Bid Me Up, Scotty

I can’t imagine that you don’t know eBay. Unlike that “great garage sale in the sky” called Craigslist — where everything is at a fixed price — most items offered on eBay go for the price for which someone is willing to pay and someone else is willing to sell: no more and no less. It is exactly what something is “worth” at that exact moment of the sale.

If you were to put your professional services to bid on eBay, what would they fetch? What is the demand for what you do, and why should your job sell for more or less than someone else’s? Knowing the range of your professional value is the same as knowing where to start the bidding on that vintage Barbie® or GI Joe® you’re offering on eBay. You did some background research. For the 12 inch “action figure” you saw what others were going for that are in the same condition. For your job, you checked salary surveys and asked your professional colleagues.

Knowing this is important, because sometime sooner or later you will be on eBay. Yup. Sometime in the interview process someone, probably your future employer, will announce the starting bid. You need to ask yourself, “Is what I do worth that much? Am I worth more, or should I go for the ‘buy it now’ price?”