Demystifying Salary Information

Arun Jacob points us to an article in the NYTimes about online tools that can help in salary negotiations. The article concentrates on two websites — Salary.com and Payscale.com — that use different approaches to provide information on standard compensation packages for particular positions and roles. The theory is that, armed with information that was once available only to corporate HR departments, you could have an easier time negotiating your pay using a fact-based rather than a feelings-based approach.

Comments

my two cents

[User 956]

you could have an easier time negotiating your pay using a fact-based rather than a feelings-based approach.

Tip #1: get salary info from friends with similar experience in a similar job before the interview Tip #2: whoever mentions a number first, loses.

Re:my two cents

[mastershake_phd]

Tip #1: get salary info from friends with similar experience in a similar job before the interview Tip #2: whoever mentions a number first, loses.
 
This reminds me of selling a car. How much do you want? Make me an offer. Whats the lowest youll take? Make me an offer...

Re:my two cents

[CrankyFool]

Mentioning a number doesn't have to be to your disadvantage. I usually shy away from it, but in this current position I named a number -- about 5% more than what I actually wanted -- as the bottom of my range, and that's what I ended up getting offered (plus a 10% annual bonus). You just have to be liberal.

(And this is for work for a major staffing company).

Re:my two cents

[Joebert]

I tried that with a hooker once, but when she said $500 I completely lost my train of thought.

Re:my two cents

[Maxo-Texas]

I like to go with the current market rate.
I don't want to make too much (and get laid off) and I don't like getting paid too little (I'll lay them off).

Re:my two cents

[timeOday]

So how do you know mentioning a number didn't work to your disadvantage? In a negotiation getting the first deal you ask for isn't a great sign.

Re:my two cents

[IANAAC]

He said he got 5% more than he wanted. How could that be a disadvantage?

Re:my two cents

[forkazoo]

Mentioning a number doesn't have to be to your disadvantage. I usually shy away from it, but in this current position I named a number -- about 5% more than what I actually wanted -- as the bottom of my range, and that's what I ended up getting offered (plus a 10% annual bonus). You just have to be liberal.

(And this is for work for a major staffing company).

Ummm... I'm not sure why you suggest that this worked to your advantage. You named a number which was obviously well within their comfort zone or they would have had to decline it or negotiate it. If they had named the first number, it might have been higher since you don't know the full range of their comfort zone. It's also possible that their initial offer would have been lower, but you could still negotiate past your goal. Once you have named a number, then they know that they won't need to offer anything higher. You will never be able to negotiate higher than your first offer. Likewise, if you are offering a job, when you go first, you can never negotiate lower than your initial offer because the candidate knows you can do better.

Re:my two cents

[SocialWorm]

Tip #2: whoever mentions a number first, loses

I've heard this a lot, and I'm genuinely curious: has anyone ever actually done a study to figure out how going first affects negotiations and haggling? It shouldn't be too hard, at a minimum, to set up a small experiment in which person A has something that's worth about $5, person B actually has $5, tell them to trade, and then observe how going first or second affects the average result.

You can't always trust folk wisdom, and such an experiment, or carefully conducting a survey, seems so straightforward that I find it hard to believe no one's done it before.

Re:my two cents

[ranton]

Maybe he could have gotten 10% more than what he wanted.

Re:my two cents

[theshowmecanuck]

The salary surveys are good if you are moving from one region to another. You need to have some way to know the market rate if you are moving to a new area.

This is a good tip I got once, and it works for most types of negotiating: Always be willing to walk away if you don't get what you want. That means if you don't get what you want, really walk away and don't look back. If they really want you, they will follow and compromise and you win. If they don't, you won't feel bad about getting less than you want. That doesn't mean you might not haggle a bit with them. What it does mean is that you will be able to work from a position of advantage. And you won't have a look of desperation.

If you really need the job, you can always bluff, but in the end you really need the job so take what you can get. That is why it is always better to look for work while you are working. You can afford to walk away.

It's free advice. You get what you pay for.

Re:my two cents

[fishbowl]

>This reminds me of selling a car. How much do you want? Make me an offer. Whats the lowest youll take? Make me an offer...

I had a domain name that people kept asking if I'd sell. "Make me an offer", I'd say. "How much do you want?" they'd say. I wouldn't even reply.

Finally, somebody offered to do an escrow.com trade for $10G. I went for it. Can't believe they way people won't say what they will pay for stuff. I'm not from a culture that haggles, so it's not really something I know how to do, as some people seem to have a skill, or even a passion, for. It just annoys the hell out of me, and I end up either keeping my stuff, or else walking away from purchases, all the time.

Re:my two cents

[mthreat]

If you want to see salaries, look at the data aggregated from job postings themselves:

lisp, c++, java, c#, python, ruby, smalltalk, cobol salaries

Re:my two cents

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Mentioning a number doesn't have to be to your disadvantage. I usually shy away from it, but in this current position I named a number -- about 5% more than what I actually wanted -- as the bottom of my range, and that's what I ended up getting offered (plus a 10% annual bonus). You just have to be liberal.

I really hate it when people equate the term "liberal" with being stupid or a sucker, but man you sure were a sucker.

It isn't about what you want -- we all want to be millionaires and have 3 playmates for girlfriends living in the house next door. It was about extracting the maximum possible - never leaving anything on the table. You picked a number and they agreed to it, they didn't even try to negotiate you down, they even threw in a 10% bonus. All those things say that your starting number was so pathetically low that you probably left tens of thousands per year on the table which they were happy to keep for themselves.

As an employee for a "major staffing company" you would do well to find out how much they bill their clients for your time. I guarantee it is 150% at the barest minimum and much more likely in the 200%-300% range. Once upon a time I had a gig in the professional services arm of a very High Priced computer vendor. I discovered that they were billing their clients more than 5x the hourly equivalent of my salary - for every $5 they billed, I only got $1. Now I work independent and I bill the exact same rate as that vendor does, but now it all goes in my pocket. If you are good at what you do, you can do the same.

Re:my two cents

[ensignyu]

I have no problem haggling with some random person over $5. I would be extremely cautious haggling with my boss over large sums of money. Your experiment might have interesting things to say about $5 negotiations but you'd have a hard time extrapolating to other amounts.

Re:my two cents

[senatorpjt]

Well, I'm an idiot. I had a domain name that someone asked me if I'd sell. I never got around to putting up the site that I had planned to, so I just gave it away. (drunkreport.com :)

Then again, the guy actually put up a site and keeps it updated, so I guess he put a lot more into it, than I did just by thinking of the name first.

Re:my two cents

[senatorpjt]

I've heard this a lot, and I'm genuinely curious: has anyone ever actually done a study to figure out how going first affects negotiations and haggling?

Sounds like a game called "Poker". You may have heard of it, I hear it's becoming popular.

Re:my two cents

[mgblst]

Remindes me:

A guys walks up to a pretty girl at a bar.

"Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?"

She looks him up and down, "Well, OK"

"Well, then, would you sleep with me for a dollar?"

"Hell no, what sort of girl do you think I am" she replies.

"I think we have already established that, now we are just working out price!"

Re:my two cents

[mastershake_phd]

Well, I'm an idiot. I had a domain name that someone asked me if I'd sell. I never got around to putting up the site that I had planned to, so I just gave it away. (drunkreport.com :) Then again, the guy actually put up a site and keeps it updated, so I guess he put a lot more into it, than I did just by thinking of the name first.

Well if you have anymore domains youd like to give away Ill takem. No, no dont thank me.

