Hello everyone.  Today’s post is from Anum over at Current on Currency.  Enjoy!

 

While there seems to be a long-standing tradition of embellishing résumés, there is a fine line between that and lying during interviews. Making false or misleading statements may be one thing, but omitting important facts can be just as dishonest.

The root of the problem goes back to the competitive nature of job seeking in general and assuming that if “everyone else is doing it” to level the playing field, it must be okay.

This way of thinking is particularly evident in college graduates as a recent study suggests, but continues to be reinforced and even practiced in the later stages of one’s career when salary becomes an essential talking point.

A Stronger Focus on Screening Procedures

The rise of embellishments has led to increasingly comprehensive screening procedures, and employers are taking a closer look at the résumés they receive, according to new findings from CareerBuilder.

The survey involving 2,188 hiring managers and human resource professionals revealed that 42 percent of employers spend longer reviewing applications than they did previously, and 86 percent of employers now appoint the task to more than one employee before reaching a final decision.

The Importance of Discussing Payment

For most, there is nothing more daunting than discussing payment with someone who has the ability to make potentially life-changing decisions, but avoiding the subject could cost you $500,000 over the long term.

It’s therefore in your best interest to provide accurate facts and figures concerning your salary history on paper so that if you’re asked any follow-up questions in an interview-type setting, you’ll be able to do so without hesitation.

 Navigating Payment Negotiations

Ultimately, HR managers and recruiters are looking at past salaries to gauge who will be more or less receptive to an offer of payment, and this puts candidates in an unfortunate bargaining position for fear of leaving money on the table.

Often the best thing you can do in this situation is reframe any direct questions about your previous earnings and state your expectations using broader terminology. For example, try to answer with:

 

• I’d like to keep that information confidential, but I’m looking for…

 

• My previous employers consider that information confidential; however, I’m seeking…

 

• I only share that information with my accountant, but ideally I’d like…

 

Another tip is to use active language for both your speaking and resume. Discussing your previous experience using active language will highlight the active role you played in your company’s culture. This is attractive to employers for future hires.

Fortunately, there is a wealth of information regarding salary negotiation tips designed to help job seekers land the interview and prepare them for landing the job.

The Role of the Verification Process

Salaries are used to determine value, and a prospective employer is well within their rights to conduct a verification process that includes requesting to view a recent pay stub or W-2.

Depending on the company, this process may be implemented after you’ve been handed the job as a formality, and if you have lied about your salary history or position, the offer could be rescinded as a direct result.

A Preferred Alternative to Outright Lying

The question then isn’t so much whether or not it’s okay to lie about your salary history, but whether there’s any real benefit to doing so.

Keep in mind that professional employer-employee relationships are founded on trust, and if you’re caught in a lie, expect there to be consequences, as rarely are there any second chances.

This is not to say that you can’t embellish certain things to present yourself in the best possible light, just that your past earnings shouldn’t be one of them. You’re far better off padding your CV with regard to the tangible skills you have developed over the course of your career.

 

Anum Yoon started and maintains her personal finance blog, Current on Currency. Sign up for her weekly newsletter to read about her financial journey and perspectives on money management, frugal living, and financial trends.

 

I read somewhere once that the those times when your income gets supercharged is what really creates the opportunities for wealth.  This could be getting a higher paying job with better education, having a side business take off or just getting a nice raise.  If things seem stagnant, it’s always worth it to test the market and see what you’re worth to others.  You may be surprised by what you find, and it may be the opportunity you need to turn your financial life around.  Being smart with new found money and putting it to good use will allow you to reach your financial goals much faster.

Here are some great articles you can put to good use by reading them and applying their principles:

–How to Make Six Figures Before Thirty by The Broke and Beautiful Life:  Interesting take on a “non traditional” way to earn six figures early on.  Most people think of doctors, engineers or stock brokers as people that can make six figures before their 30’s, but a skilled tradesman with some business acumen can sometimes do just as well.

–Where to Start Investing When You’re Broke by The Broke and Beautiful Life:  Rare it is when I feature 2 articles from the same website, but Stefanie hits it out of the park again with this one.  This is something I’ve been looking into myself as I’ve heard many people say they would like to invest but the barrier of entry is too high.

–Negotiate Your Way to Savings by Club Thrifty:  Most companies we deal with on a regular basis, such as utility and insurance companies, will try to make you think that their rate is the only one available.  But everything is negotiable.  And the worst case scenario, they say no and you move on with your life.

–Freedom> Money> Stuff by Budgets are Sexy:  Wise words to remember.  Freedom is the ultimate name of the game, and it can’t be bought with lots of stuff.

