Ask the Expert Dr. Kathleen Wells is a professional career coach and Director of Coaches That Care. She has coached thousands of clients through the stages of successful career development. Resume and Salary Q: I have 5 years experience as a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant (COTA/L), and 3 months experience as an Occupational Therapist (OT). I am having problems finding out what new grad OT's make and wondering how much experience I can add onto that since I do have 5 years experience with another degree but within the same field of work? Also, what are the most current salary surveys the companies use to determine salaries? Erin W. A: Dear Erin, You have a great question here. First on the experience portion. I am assuming you are referring to how you need to put this information in a resume. At the top of your first page should be a section titled PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY. That would read something like this. Professional with over five years experience in occupational therapy. Experience in x, y, and z. Excellent patient care and communication skills or whatever fits for you. Then when you go down into the body of your work experience list the companies or hospitals you worked for and under that your job title. Since you go in reverse chronological order, by the time you get to the job that lists you as an assistant, you should already have set in their mind's eye the impression of the professional occupational therapist that you are. In each job section under your work history be sure to tell them you are good at what you do. So if under this current job you can bullet two or three accomplishments in short sentences, then they will already be "hooked" before they even continue down your page. As to the salary question, you didn't give me the area in which you live so it's hard to be terribly accurate. Go to BlueSuitMom's salary database or to www.salary.com and check out their information. You can give them your occupation and location and get a reasonable estimate. If you run a search on the Internet for "salary information," you will get numerous such sites that have all kinds of data to help you. Anytime you negotiate for more salary remember to use the accomplishments like you would in the resume. Tell them how good you are and what you can do for them, then let them know what they can do for you. I have never worked for a company that uses salary surveys to set their own salaries unless they were trying to justify a low salary offer. You're better served to find out what local agencies pay for your kind of expertise and then take that to your employer if they are below average. Use examples/accomplishments and tell them you're good. Especially tell them how what you do for them increase their profit margin. Most people don't like to brag on themselves and fail to do this but you must let them know about your abilities. No one else will! Good luck.