Are you ready for a job interview?

According to some experts the holiday season is a great time to look for a job. The question is: Are you ready for the job interview? If not, my column today might help you.

Jeff Taylor and Doug Hardy, authors of the Color of Money Book Club selction for this month, “Monster Careers: Interviewing,” offered some tips to readers whose questions weren’t answered during the online chat we had last week.

For example, one reader asked: “What’s the best way to find out the salary of the position being offered?”

Research the salary range by networking with friends in the profession, Taylor and Hardy say. You can also check out the salary research information on Monster’s Web site, http://www.monster.com/. Click on the link for “Career Advice” and then look for “Salary Center.”

“It’s often best to let the interviewer mention a salary range first, although they usually frame it as a question,” the authors said. “If you know generally how much the job pays, and you’ve determined a range you’re comfortable with, you can throw out a range but make it broad — at least 20 percent around the figure your research has determined is the market rate.”

My column also includes Taylor’s and Hardy’s answers about the “weaknesses question,” how to deal with competition, and why you almost never hear that you didn’t get the job.

A Time to Look Back

If you missed my column this past Sunday, then you missed some noteworthy money matters that I highlighted from this past year. Here are just a few:

# New bankruptcy rules. It’s now harder to declare yourself broke. Under the law that went into effect this year, debtors have to meet a means test to be eligible for Chapter 7.

# Credit reports became free to everybody. It used to be that only residents in seven states could get their credit reports for free.

# Savings rate falls below zero. In October, the Department of Commerce reported a national personal-savings rate of negative 0.7 percent. That means people are spending more than they make by using credit cards, borrowing against the equity in their homes, tapping their savings or selling assets, such as stocks.

Want to catch up on other personal finance events from 2005? Then read “A Busy Year for Fiscal Fitness.”

A Final Rundown on Holiday How To’s

Still got shopping to do but have questions about buying online or encouraging your children to save? Then Don Oldenburg’s column from this past Sunday (“Best of the Holiday Bullhorn”) is a quick read with last-minute holiday advice.

For instance, if you’re still shopping online, be careful, Oldenburg warns. Here are some of his tips:

# Buy only on secure Web sites (the beginning of the site’s address changes to “shttp” or “https” when you’re ordering).
# Make sure online retailers have a name and a physical address.
# Keep documentation of orders (confirmation page or e-mail). Track deliveries (federal law requires orders made by mail, phone or online be shipped by the date promised, or when none’s stated within 30 days — or you can cancel and demand a refund).

Lastly, Oldenburg recommends you visit http://www.staysafeonline.org/ and http://www.onguardonline.gov/ for more on keeping your computer secure.

In a Humbug Mood?

If this time of year puts you in a consumerist funk, then you have got to read Libby Copeland’s take on the shopping as a hunting sport. (“If Not Sublime, Then Silly: Holiday Shoppers Are the Hunter-Gatherers of the American Economy,” Dec. 19)

Shopping is much like hunting, Copeland writes: “Acquisition feels good; desire begets desire. On these Saturdays before Christmas, we start early and go till it’s dark, our arms heavy like we’ve accomplished something, and perhaps we have. Another animal might have collected nuts for the winter. We collect ‘atomic’ clocks and decorative candles.”

Copeland sums the holiday season this way: “Shopping defines the American Christmas, but the real point is that shopping defines America.”

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