The NFL just keeps on surprising doesn’t it?  After a crazy exciting Super Bowl, things calmed down for a bit before the free agent frenzy started.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many key players changing teams.  Most surprising is Jimmy Graham going to Seattle.  This makes the Seattle offense look incredible on paper, but we’ll see how he fits in.  The Philadelphia Eagles experiment also looks interesting, especially me being a fan of the Giants who will have to face them twice a year.  Chip Kelly looks like a mad scientist right now.  Here are a couple (literally just a couple) of mad interesting articles I read this week:

 

-The Seven Deadly Sins of Personal Finance by Wealth Gospel:  Personal finance has so many layers, including moral and psychological.  Good read on what traditional sins can look like in personal finance.

–Stock Picking is Almost Always a Losing Game by Cash Cow Couple:  One of the most thorough posts I’ve read showing why picking individual stocks is a losing game.  A select few guess right.  But most don’t.

 

 

Greetings.  So even though I have been blogging for over a year now, I never really settled on a posting schedule.  For a while I tried to do 3 times a week, then 2, then back to 3.  With my responsibilities working as an eye doctor, at home as a dad and husband and doing freelance writing on the side, I’ve decided on posting once a week with a roundup post thrown in the mix.  It’s all about balance and I think this will give me the ability to write a quality post once a week while keeping sane!

Here are some insanely good articles I came across this week:

–Alternative Ways to Save for College by Budget Blonde:  I recently wrote about why i choose to invest in a 529 plan, but Cat has some other good suggestions. Some people advocate not saving anything for college but just to focus on retirement.  Everybody is different but I feel saving something for college gives the kids a nice head start.

–My name is Jeremy and This is How I Retired in My 30’s by Budgets Are Sexy:  An inspiring guest post from Jeremy who was able to “retire” with his wife while in their 30’s.  Shows how far a great savings rate can take you.

–Why You Should Save for Your Child’s Education…And Why You Shouldn’t by Wealth Gospel:  Nice post giving some pros and cons of contributing to your child’s college education.  I’m firmly on the pro side but there is no one right answer on this issue.

I’m still trying to get over that Seahawks/Packers NFC title game.  While I did want the Packers to win because I’m a big Aaron Rodgers fan, but I can’t get mad because Seattle really has that never die attitude and their quarterback Russell Wilson is one of the most likeable guys in the league.  Looking forward to a great Super Bowl, which I’m getting will be better than last year’s beatdown of the Broncos.

As a reminder, the last few days of the $100 Amazon giftcard giveaway are upon us, so make sure you enter today!  And make sure to read those awesome posts and visit their great sites:

–15 Ways to Fight Debt in 2015 by Financially Blonde:  Debt is an epidemic in this country, and in order to fight an epidemic you need a strategy.  These are some great ways to take care of any type of debt you carry.

–Making Progress, Or: Alternatives to the Debt Snowball by Indebted and In Debt:  I’m not a big fan of financial “gurus”.  They all have something to sell.  The debt snowball is a piece of guru advice that is terrible.  It is a guaranteed way to pay more interest and keep yourself in debt longer.  If you can stay motivated by paying off the highest interest rate, you’ll thank yourself in the end.

–How Does Travel Hacking Affect Your Credit? by The Broke and Beautiful Life:  I enjoy taking advantage of a good credit score and credit card sign up bonuses to rack up travel points, aka travel hacking.  This is a very thorough explanation of the affect of credit card churning on one’s credit score.  In short:  if you have a good credit score and pay your bill on time and in full, it’s not going to affect your score in the long run.  It may even help increase it.

–How to Get the Lowest Mortgage Interest Rate Possible by Financial Samurai:  Great post on some ins and outs of refinancing your mortgage.  My mortgage payment is currently my highest monthly bill, which is true for a lot of people.  Makes sense to at least try and shop around to see if you can get a more favorable rate and save money in the long term.

Hope everyone’s New Year’s resolutions are going well.  Mine are surprisingly still going strong thanks to an app I downloaded called HabitRPG.  It essentially tracks your habits and daily activities and when you complete them, you get experience points and gold which you can use to make your character awesome.  If you do bad habits, then your life meter goes down.  Sounds nerdy, and it is.  But it’s been working for me so far.  Here are some other great posts that have worked for me this year:

–It’s Impossible to Stay Retired Once you Retire Early by Financial Samurai:  Early retirement has been a “thing” lately, so it begs the question:  what do you exactly do with your time?  Some people can keep themselves busy, but after years and years I would think that itch comes back.  Sam talks about his experience with retiring early.  Ironic that a lot of people trying to retire early look up to people like Warren Buffet, who is working well into his 80’s.

–Why Counting Calories Doesn’t Work by The Wealth Gospel:  Losing weight is tough.  Period.  Here’s a nice post by Ben about the futility of counting calories and what actually works, and how it relates to budgeting.