Re:my two cents

[Phreakiture]

Let me point out one other useful tactic. If you get them to mention a number first, flinch. It's just that simple. Flinch the second they mention a number. It puts the person on the other side of the negotiation table out of their comfort zone (assuming that this person is not a total sociopath).

It doesn't just work with salary negotiations, either. It also works with buying or selling a vehicle, or any other case where the price of something is negotiated.

Re:my two cents

[Rakishi]

There are likely 25+ economic theories about this and probably twice that many psychological studies (both experimental and non-experimental) on such things. If you really want to know then just look for them, starting in either a psychology or economics books to find initial references.

Re:my two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent poster named a salary that was higher than the minimum he or she was comfortable with. If you get the salary you want (or better), shouldn't that be sufficient? Or are people today just not happy until they make everyone else bleed?

-M

Re:my two cents

[freeweed]

Sometimes, it's not all about nickel and diming your way to the absolute maximum possible salary. Sometimes, it's actually possible to be fairly compensated without resorting to psychological games with your employer.

If I'm happy and the employer's happy, it makes for a far more plesant salary negotiation than imagining my employment contract to be akin to haggling over a used car.

Re:my two cents

[IANAAC]

That's called "extra", not a disadvantage.

Re:my two cents

[ranton]

No, it is not extra. It is money that he seams to be worth (since the company is willing to pay it). He just doesnt realize what he is worth. If the company is willing to pay him $60k/yr, then he must be worth that to them. But if he thinks he is worth $55k/yr, and accepts a salary of $57k/yr, then he is missing out on $3k/yr. With constant 3% raises over 10 years that is $34k he is missing out on just because he spoke first. He lost out on a new Mustang GT Convertible just because he opened his mouth before the employer offered $60k/yr.

--

Re:my two cents

[Subsound90]

I learned it in my business classes, but it's not usually related to salary but for marketing and consumer negotiations. The correct term is anchoring, and usually it's related to the fact that most people when they set a value they will not go more then 10% in either directions in negotiating. Also, 10% is usually considered the least amount of change required to make some one switch from one vendor to another. It's less for higher priced items and stores that are closer togethor, but 10% difference is usually a garunteed steal from a competator.

Re:my two cents

[ContractualObligatio]

Your Tip #2 is flat out wrong. There's a known effect (supported by research) called anchoring, whereby whoever goes first sets the expectations of where the conversation is going to go. If you want the highest salary you can get, you need to be know what is possible (as per Tip #1, for instance) and then ask for it, or highball to a reasonable extent to allow for negotiation. What is reasonable is dependent on any number of factors - whether there's a conversation on benefits to be had, how aggressive the expected role allows you to be, the culture of the firm you're applying for, whether you have the right personality to ask for a high number without sounding like an asshole, etc.

Knowing what you can get can be difficult, but it pays off and for many roles and companies you can be sure there is some kind of market rate to guide your thinking.

If you let them go first, you're giving open invitation for them to set a lower salary than you would like, and then having to fight to get back up to what you wanted. And it is likely (remember the research!) that you will feel uncomfortable being too pushy despite only trying to get a fair price. The employer might start to see you as an asshole for being pushy, when if you had simply started high yourself the perception can in fact be one of confidence.

Never go first only really applies when you don't know enough about the situation to have a reasonable expectation of the outcome. You therefore run the risk of shooting yourself in the foot by asking for a lower salary than they were willing to offer. If you don't know what the options are, keep quiet and remember not to let a low opening offer anchor your own expectations too low.

For a great book on the subject of negotiation, try "Bargaining for Advantage" by G. Richard Shell. He gives an example of one of his better students (a successful entrepreneur) who always made the first offer as a way to fix the negotiation range low. So be wary of falling into the same trap by letting your prospective employer name the price if there's something you're aiming for.

Incidentally my handle is chosen to explicitly acknowledge that even in the tech game, contracts and all the bullshit that goes with them have far too much affect on our lives, but it's worth the time learning how they are negotiated and worked. A windfall courtesy of having a great offer handed to you on a plate is wonderful, yes, but it's even better if you know enough about the situation to have control, and to put yourself in the best possible position. I can remember being paid way less than what I was worth (oh, the arrogance!) and it was the most demoralising thing at work. After receiving a job offer where I confidently named a price, I re-negotiated my pay up ~38% and suddenly work was more enjoyable. Note I didn't get my asking price. So I'm fairly sure I got as much as possible, that I didn't have to be a hard ass to get it, and that I sure wouldn't have got 38% if I'd started with, "I believe I'm due a raise, what would you think is good?"

Re:my two cents

[Darktyco]

Does this also apply to when they ask you:

"How much were/are you making at your last/current job?"

Re:my two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't have to be the case. Mentioning a number isn't a bad thing, they can't give you what you want if they don't know... You may leave money on the table though but you need an exit strategy before it starts and you should be happy with that. There are kind of 2 styles of negotiating: 1) Getting what you want and 2) the more sales guy version of getting as much as you possibly can. Getting what you want is a lot easier and generally results in more people being happy.

1. If you're going to negotiate, you have to know what you want first, know what you're willing to take and be prepared to walk away. If you're going to take the job no matter what then you've already crippled yourself. If you're just going to take the job then there isn't really any point in negotiating anything.
2. Be realistic. If you're coding 8+ hours a day, they will balk at $300k and not pay it. Know what you're worth.
3. You can only negotiate with a decision maker. Don't play the go between game. Let it happen once and then say that the process could be sped up if you actually dealt with
   the person making the decision. They may not want to, this tells you a lot about the place as a whole. This is a respect thing. You can bring that up, "If Mr. Smith doesn't respect me enough to meet with me to negotiate this then I might be better served elsewhere." When you buy a car, the sales man will always "talk it over with his manager" and this is the same thing. Never give in to the slimy HR people. They'll do other shit too, I had a company, a big one: Broadcom, they called me up, they offered me a job and then when it came salary talks they demanded to see my old tax returns to know that my salary was what I said it was; turns out it's their policy to pay near the poverty rate and "make it up" to you in stock and they were just low balling. I told them that I'm not interested if they already distrusted me.
4. If they try to bully back with limits, like this deal is only good for this meeting. Be prepared to leave if it's not in your range. This is a common tactic and it shows weakness. It's weak if you accept it and it's weak if they do it. This is kind of a good general rule in life, if someone bullies you, you have to bully them back immediately to stand your ground or at least let them know you don't wish to be pushed around and won't take it. I'm not talking about insubordination, you're boss is your boss but don't take manipulation. Just say you have to talk it over with your wife before you can make any decisions because you place family first and make decisions together, if that's not acceptable then maybe we won't do business. Is it okay if I have until this evening? The other thing here is that they don't want you creating a bidding war or trying to create one, they don't want you to come back with another offer or telling their competitors what they pay people. If they simply cannot wait until this evening, (can you call your wife now?) you know they are weak, go for the throat. As a matter of principle, I think you should always be allowed to talk it over with the wife and it's worth a night or 2 of thought.
5. I haven't personally figured out the competitive offer thing yet. Personally, I'd rather keep them in the dark as to where I'm looking and where else I might go. The world is much smaller than it seems and so I just don't let that cat out of the bag. It's a different style. I think that the belief is that engineer types like to brag and boast and show you how worthwhile they are and I see the competitive offer as a potential trap because you start doing that; sales people and marketing types particularly exploit that fact and if you want to keep secrets you generally don't tell the geeks. If company X offers you 100k and company Y offers you 70k it's more of an insult that they offered you 70k than it is worth showing them the 100k offer. I don't see the point, if they do somehow come up

Re:my two cents

[Bamafan77]

Tip #1: get salary info from friends with similar experience in a similar job before the interview

Tip #2: whoever mentions a number first, loses.

