Job Title: Human Resources Manager
Name: David Kennely
Where: Tucson, Arizona
Employer: Manufacturer
Years of Experience: 7
Other Relevant Experience: 2 years Customer Service Representative
Education: B.A. in Psychology, Master's Degree in Human Resources Management
Annual Salary: Median Salaries for Human Resources Managers range from $42,000 to $67,000 based on experience.

Like many students, David Kennely entered college without a clear vision of his future career. He had an interest in Psychology Careers and knew he wanted to work with people. After exploring his options he eventually found a career that fit his preferences, allowing him to create balance within the workplace.

Today, David Kennely is a human resources manager who loves his job. In this Salary Story, David explains how human resources management plays a role in maintaining healthy employer-employee relationships within his company. In David’s words, “good human resources is just good business.”

Your salary history tells an important story of how far you've come along a career path, so it's fitting that a prospective employer might be interested in learning more about your past earnings. Yet it's unfair to take a salary history at face value, because there are so often back-stories that need explaining.

Career experts say you should be prepared to discuss your salary history with a prospective employer, along with any back-stories. For example, if you changed careers and took a pay cut in the process, you'll want to share that. Still you don't want to put yourself at a disadvantage, so it's important to tailor your approach to the circumstances.

Job interviewing is like art: it requires skill, dexterity, and the right tools and environment. Make one wrong move and the result can be disastrous. This is especially true when it comes to discussing salary requirements. As a job-seeker, approaching a conversation with a prospective employer about salary requirements can be tricky.

How soon can you expect an employer to ask you about your salary requirements? Should you ever include salary requirements in a cover letter? How can you pick a salary that doesn't aim too high or too low?

To find sage answers to these and other basic questions about salary requirements, I tapped several career experts for their wisdom.

The U.S. fiscal climate is going from bad to worse, with Wall Street firms crumbling and unemployment edging ever higher. All this makes for an uneven landscape for salary negotiations, which aren't easy even during a robust economy. To succeed with salary negotiations in tough times, experts say workers should definitely avoid certain tactics.

Holly Weeks, author of “Failure To Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong And What You Can Do To Right Them," says it's important not to cop a combative stance during salary negotiations. She explains: " ... the typical approach is to think of this as warfare, there will be a winner and loser, someone is one up, usually the boss is one up, and the worker is one down." But turning a salary negotiation into a battlefield isn't an effective strategy, so you shouldn't be combative, or assume your manager will be.

"At the same time, it’s possible your counterpart will shift into a combat mentality. So you will have to think about ways of handling the conversation unilaterally instead of assuming [your boss] will meet you half-way," Weeks says.