Admit it, you're all surveyed out. If you're like me, you get hit with requests to participate in surveys all the time. You're bombarded with them in your e-mail box at work and at home. You get them in the mail and on the telephone. The prospect of filling out yet another form probably makes you cringe.

I can certainly relate, but—don't cringe—I'm still going to ask you to help us out by taking our annual salary survey. (The salary survey questionnaire is inside the special wraparound cover on this issue.)

I'm asking you to participate because the benefits to be gained from the information we collect make it well worth taking some time out of your busy day. For one thing, it's information that all of our readers want and need. For the past 19 years, the results of our annual salary survey have generated the highest readership of any articles published in this periodical.

The statistics gleaned from this survey can help you with career planning. They identify which locations and which industries pay better than average for logistics professionals. They also highlight which functional areas in logistics offer top-notch salaries.

Our salary survey can help you spot trends in this profession. Over the years, the survey has documented the strong correlation between advanced degrees and bigger paychecks. Respondents—your peers—have also told us that their job duties have increased, with no commensurate increase in staffing.

Savvy readers can use the salary survey results as a guide along the path to financial success. You can learn what kind of pay package to expect when you're offered a new job. Many of our readers, in fact, have used the survey results to justify pay raises from their employers.

The survey is a good indicator of general economic trends, too. A few years ago, during the heyday of the so-called "dot-com" companies, the study revealed an interesting anomaly: Individuals who jumped from company to company tended to earn more than those who had stayed with the same employer for 10 years or more. That was the first time we saw that job mobility, rather than loyalty to one company, was the path to higher pay. As unemployment rates rose in the past two years, though, the survey results again showed that it pays off to keep the job you have. (You can see those results in the Archives section of our Web site: www.logisticsmgmt.com).

Last year, logistics managers' paychecks grew by a paltry 2 percent. Given the economy's failure to rebound as expected, I suspect everyone's anxious to know how salaries fared this year.

Our ability to find out the answer to that question depends on all of you. So please fill out the attached form and mail it right away. We'll pick up the tab for the postage.

Without your participation, we can't maintain this valuable, 20-year tradition. Or to paraphrase Lennon and McCartney, the survey you get is equal to the survey you take.

P.S. While you're filling out the salary survey questionnaire, don't forget to complete and return the subscription-renewal form on the front of the wraparound cover to keep your FREE subscription to Logistics Management coming for another year.