Agree with #1, but somewhat disagree with #2. Thinking about who's winning and who's losing gets things going on the wrong foot. Keep your eye on the prize - what the market is paying for someone with your skills. Everything else, including this business about "winning and losing" is just pointless garnish. If the company can't or won't match what you should be making(or get into the ballpark), just walk and line up the next interviewing.

Wash, rinse, repeat until you get what you're looking for.

Now dependent upon this is being in a position where you don't have to have some kind of job to get income. How to get into that position is another post (now credit card debt, living beneath your means, etc). But the fact is most companies generally operate from a position of power and thus that's why you have "arrogant" employers.

Re:my two cents

[blackcoot]

or find out what other people are willing to pay for the same job, which is what i did in my case. that said, do not underestimate the value of perks like annual budgets for books, ongoing education, etc.

Re:my two cents

[daeg]

You say it like missing out on a Mustang is a bad thing. (--Prior Mustang owner-turned 350Z owner.)

Re:my two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

I lived that situation. After 10 years as a consultant a client said they absolutely wanted me. I was ready to get on board because I loved the product so much I would take the pay cut (and less paperwork) for a year or two.
We had a very good and friendly relationship, so in a casual conversation after being asked 15 times "just to get an idea", I mentioned that "I have no idea of my market value at the moment, I imagine a minimum of X$ over my last permanent employee job, this would mean Y$. But let's both check the market prices before our next meeting". That next meeting was supposed to be the start or thru negotiations. Or so I thought.

To my surprise my worth was 15 to 40K over what I mentioned for in my area. I was ready to accept that.

On the next meeting the client hurried to say "we would accept your offer, but for that price we will expect a lot from you". It quickly became clear that I would never get even close to market price.

I should add this is my most cheapskate client I have ever seen, always arguing every single cost. "Forget testing I will do it this week-end", "I am not paying for some stupid design phase or any form of documentation".

Re:my two cents

[cayenne8]

"Why is joke still modded funny?"

Because.....it is funny!!

I posted it awhile back on a thread...got lots of comments (even people who'd apparently never heard it before), and lots of funny mods...and a few troll/flamebait mods, which I guess were from some militant chick types that can't laugh at themselves. I mean, good Lord, it is a JOKE. Everyone takes themselves too seriously today, and apparently with the stringent "Political Correctness" of today, you can't seem to poke fun at anyone anymore...in jest, except apparently for white male heterosexuals, preferrably protestant.

Not that that group isn't funny, but, c'mon fair for one should be fair for all, eh?

I saw one ad the other day that got to me. I think it is for Nutrasystem...one white guy on there says "Hey, my wife doesn't say I'm disgusting looking anymore..."

JFC, I mean, if they'd said something the other way around where a chick said her guy didn't think SHE looked disgusting anymore, heads would roll....self images would come rolling in, and there'd be a week long symposium on Oprah on why women of any stature are 'beautiful'.

But, apparently the dumb white guy is disgusting if HE is fat.

The commercial didn't offend me...just the thought at the uproar if it was the other way around.

Re:my two cents

[cayenne8]

"No, it is not extra. It is money that he seams to be worth (since the company is willing to pay it). He just doesnt realize what he is worth. If the company is willing to pay him $60k/yr, then he must be worth that to them. But if he thinks he is worth $55k/yr, and accepts a salary of $57k/yr..."

Ya'll are thinking too small. Incorporate yourself, go the contracting route, and those amount above will EASILY be $65-55/hour, not $65-55k/yr.

That makes is quite a bit more worth your efforts.

Re:my two cents

[cayenne8]

"You say it like missing out on a Mustang is a bad thing. (--Prior Mustang owner-turned 350Z owner.)"

There is ONE mustang that is worth having, the GT500 Mustang .

At almost 500 HP bone stock for about $40K....it is a mustang to be sad about missing out on.

Re:my two cents

[CDarklock]

A line I use frequently with no real knowledge of how well it works:

"I'm looking for something in the [hourly expectation + 50%] to [hourly expectation * 2] range. Roughly [annual salary equivalent of midpoint]. I understand that I may need to start slightly lower and demonstrate my value before you can justify this rate, but I'm willing to do that."

This tends to get me something slightly more than I'm expecting; usually in the 15-20% range. These results are pretty consistent across my last four job offers. Currently, I'm looking for something in the $50 an hour range, so I'm quoting $75-100 and $170K. This should get me something around $57-60 an hour.

Re:my two cents

[u38cg]

Try asking any salesman? Trust me, you try selling something for a few days and you'll quickly figure out there's a right way and a wrong way to go about it.

Re:my two cents

[Dan D.]

There is a book called Behavioral Game Theory, I think edited by Camerer (he's the author associated with the title, whether he wrote all the content or not...) A collection of experiments and essentially what they mean (theoretically) in various situations. Very interesting stuff.

Re:my two cents

[Anonymous Coward]

These complaints belong here.

Re:my two cents

[superpulpsicle]

The only psychological part is whether you can deal with jobs nobody wants. There are some jobs that stay at monsterboard for months because they are nasty, and nobody wants to deal with it. Everybody fights for the same easy positions, as a result salary goes down. That is the only economics.

Re:my two cents

[Lockejaw]

Thank you! Before I read your post, I had no idea what I wanted out of life. I always thought there was more to it than that.

Voluptatis avidus, magis quam salutis
Mortuus in anima, curam gero cutis.

Re:my two cents

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If I'm happy and the employer's happy, it makes for a far more plesant salary negotiation than imagining my employment contract to be akin to haggling over a used car.

Hook, line and sinker man. If you think salary negotiation is demeaning then you will always be an employee and nothing more. Business *is* negotiation and labor costs are just one of the many areas where businesses regularly negotiate. A company won't be made "unhappy" by having to negotiate for your salary, it is just another negotiation for them. But it sure is in their best interests to make you think the way you are thinking. If they can make you negotiate against yourself because you have a mental hang-up about getting paid what you are worth, then that's less work for them. And something to joke about on the back nine.

Re:my two cents

[Rakishi]

The GP asked about essentially negotiations and trading for a single position not about the market as a whole (specifically how does who says their offer first effect the outcome for a single position, his example had nothing to do with large scale job economics. Since people are not rational and psychologists seem to be bored people (At least as grad students) its likely that negotiations of this sort have been studied extensively. If nothing else economic theories require psychological studies to base their expected reactions on, as assuming rationality is not exactly the best method always.

In other words your comment makes no sense as it has nothing to due with the topic at hand.

Re:my two cents

[Lord_Dweomer]

In addition to getting info from a friend, feel free to just contact the HR people at companies that you are not applying to. Say you're doing some initial research for your job hunt and you just wanted to check what some of the local salaries are for X position in Y location since you are "not familiar with pay in that area". Or just play the dumb college kid school assignment trick on them.

And while your tip about mentioning a number first and losing is mostly accurate, as long as you give a range you are comfortable in, you can throw out some data and put the ball back in their court without tying things down to an actual number you may not be happy with.

Lets say you're making something in the 30's, but know you're underpaid and are looking for a new job and want the pay jump to come out to more than you should have been making at your previous job. Ok...so you throw out a big ballpark...maybe say something like "well, I have a policy of not disclosing my salary history (perfectly acceptable answer in many cases) but in terms of salary requirements I would be comfortable with a range of say...high 40's to low 60's."

You figure when the time comes they might try to hit you with something in the 40's and you can counter with something in the high 50's and if they bargain well and you bargain well, you should hopefully net out somewhere in the mid 50's. A sizeable increase.

