Where do you start with information to: Maximize Your Lifetime Income Potential?
Pick Your Career Wisely for Income Potential
Some jobs just pay more than others. If money is important to you, select a career that will pay you what you want to earn. Or, realize that you will have to do something extraordinary to make good money in the career of your choice. You can also moonlight, work a second part time job, freelance, or start your own business. Again, the money you will make during your work career is up to you.
Take a look at these salary calculators to figure out your income potential in various careers. The Economic Research Institute Salary Calculator will even help you figure out lifetime salary potential for jobs.
Obtain the Requisite Degrees and Credentials
People with degrees tend to make more money working in their field than people who do not have degrees. The lifetime gain in income can be significant. As an example, a person with a bachelors degree in business will earn an additional $349,028 and an engineering degree can bring an employee an extra $500,000. The associates degree brings a huge bump over a high school diploma.
Need convincing? At MSN Money, Liz Pulliam Weston offers convincing information from census records that lifetime income increases with degrees. In addition, according to: The Benefits of Graduate Education, "The lifetime income differentials are magnified when computed over a 40-year career (from ages 25 to 64). Master's degree recipients will earn $2.5 million in their lifetime. Lifetime earnings of holders of professional degrees, at over $4.4 million, are well above that for any other group." (Source: Educational Attainment in the United States, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, May 2004.)
Develop Your Career Path With Care for Income Potential
To earn the best salary, if you take a job with one employer, and stay with that employer, you may not maximize your income potential. The job choices you make can also affect your income. Spend time in line management and manage the work of others to grow your income potential. Or, develop a technical skill set that makes you a valued individual achiever.
Ultimately, though, you may need to change departments or employers to earn the highest income. I read recently that an employee who switches companies expects minimally a ten percent increase in salary. Becoming a wanted quantity ups the value of your bargaining chips with your current employer, too.
Take Action to Improve Your Lifetime Income Potential
If you are a quiet, good, hardworking employee who waits for salary increases to be offered by management, you are limiting your lifetime income potential. Actions that you take at work, and over your years of working, seriously impact your income potential.
- Negotiate a potential new employer's initial offer. You may find the offer is not negotiable, but there is little harm in trying - once. You will alienate the employer if you engage in a series of negotiations that escalate your demands as the employer improves your offer. Only about 20 percent of employees negotiate their salary offers or benefits packages. Be one of them to improve lifetime income potential.
- Ask for raises regularly from your manager while you work. Track your accomplishments. Measure the before and after of projects you complete. Demonstrate and point out the value you add to the company's bottom line. Recognize that, despite your best efforts, your employer may have a salary band outside of which he cannot negotiate. Your employer may also have a policy to review salaries annually at a specific time. But, it doesn't hurt to ask; just don't pester.
- Express your career ambitions and the contributions to the company's success you hope to make. Obtain your supervisor's commitment to and help with your career growth and development. You want to be in the succession plan. Every company has a superior employee list - trust me - and you want to be on it to maximize your income potential.
Use these ideas to ensure that you earn the amount of money you want over your lifetime of working. You can maximize your lifetime earning potential. You need to choose to do so; these ideas will help.
Please don’t mistake this article for social commentary about how the world “ought to” value jobs and money; this specific article is about the money. Go get yours. Remember, you're worth it.
Where do you start to: Maximize Your Lifetime Income Potential?
This article is one of the "stops" on the Virtual Amazing Race, a lesson plan suitable for grades 5 and up. Students gather research in a webquest of around-the-world topics and (optionally) create a Web site Using PowerPoint.
