay cut in the process, you’ll want to share that. Still you don’t want to put yourself at a disadvantage, so it’s important to tailor your approach to the circumstances.

Salary History: Irrelevant, Perhaps, But a Likely Topic During the Interview Process

Talking about your salary history probably won’t be the highlight of interviewing for a new job, but you do need to be prepared to tackle it. Here are a few tips to help get you off to a graceful start.

Your salary history may be irrelevant, but don’t be surprised if the topic arises.

Employers could ask about salary history, but it’s often irrelevant because it doesn’t relate to the job for which you’re applying, the market value for the open position, or what the market will bear, says Barbara Safani, president of New York-based Career Solvers, a career-management firm. But if a prior salary was below market value, you should be prepared to explain—maybe your company was struggling and froze salary increases, or you made a career change and took a pay cut. “Whatever the reason, the job seeker needs to be able to explain past salaries but also articulate what they are looking to be paid in the future based on their current market value,” Safani says.

Joyce Maynard, vice president of HR Xpress, a human-resources firm in Rhode Island, agrees. “What a candidate made before may or may not be relevant to the company or job they are applying for now. An interviewer will ask questions around salary history so the candidate has to be prepared to say, ‘I expect that if there was a salary offer it would be based on the requirements of this job.’”

Be flexible, and don’t forget important back-stories when it comes detailing your salary history.

It’s common for employers to request salary history during the application process, says Laura DeCarlo, president of Career Directors International, a professional association in Melbourne, Fla. DeCarlo recommends adding a line to the end of a cover letter, such as, “During the last several years my compensation has grown into the mid-$80K range. However, I am currently negotiable.”

She points out another potential back-story behind a salary history: changing locations. If you moved from Boston to Florida, for instance, and your pay was nearly cut in half, you need to explain that. It’s also important not to include starting and ending salaries for your past jobs, she notes, because that could limit you.

Focus on your competitive advantages when salary history is discussed.

Salary history comes up, says Dr. Rachelle J. Canter, author of “Make the Right Career Move: 28 Critical Insights and Strategies to Land Your Dream Job,” but it’s best to focus on your competitive advantages (experience and skills that make you valuable) for the job, so “prepare a couple of relevant anecdotes that showcase these competitive advantages, and dazzle the interviewer. Make them want you to increase your leverage in salary and job responsibility negotiations.”

7 Tips for Negotiating Your Salary in a Troubled Economy (PayScale for Yahoo)
Good Example of How to Handle Salary Negotiations (Free Money Finance)
Those Pesky Salary History Requests….. (The Career Channel)
Advice on Salary Histories and Salary Requirements (The Career Doctor blog)

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How to Handle Salary Requirements When Applying for a Job

salaryfor.com — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:24:14 +0000

Posted by Kristina Cowan

Job interviewing is like art: it requires skill, dexterity, and the right tools and environment. Make one wrong move and the result can be disastrous. This is especially true when it comes to discussing salary requirements. As a job-seeker, approaching a conversation with a prospective employer about salary requirements can be tricky.

How soon can you expect an employer to ask you about your salary requirements? Should you ever include salary requirements in a cover letter? How can you pick a salary that doesn’t aim too high or too low?

To find sage answers to these and other basic questions about salary requirements, I tapped several career experts for their wisdom.

The Ins and Outs of Salary Requirements

Question: When interviewing for a new job, what are some basic principles job-seekers should keep in mind about their salary requirements?

Answers: “Salary requirements should be based on the market value for a particular skill set or job … not on the job seeker’s needs or desires,” says Barbara Safani, president of New York-based Career Solvers, a career-management firm. You should be flexible, too, knowing much can transpire during the time when a job is first posted and when it’s filled, she explains. “If a position seems perfect for you, but the salary is lower than you had hoped for, go through the interview process and sell your value to the hiring manager throughout. Once a hiring manager decides that you are the right candidate, they will be more willing to negotiate salary.”

Dr. Rachelle J. Canter, author of “Make the Right Career Move: 28 Critical Insights and Strategies to Land Your Dream Job,” urges job-seekers to focus not just on salary requirements, but on opportunity. To that end, she advises asking yourself some key questions, such as:

Will this job provide you with crucial experiences, skills, and accomplishments that you need to attain your dream job eventually?
Will it fill in critical gaps in your industry or job experience?
Will it give you visibility with an audience you previously were unknown to?

Question: Should job-seekers mention salary requirements in cover letters?

Answer: “No no no-–salary is a way to screen you out (too high or too low), and you want a chance to look over a prospective employer before being eliminated,” Canter explains.

Question: Should job-seekers give an exact salary figure, or a salary range?

Answers: If you have to, give a range for your salary requirements, Canter says, but try to stay focused on whether the job is the right fit.”Once an employer falls in love with you, your negotiating power increases exponentially,” she says.