It really comes down to knowing when to be vague and when to be specific as well as knowing how to be firm yet reasonable about your requirements. If they low ball you based on your history you can calmly explain that while you were making X at your previous job, based on X,Y,Z skills you acquired and X,Y,Z things you accomplished, you feel you would make a valuable asset to their company and that you feel an amount of Y% more than what they offered sounds a bit more competitive with other offers you have on the table.

A note about that.....be careful about naming where else you are interviewing....try not to lie but its a powerful bargaining chip when a company is offering you X and another is offering X+10%. ALWAYS try to play them off each other. If you are indeed that valuable and they want you and don't have someone equally skilled who will do it for less, then most of the time you will get what you want.

Of course if you are not that valuable, then you should just feel lucky to have an offer in the first place.

Re:my two cents

[Marcos Eliziario]

Hey! I am THE environment! you insensitive clod! :-)

Re:my two cents

[jweatherley]

They had it on Top Gear last weekend. It looks quite nice when it wasn't moving, but it was absolutely shocking to watch around the track. The Roush Mustang, with suspension somewhat evolved from that of a horsecart, was two seconds a lap quicker despite having less power. Power's no good if you can't put it down.

Re:my two cents

[Kelbear]

Many situations are negotiable, more than most people are aware of. Sometimes, simply asking for something, even if you have no leverage or right to do so, they'll give it to you. A company sold some materials directly to our maintenance guys at the plant since it was an emergency and shortcuts had to be made. The invoice arrives at Purchasing after the materials have already been delivered and put to use. The purchasing agent asked for a discount in paying for it. And he still got 1% off:P

1% sounds like nothing, but it's money. He got that money basically for free. We're already using the product and if we don't pay their listed price within 30 days, we have no excuses, so they could easily have just told us no.

But that's it, the worst that can happen is that they say no. If they give a price and you ask for something better, you won't lose the original price you can try to argue for a spot in the middle, or settle for one of their offers at any time.

There are also times where you're expected to negotiate, so they will start off with a number that they know is unfavorable for you so that they have room to back off in negotiations. But some just accept that bad deal.

You don't have to be bitter or mean about it at any time. Just deliver firm confident statements with either a deadpan face or a friendly smile. Ultimatums are reserved for the very end of negotiation.

As mentioned elsewhere, having numbers drawn from other places is potent ammo.

Re:my two cents

[freeweed]

It has nothing to do with things being demeaning, or "mental hang-ups", whatever you think those might be.

It's about wasting time and energy trying to scrape that last $500 out of a salary, and demonstrating to your boss that you're the type to nickel and dime over everything. If you're being compensated adequately, why play games?

Maybe you've had issues being offered what you're worth - I've never had to stoop to negotiating tactics to get a damn good salary.

But, if your attitude is constantly "me vs the Man who's trying to screw me with every opportunity", then I can see how you'd think this way. I feel sorry for you that your workplaces have always been such a combative environment.

Believe me, the people being joked about on the back nine tend to be the ones who feel so proud of that extra 0.1% salary they got, all while completely missing the big picture. Mostly because they insist on telling the world about how shrewd they are. Much like people getting excited about saving $25 on a used car.

If it's not too late already...

[StikyPad]

On the other hand, if you're a well-paid administrator, you may want to add the following line to your HOSTS file:

127.0.0.1 www.salary.com
127.0.0.1 www.payscale.com

Re:If it's not too late already...

[Magic Fingers]

127.0.0.1 www.salary.com
127.0.0.1 www.payscale.com Two of my employees has already left till I read your tip.

Re:If it's not too late already...

[Joebert]

if you're a well-paid administrator

Or you work at Best Buy.

Re:If it's not too late already...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or if you're a really well paid administrator, you may want to run a different version of www.salary.com and www.payscale.com internally by tweaking the corporate dns. If you can't figure out the technology, I hear there is someone at Best Buy that can help you.

Re:If it's not too late already...

[senatorpjt]

Maybe you could forward it to the Chinese equivalent of salary.com.

http://www.salary.com
"Wow, I'm way overpaid... tech jobs only pay an average $1091/year!"

Re:If it's not too late already...

[Dragonslicer]

People at Best Buy know stuff about DNS?

Re:If it's not too late already...

[Joebert]

That or extortion, but definitely one of the two.

Inflated Numbers

[TheFlyingGoat]

I've never found the IT salaries to be that accurate for my region. A few companies pay the amounts listed, but most of them are around $10k less than all of the salary sites. I don't think that the IT personnel are underpaid either... I think the sites are just inaccurate. It's kind of like those places that claim they can train you for an "exciting career in computers in just 6 months". Most of their ads claim that IT people with 2-3 years of experience are making $70k/year.

While it's important to have some facts when negotiating your salary, it's far more useful to bring in a list of all of the major projects you've worked on as well as some positive review/feedback letters from coworkers (not just IT staff... talk to some other staff that like you). Bringing in a printout from a website isn't going to mean beans to a manager... it's what you actually do for their company/department that matters.

Re:Inflated Numbers

[Maxo-Texas]

That seems true to me. I have friends at two large companies in senior positions- I'm in a senior position managing people- and none of us make close to what the second (pay...) site says people from my zip code are reporting.

I just don't know that I believe that $15,000 bonus on top of $110,000 base pay is typical for a team lead type.

Re:Inflated Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

So I'm a CIO, I make $440K a year. Apparently way above median (well, for CIOs looking for a pay increase, anyway!)

So I get to the end of the process, and it says....

Press here to increase your earning potential with a Microsoft cert!

Hmmmm....

Re:Inflated Numbers

[Quince alPillan]

I had a company tell me to go to Salary.com to find out what I expected (wtf?) and when I told them, the value was probably 15k off what they were expecting. (Software engineers in my area was making 40-60k, this company expected 30k). I got told later that the company rejected me without even giving me a counter offer and that was the reason.

Re:Inflated Numbers

[Dr. Evil]

I just punched myself in and I'm in the 52nd percentile.

I'm really surprised. I think I need a different line of work :-)

Re:Inflated Numbers

[bberens]

I see the exact opposite. The company I work for pays non-justgraduated developers $75-90k. According to salary.com that puts us in the 85-95 percentile. However, we are having a hard time keeping employees because they are leaving for more money. It's crazy. It's like a dream world where money fairies are dropping out of the skies dumping cash on developers in this area.

Re:Inflated Numbers

[walt-sjc]

That's interesting, I found the opposite.

I took a look at the SAGE salary survey and a few other sites. The problem I ran into is that I can't hire competent people for those rates, and have to pay 50% MORE for really good people. If you want really good people, you have to lure them away from positions that they are currently happy with, so it takes a significant incentive to get them to make a move. I've NOT had good luck with people that are currently unemployed - In general, I found their skill sets to be underwhelming.

Re: Inflated Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine. Here's one website they might not ignore so readily. If you're lost in the front page, this is a very good place to start.

If you have a job that spans a few different titles you should gather all of the related fields that apply and weigh them appropriately, such as: Computer Programmers + Computer Software engineers, applications + Electrical engineers + Electronics engineers + Computer software engineers + Network and computer systems administrators + etc.

However, ONLY use this type of data if you're currently within the bottom 25% and your employer thinks they're paying you close to (or more than) the average. Anybody using it to try to go from 45% to 49% will look like an ass, and rightfully so.

Re:Inflated Numbers

[C0y0t3]

...It's like a dream world where money fairies are dropping out of the skies dumping cash on developers in this area.

Where do you live? (In general, if it's not a personal question ;)

I might like to park under the money fairies a while, too...

Re:Inflated Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the area?

