KACHARAGADLA

You’ve landed an interview for your dream job. While you may need to rehearse your answers to  interview questions  and brush up on your knowledge of the potential employer, you must also make one crucial decision: What to wear?! You may have heard the traditional advice to only wear black or navy to a job interview, but times have changed. In fact, there are very few hard and fast rules. “Black, navy, or gray are often ‘safe’ colors, but if that’s not who you are at work, it’s a lie to dress like someone you’re not,” says Darcy Eikenberg, executive coach, founder of  Red Cape Revolution  and author of  Bring Your Superpowers to Work: Your Guide to More Clarity, Confidence and Control . “Rather than sticking with safe colors, you should always wear something that fits you well, that you’re comfortable in, and that reflects your natural style and personality.” While a navy suit may not be the best fit for every job interview, selecting your outfit—and its color—is still an impor

You can negotiate a job offer, and I hope you do. The negotiation doesn’t start when you get the job offer, though – it starts much earlier, when you first bring up the salary topic during the interview process. You’ve got to have a salary target in mind when you start a job search. That means you’ve got to know what you’re worth on the talent market, not in a general way but specifically based on your background and your geography. Use  Payscale ,  Salary  and  Glassdoor  to gauge your going rate on the talent market.  All three sites are free, but you’ll have to fill in a bunch of fields with personal data to get the personalized salary G2 you need. In a job search, you’ve got to price yourself like a house. Imagine going to look at a house for sale — you like the house, but there’s no asking price. The owner is puttering in the garden when you visit, and you ask her, “What do you want for the house?” She says “Make me an offer.” You’re going to make a lowball offer, of cou