Dear Rachel,
Good advice in your column last week on how to get a raise after you've low-balled yourself into a job. But how do you go about not low-balling yourself into a job in the first place? What's your advice to a person who is negotiating for a position?-- Just Curious in Baltimore

Dear Just Curious,
To keep from being low-balled on a job offer, you need to know three things.

First, you need to know the going salary for your job in that market.

Say it's $50,000. That is for someone already in a position.

You can assume a hiring premium. By that I mean an employer knows that to hire someone in that position it will likely mean paying a bit over that. That premium is what it will cost to induce someone to leave an existing position elsewhere to fill that position the agency has open. 

Do you know what the going salary is in Baltimore for the position you're interested in? If not, find out by talking around.

Next you need to know the level of demand in your market. That tells you how much an employer will be willing to pay to get you to take the job he or she is offering.

If demand is weak, that means lots of people are on the street competing for that same job, so the employer has lots of negotiating room.

Never mind that those people may not be especially qualified. The employer still has the upper hand. As far as you, the prospective candidate, know, some or all of those people may also be in consideration.

Also, if demand is weak, business is not likely to be all that great, and the employer is more likely to have the flexibility to hold off hiring until he finds just the right person.

He'll be more inclined to hire in someone with less experience at a lower salary, assuming that person will grow into the job.

During boom times, that's less often the case. Employers must get the work out, and they're far quicker to pay top dollar for people who can get that work done, damn the cost.

If demand is in fact weak, you know you have that much less negotiating room. You have to ask yourself, do you want to take this job, or do you want to wait until the market improves and see what pops up then.

I'm inclined to tell people to hold off if they can.

The third thing you need to know is just what your worth is on the open market. You know what you are making now, and you have a pretty good idea what you can expect in raises if you stay.

The best way to find out whether you can top that figure is to talk to headhunters.

You could be in for a shock. You may learn that you are underpaid, and that may in fact be the case if you've been with your agency a number of years.

But you could just as well learn that you are above the market.

You can do the numbers. Take one, factor in two, and compare that to the third figure, and you'll have a good idea of the salary range in which you should be negotiating.

Good luck. And remember what I always tell people: Don't jump just for the dollars. Take everything into account. Being happy in your work is more important than all the money in the world.