Re:Inflated Numbers

[creysoft]

Oh yeah? Well at MY company they pay everybody (including the janitor) $500,000,000/year + $1B/mo bonuses. And everyone gets four Rolls Royces when they're hired. And the company hires hot chicks to suck you off at your desk while you work.

And the companies on either side of us have packages that are 10x better!

Tell you what, guys. If you want an awesome job, move to #@^$^%$[NO CARRIER]

Re:Inflated Numbers

[bberens]

Just outside of Orlando.

Re:Inflated Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

$30k for a software engineer? The Chinese and Indians pay better than that.

Re:Inflated Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

depends on location for NYC 110 +15K is low-Ok 130+30% Ok

Anyone else think those numbers are high?

[JPriest]

I have looked up a several professions on salary.com and the numbers even for my area don't even seem to be in the ball park.

Re:Anyone else think those numbers are high?

[iago-vL]

Well, I'm at the top of the bottom 25th, and I'm technically in the "Junior" version of this position. So it's not too far off for me. Of course, I don't have a zip-code up here in Canadia...

Re:Anyone else think those numbers are high?

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. According to both salary.com and payscale, a public librarian in my area with my experience should be making about $44k.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Try $24k. It would be nice if my master's degree would get me $44k a year, but it just ain't so. It's hard enough finding a full-time job with benefits, thanks.

I care a lot

[heyyou_overhere]

What the hell is with these retarded slashdot articles- first a lot of articles that have been duped and now this. This is just blatant advertising- the first link requires you to pay and the second requires for you to pay or get a watered down report.

Re:I care a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

Next you'll be complaining about how all the dating sites you frequent don't let you talk to the women until you pay.

Save your money, they won't reply.

Re:I care a lot

[Dadoo]

This is just blatant advertising

Big deal. At least it gets a discussion going. If you follow it, you might even learn something.

Personally, I think salaries shouldn't be secret. It's one of the ways "the man keeps us down" and nepotism runs rampant. A company should be able to justify the salary - higher or lower than normal - of every one of its employees.

Re:I care a lot

[FirienFirien]

I took a look at salary.com, since payscale.com only works if you have a (US) zip code. After answering a bunch of questions, it asked me whether I wanted to pay $20 for a big pack of information, or get the free version; I sighed and clicked the free, but got a nice graph showing the percentiles of payscale that are apparently appropriate for my area.

Advertising, maybe - but I got the information I wanted, for free. If I had wanted a big pack about how to raise my salary, how to argue about it, etc etc etc, I had the option to pay for it, but it definitely wasn't compulsory.

Re:I care a lot

[mabinogi]

you mean payscale - salary.com is the one requiring a US zip code.

And I agree, the free report from payscale told me pretty much exactly what I needed to know.
Some of the questions were a bit US centric, but the profile based approach means that doesn't matter. I discovered I'm getting quite a bit above average (but still well within the range) for Canberra, and pretty much right on average for Sydney, which makes sense, as my employer is Sydney based.
It pretty much confirmed my own evaluation of my situation.

Also, not only is the free service from payscale useful, it's entirely cookie based - no need to ever give an email address or create an account.

You can't demystify the wife.

[twitter]

Salary.com measures the salary of a stay-at-home mom. (The statisticians calculated that doing the housekeeping, cooking, babysitting, chauffeuring, administration and other jobs involved in staying at home with a preschooler in Chicago would probably take around 91 hours a week and be worth about $146,000.)

Don't tell your wife, she'll quit her job!

Re:You can't demystify the wife.

[timeOday]

The statisticians calculated that doing the housekeeping, cooking, babysitting, chauffeuring, administration and other jobs involved in staying at home with a preschooler in Chicago would probably take around 91 hours a week and be worth about $146,000.

Only $146K? Dang it, I knew she was ripping me off!

Re:You can't demystify the wife.

[Takichi]

And don't get divorced, cause now she has a number when negotiating alimony.

Re:You can't demystify the wife.

[DataBroker]

My stay-at-home Wifey tried this with me months ago. I told her that I could hire a nanny, a housekeeper, and umm... escorts... for less than she cost. She sorta snarled at me when she looked at the spreadsheet I worked up. I expect that any day now she might start talking to me again.

Re:You can't demystify the wife.

[pnutjam]

I expect that any day now she might start talking to me again.

Well we know those calculations are off.

Re:You can't demystify the wife.

[mrcolj]

You know that's an urban legend, right? I remember hearing exactly that story 20 years ago, long before salary.com existed. As one commenter put it, "Find me a CEO with two employees, no revenue, and $200,000 in assets who makes $146,000 a year." If I do delivery for a pizza place, I do not get the combined salaries of a chauffer, a uniform tailor, a public relations consultant, a salesperson, and a french chef. Moms are basically like the best nannies, and those make $40K. My wife deserves millions, but not in a free market.

Re:You can't demystify the wife.

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me of an old joke...

A husband comes home from work one day to find his wife busy packing her suitcase. Of course, the husband asks her why she is packing, and she somewhat angrily replies that she read a magazine article about Las Vegas escorts. "I don't know why I ever married you" she says. "After all of these years having to scrape by on your meager salary, and now I find out that an escort in Las Vegas gets paid $200.00 for a blowjob. I'm leaving you to start a new life as an escort". The husband stares at her in disbelief for a few moments, then gets his suitcase out of the closet and starts packing too. The wife stops packing her bag and yells at her husband "Didn't you hear me? I said I am leaving you". "I heard you" the husband replies. "Then why are you packing your suitcase?" she asks. The husband looks up and replies "I wanna see how you're going to manage to live on $200.00 a year".

That's just great

[Joebert]

Alright, which one of you want to explain to my son why him & his friends aren't getting brand new dirt bikes this year ?

Re:That's just great

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you suck at negotiating and dont have the balls to find a better gig?

Thinly veiled advertisement?

[Anonymous Coward]

This article seems to be a thinly veiled advertisement prodded by a PR marketing firm for the websites mentioned, namely PayScale.com.

While the article may be in the New York Times, you have to wonder what occasion suddenly prompted the author of the article to write about it. In other words, why is this "news"? What makes it "new"?

The article states "Salary.com began revealing the results of salary surveys on its site in 1999", which is about eight years ago. This is followed by the statement "PayScale.com is now challenging it..."

But a search reveals that the PayScale.com domain name was registered in...1999. Eight years ago.

There's nothing to see here...move along...move along.

HA! Nice try !

[tempestdata]

You're just an HR manager trying to do damage control.

You aint foolin nobody mister!

Re:HA! Nice try !

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Meanwhile, in HR...

UPDATE candidates SET classification='unlikely' WHERE name='tempestdata';

"There's one born every minute. Mwahahahaha!"

Sheesh.

[GregPK]

I think its kinda off. No channel field representative I know makes 50k a year. Probably why they all drive beater cars.

They'll just fire you

[hyrdra]

I don't know about you, but many corporate companies don't like people like that...people that research what they should but paid. Many HR managers think that the job market in IT (and many other fields) is so good they would rather replace you and hire someone in that will feel like they are lucky to do the job at or under your current rate. It's largely because the attitude in many companies these days is a sense of "you should be lucky you're here" or "you should be lucky we only make you work 40 hours a week". At my job, I was told when they changed our benefits structure that "you should feel lucky the company deems you important enough to give ANY benefits at all".