–How to Stay Motivated When Using the Debt Avalanche by Frugal Rules:  Paying your debts off from highest to lowest interest rate is bar none the most efficient way to pay off your debt.  This is also known as the Avalanche Method.  Motivation can be an issue for those with lots of debt, but there are ways around that.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas break.  I did, as is evidenced by my lack of blogging lately.  I look to get back on track starting today.  Call it a few days early New Years resolution.  Here are some great posts to get 2015 started right:

–Failing Resolutions in a Rockstar Year by The Broke and Beautiful Life:  A very motivating post by Stefanie going through her goals from 2014 and seeing how she did.  Goal setting and accountability are both necessary for success, and it looks like Stefanie is doing great.

–What Will Your Spending Look Like Next Year? by Young Adult Money:  It’s always a good idea to review your budget and adjust it based on life changes or even value changes.

–3 Simple Ways to Consistently Increase Wealth by Young Adult Money:  The formula for increasing wealth is not difficult to understand:  increase your income/investments and decrease your expenses.  This post provides some easy ways to do just that.

–Why There has Never been a Better Opportunity for Financial Success by 20somethingfinance:  The internet has given us so many opportunities to improve our finances, but there are also so many opportunities to get into financial trouble, credit cards being a big example.

Has anybody else been listening to the Serial podcast?  I finally gave into the hype a few days ago and it’s awesome.  What’s even more interesting for me is that the convicted murderer is my age, ethnicity and just lived a few miles from where I live.  It’s pretty interesting stuff I hope they do it for other cases.  Here’s what I’ve been reading in between Serial:

–My First Investment Dollar by Fit is the New Poor:  Very easy to read and insightful look at using Lending Club.

–Bringing Positivity to Retirement Savings by Stefanie O’Connell:  Many people have very little saved for retirement, and that seems to be increasing as time goes on.  A re-framing of traditional retirement might be in order.

–3 Financial Things to Do before the End of the Year by Eyes on the Dollar:  2015 is just around the corner and there is no better time for a fresh financial start.  I plan to use 2015 as the year to simplify my financial life by consolidating some of my accounts and having a solid cash back credit card to fall back on.

–An Interview with a Lyft and Uber Driver by making Sense of Cents:  This is an informative interview about being a driver for Uber or Lyft.

Though it hasn’t seemed like it on the blog, it’s been a busy week of writing for me.  I’ve been doing some freelancing lately and I’m really enjoying it (Shout out to Cat for her great guidance.)  I would like to keep up with the blog a little more though, so I may scale back on the freelancing a bit.  Though it’s nice to finally be making some monies!  Here are some great posts I read from this past week.  Also thanks to Cat once again for allowing me to guest post on Budget Blonde.  Check out my post titled “How an Emergency Fund Saved My Family”

–Do I Regret Deleting My Facebook? By Frugaling:  Sam did something we all dream of at some point, and that is delete our Facebook account.  This may be the conspiracy theorist coming out, but are our accounts ever really deleted?  We know that the government works closely with FB and Google, so I’m sure everything is stored somewhere.

–5 Things I hate Spending Money on by The Daily Whisk:  Some expenses are necessary and actually worth it.  Some aren’t.  Like “convenience fees”.  I hate that term.

–Side hustles that suck: ebay by Student Debt Survivor:  Ebay is a very polarizing place, as some people hate it and some love it.  As this post says, and I agree, you really have to sell the right things to see some profit from ebay.

–What’s Your Sacred Cow? by Financially Blond:  I first read this as SCARED cow and was confused for a bit.  But then it made sense.  It’s true we all have parts of our budget that are so important to us that we will never touch them.  The best thing is to start with what’s not sacred and try to work on that.

It’s been a while since I was able to post a link round up so this is long overdue.  It’s been a crazy few weeks with a lot going on at work, hearing about my high school classmate passing away from leukemia and a busy time on the religious calendar as well.  I should be able to get back to my regularly scheduled posting.  Here are some great posts I read this past week:

-Relative Materialism: Redefining Need by The Broke and Beautiful Life:  Very eye opening post about how our possessions somehow seem to grow and grow as time goes on.

–Should You Wait to Tell Your Children They’re Rich by Catherine Alford:  Great post on if and when you should tell your kids how much wealth you have.

–Money Advice I Would Tell My Younger Self by Making Sense of Cents:  I’m sure we all wish we could go back in time and punch our younger selves in the face or something of that nature.  Here are some more milder pieces of advice to give your younger self.

–Overheard at the Coffee Shop by Budgets Are Sexy:  A series of funny (and not so funny) conversations overheard at the coffee shop.  Funny stuff.

–Do You Have the Right Money Mindset to Get Rich? by Financial Samurai:  Great summary about what it takes to be wealthy without trying to win the lottery.

–Open Enrollment Deserves Your Full Attention.  Here’s why by 20somethingfinance:  Open enrollment season is upon us, and it’s a time to review your benefits and make sure you’re taking full advantage of them.  If not, you’re just giving money back to your company.