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What's Your Career IQ?
The stuff that quietly decides your salary — do you actually know it?
Nobody hands you a manual for your career. The result is that smart, hardworking people leave real money and real opportunities on the table simply because they never learned the unwritten rules. This quiz turns those rules into a quick, no-pressure game.
Twelve questions on salaries, negotiation, resumes, and how the job market actually works — each with a short explanation, so you finish a little sharper than you started.
- When is your negotiating power usually highest?
- After your first month
- Right after you get the written offer, before signing
- At your first performance review
- Never — salaries are fixed
- A recruiter asks your current salary. Often the strongest move is to…
- Always answer immediately and exactly
- Share your target range or redirect to the role's budget
- Inflate it heavily
- Refuse to speak to them again
- On a resume, bullet points work best when they…
- List your daily duties
- Show results with numbers (impact, %, $)
- Are as long as possible
- Use the most jargon
- Roughly how long do recruiters often spend on a first resume scan?
- A few seconds
- About 10 minutes
- A full hour
- They read every word twice
- What usually grows your salary the most over a career?
- Annual raises at one company
- Strategic job changes and promotions
- Working unpaid overtime
- Waiting to be noticed
- 'Total compensation' includes…
- Only base salary
- Base plus bonus, equity, and benefits
- Just your bonus
- Your salary minus tax
- The best time to update your resume is…
- Only when you're desperate to leave
- A little, regularly — even when happy
- Never, once it's done
- Only after you're laid off
- In a job interview, asking thoughtful questions of your own…
- Looks like you're unprepared
- Signals genuine interest and judgement
- Should be avoided
- Is only for senior roles
- A strong professional network mostly helps because…
- It guarantees a job
- Many roles are filled through referrals before being posted
- It replaces having skills
- It looks good online
- 'Imposter syndrome' is…
- Proof you're underqualified
- A common feeling of self-doubt even among capable people
- A medical disqualification
- Only felt by beginners
- When you get a raise, lifestyle inflation is…
- Smart — you earned it
- The risk of spending the whole raise so nothing is saved
- A type of tax
- Impossible to avoid
- A counteroffer from your current employer when you try to leave is…
- Always the best choice to accept
- Worth weighing carefully — it doesn't fix why you wanted to go
- Illegal
- A guarantee of promotion
Good to know
Do the rules vary by country?
Some do — especially around salary-history questions and contracts. Treat this as general insight and check the norms and laws where you live.
Is this career advice?
It's educational entertainment, not personalized advice. For big career decisions, talk to people who know your field and situation.