I have found companies would rather hire someone who is utterly incompetent but willing to do the job for pennies and doesn't complain when they get bait switched to shitty health insurance. The types of people who have these lay down and take it attitudes are naturally people who are just morons and really don't know what they are doing. My theory is they are quiet and don't stir the pot too often because they are in constant fear of getting found out. The company doesn't care that half the work is getting done because that is harder for HR to measure than a raw starting price and capability is highly subjective. If I complain about a recent HR drone hire, the finger will often get pointed at me, with such remarks as "Don't be so hard on him..." "Have you ever considered it might be you or your department??" "What are you doing to correct the situation?". I'm sorry, I am not here to teach someone 4 years of CS that they should already know. To make it worse, the HR people saying this have no idea about anything technical, they don't understand anything that we do so going to them with a valid logical argument of why the guy they just hired is a dumbass falls on deaf ears. Try to bring any of this up to higher level management and all they can see are the good numbers from HR and how much money they are saving. Meanwhile, my shit is suffering, more work is put on me, and no one understands or let alone cares.

If you think many companies are not run this way, think again. You can usually tell a company like this from job postings. Our HR department shops for people like you would shop for a vacuum cleaner at Walmart -- they try to get the most for less. They look for whizbang things on resumes for stuff we would never need experience in or stuff that isn't relevant to what we are doing. I don't really care if someone has a masters if all they have been doing with it is designing VB forms. I really don't understand who came up with the concept for an HR department anyway, because it sucks. I would rather all hiring decisions go through the person that actually manages a team and produces a product, not some "HR Technical Specialist", which is really some moron with an HR degree who has worked for a tech company before.

So before you go up to your boss with salary figures in hand you should understand that a lot of times we don't have the capability to change anything. In the large corporations I've worked for, the manager never controls the salary and HR would always rather you quit or be miserable than risk having everyone pull those same figures and come to them, taking their precious monthly how-much-can-you-save bonus away. Many HR departments are running on the principal of separation of markets, where you don't know how much the market pays. If I was an HR manager I'd be scared shirtless of someone who quotes salary figures and can suddenly make my only bargaining point go away, I'd rather hire the no nothing guy that passes all the rudimentary hoops that will sit down and shut up and make me look good.

Re:They'll just fire you

[slazar]

To make it worse, the HR people saying this have no idea about anything technical, they don't understand anything that we do so

Instead of bitching, why not offer to sit on interview panels? That would be taking initiative and you could weed out people that don't have the skills (or even just rub you the wrong way). Instead of overstretching yourself to compensate for the dumb new hire, let them fail and make them look bad. HR is grateful that I sit on interview panels and I appreciate that they understand the level of knowledge required to analyze the technical merits of a candidate. And I get to pick who I work with!

Re:They'll just fire you

[Anonymous Coward]

This is my last week with my first (and hopefully last) fortune 500 company. All that shit you stated above about hiring practices in large corps is dead-on with what I've seen. Turnover in IT here is really startling, I've had three different bosses over me in 2.5yrs in the same dept and I'm actually the last original person on the team from when I started! 2yrs and the entire team was rebuilt, management and all. Pretty amazing.

Never again will I work for a company with over 200 employees, unless I'm consulting. At least then I should be compensated for it.

Re:They'll just fire you

[Yinepuhotep]

Instead of bitching, why not offer to sit on interview panels?

The places I've worked, if you make an offer like that, the managers start asking you why you have TIME to make an offer like that. Don't you have enough work to do to keep you busy? Why are we getting such a bad output if you have time to waste on interview panels? And so on. If you want to keep your job, you learn REAL fast that volunteering - for ANYTHING - gets that kind of management response, so you DO NOT volunteer.

Re:They'll just fire you

[stupid_is]

Can't you turn that on its head too? The time used in selecting a good candidate for the job will result in time savings in whatever it is you do, as you don't have to hand-hold them through the early stages of employment so much (i.e. they become productive that much quicker)
Don't necessarily volounteer, maybe, but at least point out the rationale...

Re:They'll just fire you

[tqbf]

I would rather all hiring decisions go through the person that actually manages a team and produces a product, not some "HR Technical Specialist", which is really some moron with an HR degree who has worked for a tech company before.

Uh, the way you would "rather" it works is the way it does work at every technical company I've been involved with or known people at. Can you give a specific example of a company where HR interviews and selects the technical candidates?

Re:They'll just fire you

[mrcolj]

You obviously know as little about management and hiring as they know about programming. I know about programming, and I would still blackball anyone who made comments with your tone or content. In fact, I have google alerts set up on most of my employees (and their usernames and whatever), so if I were your boss I'd probably already know you posted this and be joking about it with your other bosses... My advice, look at the Myers Briggs types (I know your type of people don't believe in that voodoo) and learn that HR people think programmers are illogical idiots as much as programmers think the same of HR people. Why? Not because one of them is right. Programmers, no matter how "management" their title is, have no more business hiring than HR people have programming. Neither HR nor management care about saving money as much as they care about making money, they just understand exactly what you just said--a new graduate probably is more excited to work there, will work for less, and won't complain or sue; and old programers have their old ways of doing things, always demand more than market forces dictate, and always end up suing. I was in one place where we had to keep the AC on full-blast at all times, AND keep a space heater (most of the time on full-blast) at every station. That's not worth it when a young punk will do 80% as good for 50% of the money, and will have ideas. And if anyone ever said "I'm not here to..." or "That isn't part of my job" within earshot of me, they'd be gone befor they finished the sentence. No exceptions.

Re:They'll just fire you

[jafac]

Another thing large companies tend to do - is that if they need people, operationally, they lay the burden on their existing employees to get more work done. That's the "resting state". At the corporate level, they'll typically only ramp-up hiring if it's strategic: (ie. if their competitor just made an acquisition, and therefore, on paper, looks "bigger" and therefore, their stock is going up). In cases where there is a strategic hiring decision, market value of labor doesn't matter. They'll fucking hire any idiots, 100 at a time, so they can justify paying them crap, because the only point is to pad their payroll so they look "big" on paper - at times where looking big is the fashion on wall street. (during bear markets, you have to look lean).

Tactical hiring does happen, but pretty rarely, and only when somebody knows someone with the right skillset who may be looking for a job, and we need that skillset for a project we're working on right now. In those cases, you can see fair salaries offered. But these Hires generally are not going to come in through HR. These are almost always backchannel hires.

Re:They'll just fire you

[Danga]

Programmers, no matter how "management" their title is, have no more business hiring than HR people have programming.

I notice you are going for an MBA and it cracks me up when people with MBA's think they are the God's of management when a lot of them (yes you) could really learn something by listening to the people you manage. I also think you are on a power trip if you think a programmer with a management position has no business hiring/managing, is that only reserved for the God's with MBA's? If you sincerely believe your above sentence then I hope I never work at a company you work at. Being able to be apart of the interview process for my potential co-workers is extremely important because I can evaluate the skills of a fellow developer much better than the typical HR drone. If someone has a million buzzwords on their resume it usually makes a HR person go nuts thinking they gotta get that person while I actually can figure out if they can back it up with actual knowledge. Unless the HR person or whoever is giving the interview truly understands the position in question and the technology that goes along with it then not having someone "from the trenches" be apart of the interviewing is plain stupid.

From the flip side if I was going to an interview at a company and none of my potential co-workers were apart of the interview I would be offended and I most likely would not take the job. I want to be able to ask the really technical questions about the position and get answers straight from someone who actually knows them.

Neither HR nor management care about saving money as much as they care about making money

These are the same thing in the end, if you can't save money then it eats away at the money you made and vice versa, any manager I know would be concerned about both equally.

a new graduate probably is more excited to work there, will work for less, and won't complain or sue; and old programers have their old ways of doing things, always demand more than market forces dictate, and always end up suing.