Safani also recommends a range instead of a specific number, because it gives you wiggle room once you get to the salary negotiation stage.

Question: How soon during the interviewing process can a job-seeker expect the salary requirement conversation to come up?

Answer: It could arise as soon as the first interview, so you need to know your competitive market value before you start interviewing, Safani says. You can try deferring the conversation by saying you’d like to learn more about the job, so you can gauge whether it’s a good match before rolling out your salary requirements. If an employer presses you for a “ballpark figure,” ask for the salary range of the job, Safani says; if they won’t divulge it, say based on your research, you’ve found that pay for such positions is “between X and Y,” and ask if that’s consistent with their range.

Question: How do you determine what your salary requirements should be, so you’re not aiming too high or low?

Answer: “Job seekers should benchmark their market value by talking with recruiters and colleagues, researching salary ranges for comparable positions on the job boards, reviewing salary information available through professional associations, and of course reviewing information on PayScale,” according to Safani.

Questions: What if a prospective employer asks to verify your current salary with your current employer? What if this jeopardizes your current position?

Answer: “Until there is an offer on the table, this question should not come up. Once an offer is made, this is considered fair game as part of the due diligence process for some employers,” Safani says. “Job seekers can politely explain that if an offer is extended, they would be willing to have their salary information verified.”

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10 Ways to Make Sure You Are Never Unemployed

salaryfor.com — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:53:26 +0000

1. Continue Learning Take advantage of opportunities for training both within your company and outside.

2. Keep Current with Technology Look at job postings in your field to see what technology skills are currently being sought after and stay abreast of these areas.

3. Dress for Success. Always dress for the next job above yours but keep it conservative and don’t try to outdo your boss.

4. Be Diversity Friendly Show that you are comfortable in working with people from all backgrounds and that our differences are what makes us unique and strong.

5. Have a Mentor Stay close and solicit operational feedback from one or more key people in the organization who can give guidance to your career.

6. Welcome Feedback. Do not fear feedback but rather embrace it as a way to look objectively at your performance and strategize ways for improvement.

7. Find Your Path Look around you to see what areas in the company provide a conduit for growth and steer clear of the ones that seem to be deadends.

8. Stay Flexible Take on additional responsibilities and make yourself valuable to different departments by expanding your role wherever possible.

9. Offer to help Take opportunities to help your boss with special projects even if it doesn’t mean immediate financial reward. It will pay off in the long run with patience.

10. Join Professional Groups Look for opportunities to connect with others in your field through professional organizations or local and online community groups. This provides a great way to meet others in your field and establish future networking bonds.

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Making Your Resume “Findable”

salaryfor.com — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:21:09 +0000

One of the many missed opportunities when writing a resume is leaving out the key words that help it to get found. Many people don’t realize that their resume goes into an electronic database where it competes with thousands of other resumes for visibility. By looking carefully at the job description, you can choose key words and insert them into your resume so that the HR search bots will “pull” your resume for review by a human.

Remember to include key words that are relevant to your experience. Don’t fall victim to the temptation to just pull and place words so that you will be found. Keep in mind, that you will be asked to back up your job experience in an interview and you don’t want the hiring manager’s BS meter to go off.

This approach will take more time at first, but if you are looking for work in a specific area, chances are your updated resume will have the right “key” words for many job postings.

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100 Best Companies to Work for in US

salaryfor.com — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:09:14 +0000

The list of best companies to work for in 2011 is now out. Fortune has compiled the best scoring companies based on ratings from the most credible source possible; the employees. Many of the companies on the list are familiar names, appearing year after year. But there are a few new names this year also. Some of the categories considered in ranking them are salary, perks and quality of life as it relates to job satisfaction, happiness with management and good working relationships with coworkers.