Of course a new graduate will work for less, that is true of any profession but I doubt ANY new graduate will be able to do 80% of the work at the same speed as a veteran programmer. That 50% money savings is not worth it when it takes them 4 times as long to accomplish the same thing and they can't do 20% of the things a veteran programmer can do. Now if the job truly is for an entry level programmer then hell yeah it would be a waste to hire the more expensive veteran. Find a person suitable for the position but don't bitch about a veteran programmer costing more when the job at hand requires that level of experience.

You crack me up saying they won't complain or sue, what do you want mindless drones working for you? I would rather have people working for me with a backbone who stand up for what they believe (within reason). If a person has a valid complaint why you rather have them be silent rather than speak out about it?

By the way what is your beef with "old programmers"? I am sure some of them are a pain in the ass but you just broadly group all of them together as overpaid complainers who have a little more knowledge but would never be worth any extra money. Is experience not worth anything to you?

That's not worth it when a young punk will do 80% as good for 50% of the money, and will have ideas.

There you go making yourself sound big and bad again since you have are going to have the MBA and think you are better than the "young punk" with a CS degree which is harder to get than your MBA (yes, I know this is true from the amount of friends I have who have gone to get MBA's). I don't get why you make it sound like old programmers won't have ideas. All of the "old programmers" I have met had great ideas, to tell you the truth they had some of the best ideas I have ever heard.

Get over yourself, you seem to have invented some hatred of "old programmers" just to validate your choice to hire

Re:They'll just fire you

[Yinepuhotep]

It would work if they were thinking rationally. However, the response has always, in my experience, been "that's what we have HR for" - as if the HR people were experts in every job in the company, and thus the best choice to select staff no matter what department or what job the new hire is intended to fill.

Re:They'll just fire you

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope to God I never work for someone like you.

Damn Strait!

He's any employee's nightmare. If you don't trust someone from the start to where you'll snoop on them like that, then why in the hell even hire them? Oh yea, his 80%/50%/20% theory.

How he got to be a manager is, well, just absolutely incredible. So much for morale huh? I would happily tell him to go fuck himself.

Re:They'll just fire you

[Kelbear]

It's still worth the attempt.

Change what you can, accept what you can't.

Then at least when you're dealing with the mess you can tell yourself you did everything you could to prevent it. If you don't try to do what you can, then some of that responsibility will sit with you.

Easy formula

[michaelmalak]

if ( out_of_work )
salary_request = previous_salary
else
salary_request = current_salary * 1.3

Re:Easy formula

[Fastball]

A 30% pay hike? If you're running this program via cron, you might want to scale it back to only run every five years. Otherwise, you might crash your system.

Re:Easy formula

[Sobrique]

I don't know about you, but when looking for a new job, negotiations should really be starting at a point where you're have no compunctions about accepting. Drop down a 30% raise to do something similar, and I'm confident that I'd say 'yes'.

Less of a raise doesn't mean a 'no' but it decreases the odds, along with a load of other factors like prospects, travel times, and that kind of thing.

If you don't ask, you don't get :)

Re:Easy formula

[Dogtanian]

If you're running this program via cron, you might want to scale it back to only run every five years. Otherwise, you might crash your system. I ran a C implementation of this program and was doing really well until it overflowed and I found I was paying my employer huge amounts of money to work for them.

Re:Easy formula

[walt-sjc]

Here is the deal... Once you are employed, it's a LOT harder to get good raises - they are typically going to be 0 - 5%. Your big salary jumps are when you change jobs. 1.3X is QUITE reasonable. Even if you change positions vertically within a company, you are unlikely to get a large salary boost. If you are job hopping, obviously that formula isn't going to work, but it should work every 2-3 years. Remember, you have more experience after several years at a job too, and experience matters.

Re:Easy formula

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the parent. At my previous job, I was grossly underpaid (about 40% below average) with the employer leading me along with a stick and a carrots worth of promises. I finally got fed up about the "upcoming" raise when it continually failed to materialize. When I interviewed for my current job, I panicked and asked for less than what I wanted (my greatest interview flaw), but which was still about 30% more than what I was making. To my surprise, they offered me a nearly 65% pay increase of my then current salary and a good amount above what I asked. This is because they are a subsidiary of a larger corporation who controls raises which they rarely give and, when they do, company policy maxes them at 5%. The subsidiary actually cares about it's employees and would pay more if corporate HR weren't such greedy a$%&!.

So, unless you are making in the 90%+ percentile for your line of work, a 30% pay increase is not necessarily unreasonable. And unfortunately you may later realize that raises don't come often and when they do, they aren't very big.

Re:Easy formula

[wtfbomb]

Segmentation fault

What crap is this

[Anonymous Coward]

What crap is this... Sites blatant advertising junk. Or are they associating info colelcted with IP addresses.

Answered 25 questions and am stuck on "calculating"

Slash-DOT clean up the act this crap is worthless

Disgusted yet again

BAD story selection one more time

"Web Developer"

[nick_davison]

Ten steps to misery, bitterness and potential unemployment... or how to gain empathy for your manager.

1. Go to salary.com
2. Search for a really common job. Let's use, "Web Developer"
3. Fail to find that job. Instead get offered variants of "Web Software Developer" that appears to describe a web application engineer rather than a general web developer.
4. Look at the salary range for a job that's markedly different to what you do.
5. Take offense at how unfairly you now feel you're paid.
6. Go to manager and demand a raise that you think is only fair.
7. Feel horribly taken advantage of when the manager, fairly legitimately, claims you're already pretty well compensated for the job you actually do vs. the significantly different job you found on the web.
8. Fester about the injustice.
9. Bitch about how the company you used to love is now terrible and evil.
10. Wonder why your manager who used to love you now sees you as a morale leech and someone they need to deal with.

Now see if you can guess the real reason a lot of managers get irritated by sites like this. Hint: It's nothing about being forced to pay what's fair.

Most sensible managers will want to pay a fair salary for the job they're having done simply because it attracts good applicants and a basis of fairness improves morale and hence productivity. Granted, not all managers are good or sensible but, honestly, most do try to be. Unfortunately, sites like salary.com, through their inherrent generalizations, often give thoroughly skewed impressions of what's fair and can cause all kinds of problems once someone that is fairly treated gets the impression they're being taken advantage of.

The flip side works against employees too... The last thing an employee wants is an ignorant manager finding a far less skilled job that kind of sounds similar and deciding 20% pay cuts or terminations and new hires are merrited.

Sure, they're a useful tool - but be seriously careful about building assumptions off over generalized data.

Re:"Web Developer"

[Dadoo]

Most sensible managers will want to pay a fair salary for the job they're having done

Except that, as someone above mentioned, most managers aren't in control of the purse strings. My manager is always complaining about how he'd like to pay more, because he's having an incredibly hard time finding applicants who'll work for what we're willing to pay. Unfortunately, his manager won't let him. Now, I suppose that could be an act, but as far as I can tell, he's not that kind of a guy.

Re:"Web Developer"

[beakerMeep]

Can I skip all that complicated stuff and just "Fester about the injustice." ?

Re:"Web Developer"

[beakerMeep]

If he claims his manager wont let him, it's very likely true -and- an act all at the same time. for whatever reason he is scared to push his manager for what he is telling you deserve. so either he's lying to his manager that he can run his deparment on a low budget, or he's lying to you about how much he thinks you are worth.

But dont let him get away with the "my hands are tied" argument. as your manager, if he is the one who can talk about your salary with you, then his hands are not tied. if he claims that his boss wont let him, then his boss is the one you should be talking to with merely a written review or reccomendation from your manager.

dont go over his head though, that will just cause animosity. what you should do is respectfully (and this part isnt easy, so dont kid yourself) request that you have a meeting with both your manager AND his boss. Again though, be careful, dont make it about him just say that you believe him but since rent is tough, or some other reason, you would like to take a crack at talking with the boss yourself.