Rank	Company	Growth	Employees
1	SAS	3%	5,629
2	Boston Consulting Group	2%	1,713
3	Wegmans Food Markets	6%	39,255
4	Google	N.A.	N.A.
5	NetApp	9%	5,455
6	Zappos.com	37%	1,843
7	Camden Property Trust	0%	1,719
8	Nugget Market	-2%	1,240
9	Recreational Equipment (REI)	-1%	9,380
10	DreamWorks Animation SKG	10%	1,994
11	Edward Jones	2%	35,987
12	Scottrade	19%	2,884
13	Alston & Bird	-12%	1,611
14	Robert W. Baird	5%	2,406
15	Mercedes-Benz USA	-3%	1,657
16	JM Family Enterprises	-2%	3,688
17	USAA	-1%	21,889
18	Stew Leonard’s	-7%	1,991
19	The Methodist Hospital System	2%	11,298
20	Cisco	3%	36,612
21	Container Store	-3%	3,338
22	DPR Construction	-7%	1,073
23	Goldman Sachs	7%	13,154
24	Whole Foods Market	3%	52,915
25	Umpqua Bank	18%	2,154
26	Plante & Moran	-4%	1,478
27	CHG Healthcare Services	-5%	1,124
28	Bingham McCutchen	7%	1,607
29	Quicken Loans	4%	3,179
30	NuStar Energy	4%	1,419
31	W. L. Gore & Associates	1%	5,770
32	Chesapeake Energy	10%	8,529
33	Qualcomm	2%	12,520
34	QuikTrip	5%	10,936
35	Genentech	3%	11,464
36	Southern Ohio Medical Center	18%	2,276
37	Scripps Health	5%	11,847
38	PCL Construction	-4%	1,323
39	American Fidelity Assurance	-1%	1,495
40	Balfour Beatty Construction	37%	2,079
41	Devon Energy	-10%	3,508
42	Baptist Health South Florida	5%	12,249
43	Shared Technologies	-3%	1,192
44	Intuit	-3%	6,475
45	TDIndustries	-11%	1,429
46	Johnson Financial Group	-4%	1,259
47	Novo Nordisk	-1%	3,340
48	Build-A-Bear Workshop	-7%	4,250
49	American Express	-3%	26,329
50	Baker Donelson	1%	1,127
51	Intel	-1%	42,694
52	Salesforce.com	15%	2,725
53	Four Seasons Hotels	N.A.	11,729
54	Atlantic Health	5%	7,418
55	Perkins Coie	2%	1,726
56	Millennium: The Takeda Oncology	11%	1,269
57	Aflac	0%	4,400
58	General Mills	1%	16,803
59	Hasbro	-4%	3,055
60	Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta	-1%	6,521
61	Mayo Clinic	-1%	41,068
62	OhioHealth	4%	12,529
63	Deloitte	-1%	38,493
64	FactSet Research Systems	3%	1,355
65	Adobe Systems	18%	4,788
66	EOG Resources	5%	1,811
67	Publix Super Markets	-1%	141,217
68	Stryker	-2%	8,389
69	Mattel	-2%	5,161
70	S.C. Johnson & Son	-1%	3,310
71	Marriott International	-4%	106,280
72	Microsoft	-4%	53,410
73	PricewaterhouseCoopers	-4%	28,168
74	Nordstrom	19%	49,447
75	Arkansas Children’s Hospital	2%	3,776
76	Gilbane	-9%	1,761
77	Ernst & Young	-7%	23,102
78	SRC/SRCTec	9%	1,054
79	National Instruments	-1%	2,545
80	St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital	-1%	3,557
81	CarMax	3%	13,436
82	Teach For America	10%	1,236
83	Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants	6%	6,735
84	Bright Horizons Family Solutions	-4%	13,737
85	Booz Allen Hamilton	9%	23,294
86	KPMG	-5%	19,892
87	Men’s Wearhouse	-1%	14,548
88	Meridian Health	-8%	8,004
89	Brocade Communications Systems	8%	3,112
90	CH2M Hill	-12%	13,486
91	The Everett Clinic	4%	1,633
92	Rackspace Hosting	14%	2,405
93	J. M. Smucker	-4%	4,157
94	Aéropostale	7%	16,589
95	Morningstar	14%	1,224
96	MITRE	2%	6,686
97	Darden Restaurants	21%	167,537
98	Starbucks	-5%	103,425
99	Accenture	4%	31,000
100	W. W. Grainger	-3%	13,699

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Internships: Top Companies Hiring

salaryfor.com — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:50:08 +0000

Looking for a competitive internship? Now is the time, as employers are spending the holidays reviewing candidates for January’s internship interviews. Guarantee yourself a competitive internship, by joining your choice of 11 all-inclusive internship programs and spend next summer in the most elite city in your field.

To be considered in the first round of hiring in 2011, apply by December 30 at SummerInternships.com and begin working with an internship coordinator who will give you first-access to thousands of high-quality internships.

Featured Companies Hiring in January:

Fashion: Chanel, Gucci Group, BCBG, Betsey Johnson, Isaac Mizrahi, Dolce & Gabbana
Public Relations: Ruder Finn, Rogers & Cowan, MWW Group, Crosby Volmer
Finance: Merrill Lynch UBS, Citi – Smith Barney, Wells Fargo, AXA Advisors
Television: CBS Television, Dick Clark Productions, CNN, BET, Comedy Central, C-Span
Music: Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Bad Boy Entertainment, Sony
Event Planning: The Four Seasons, IMG, Backstage Creations, SBE Entertainment
Non-Profit: Make-A-Wish, Save Darfur, Environment America
Political: Democratic Governors Association, College Republican National Committee, Congress
Advertising: Edelman, Hill & Knowlton, Ogilvy, Gameplan Creative
Film: Lion’s Gate, Paramount Pictures, NBC Universal, 20th Century Fox
Sports, Legal, Marketing, Publishing, and more…

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