Re:"Web Developer"

[fishbowl]

>Except that, as someone above mentioned, most managers aren't in control of the purse strings.

But, *someone* is, and you need to find out what *they* need, and interview for *that* job instead.
Maybe they need a manager who is capable of controlling purse strings ;-)

Re:"Web Developer"

[Danny Rathjens]

a lot of managers...
Most sensible managers...
be seriously careful about building assumptions off over generalized data.

Re:"Web Developer"

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Except that, as someone above mentioned, most managers aren't in control of the purse strings. My manager is always complaining about how he'd like to pay more, because he's having an incredibly hard time finding applicants who'll work for what we're willing to pay. Unfortunately, his manager won't let him.

That is HR's job. Don't be fooled, HR's #1 job in any company of any size is to reduce labor costs. The bigger the company, the stronger HR's ability to enforce salary caps. In some companies HR will turn away exceptional talent rather than pay a commensurate salary because it "sets a bad precedent. HR is *never* an employee's friend.

Re:"Web Developer"

[Aceticon]

sensible managers

So we're talking about roughly 20% of managers here, right?

I've seen a lot in my industry (software development) which seems to contradict your "enlighted manager" theory:

• Most companies state that their employees are in the top 10% of their industry. Since this is a mathematical impossibility, it indicates either a high level of self delusion or a lot of bullshiting
• Many managers bring in "good enough" people because "we need more people but we don't have the budget". I work as a freelancer nowadays and often end up cleaning up the mess made by these "good enough" programmers
• As many senior developers around here can attest, many managers proclaim that they value experience and quality but in practice aren't willing to pay for it. When you reach a certain level of expertise you find that in many companies there is a ceiling to what a technical person can earn - those are the companies whose salary scales (especially at the top of the technical career) look bad by comparisson to those that are willing to pay for the added value of experience
• A very common situation is somebody that has entered a company as a junior "whatever", gained experience and expertise and some years later finds himself/herself a medior/senior "whatever" but still on a junior salary. A widespred practice out there is to increase salaries faster than inflation but slower than the increase in value of an employee, especially in the beginning of one's career

The truth is, salary negotiations are business decisions. Salaries are not raised because managers are highly sensitive, enlightened, moral beings which based their decisions on concepts such as "fairness" - they are raised because an employee who brings more value to the company than what he/she is being payed is unhappy about his/her compensation and will probably leave if that isn't addressed.

From the point of view of any manager (sensible or not), the ideal employee is the one that gets payed a low salary and is happy with working there.

Employers that don't know they're being payed shit compared to the rest of the industry will stay content and not ask for a salary raise.

Employers that do know they're being payed shit compared to the rest of the industry will become unhappy at the unfainess of their situation and demand a salary raise.

Naturally, from the point of view of the bottom line (keeping costs down and margins up) it's beter for a manager that employees don't know the real value that the industry is willing to pay for their work - this is why this kind of site is bad for any manager: it impacts their bottom line.

Re:"Web Developer"

[Harik]

The sites are bullshit, though. I threw in a completely bogus job description (no formal education, 2 years experience, bla bla bla) and it told me that it was worth... 85k a year.

In central Florida.

Um, yeah. Nobody's paying 85k a year for inexperienced highschool dropouts. I think they're falling prey to e-bragging "Oh yeah, well _I_ make 120k a year and get to use the company porche!" and don't have any real numbers. Because if it were true, the IRS would wonder where all that payroll tax was going to...

Around here, "tech jobs" are 25k a year outsourced callcenters. "Senior Management" means someone who didn't get fired on their 90 day probationary period, and is now in charge of answering phones AND training newhires.

No, that's not the majority of Central Florida positions, but this isn't San Fran during the dotcom craze, either. Anyone using this site is a complete retard and hopefully gets fired for asking 20-50% more then they're actually worth.

Re:"Web Developer"

[Kelbear]

Heh, I worked a while in HR, got to see everybody's end of the year performance review etc. My company looks at the pay of each employee and measures it as a percentage of the market average, and also have a performance rating. An employee weighed in at .80 of the market and an A rating.

Next to this area of the personnel sheet, it was penciled in, "Give this woman a good raise or we might lose her!" and was underlined. So they gave her a bigger raise that year to try to bring her pay in line to avoid the chance she might leave and have the company try to replace her and wait for that new employee to get up to speed.

Similar article

[ejd3]

Just by chance I was looking into similar information just hours earlier today and happened upon similar solutions offered by the WSJ. The most useful site in my option was payscale. It offered really detailed information about many interesting things, like salaries of recent graduates of my college in a variety of fields (assuming that these students are telling the truth, and gave me pretty good insight into what the career I am heading into should pay.

Ways to avoid having to mention a number, politely

[patio11]

* You're in a much better position to evaluate my worth to the company than I am. (I *love* this one.)
* I am sure we can come to something mutually satisfactory. What would you suggest?
* I will entertain any offer commesurate with my skills and experience. (I don't like this one -- concentrate on them, not you.)

Ways to counteroffer:

* That figure could be workable with a few minor modifications to the contract. Lets table it for a moment and discuss...
* I have a comparable offer in hand from another firm but would much rather work for $YOU. Does $YOU have any money in the budget to increase that offer so we can make this happen? (Note the phrasing: HR Man has an ego just like you do, and doesn't want to say "Oh no, we're poor" to justify paying you less. He works for a big, strong company for which an extra $X,000 is a drop in the bucket! Hah, take that, applicant who doubted our financial health!)
* I could quite possibly be pleased with that number, depending on the other specifics of the offer. Where does this fit into the big picture?
* I notice you have offered me a $PERK. That is not that important to me. Could we perhaps eliminate $PERK in favor of increasing my base compensation?
* I notice that you have not offered me $PERK. I am rather more interested in it than I am in my base compensation number. What level of $PERK do you think would be appropriate? (listen) That is almost what I had in mind, but keeping in mind that I am accepting a lower base compensation in return for $PERK, perhaps we could do a little better. I know $PERK is cheaper for you than increasing my base compensation because $PERK doesn't cause my total cost of employment, for example taxes, future raises, and overhead, to increase linearly like base compensation does (listen). Sounds great.

These assume that the initial offer was roughly in line with your expectations. I once got offered $30,000 and poor benefits when I was expecting a package in the neighborhood of $55,000. That calls for a firm handshake and a "Thank you for your time, we'll be in touch."

Salary information

[timtiptoes]

There are books where you can deconstruct the salary structure. A typical rule is that the median of 'bands' are 15% apart and bands are abou 20% wide. Further companies like most employees to sit at the median of a pay band. As a real crude estimate, you could fetch the salaries of the senior executives off of their SEC-filed docs and work down the salary structure. Be sure to not use the CEO as they aren't part of the structure. Also only look at the salary portion of the compensation because bonuses and equity don't count. Usually companies have no idea what's competitive, so they just purchase compensation guidelines for their industry. Take a look at this: http://www.culpepper.com/eBulletin/2006/NovemberPa yTrends.asp You spend years getting education, months looking for an interview, weeks or days preparing and then when it comes down to salary you go "okay, works for me." Nonsense, get educated on the topic. Good luck and help drive up all of our compensation. timtiptoes

After your first payroll

[cerberusss]

And when you've deftly negotiated that salary, be sure to check our first payroll!

At one job, I had on paper that huge payments were made in a retirement fund. After nine months, I figured out this wasn't the case at all. When I confronted management about this, they just said "it was a mistake, it was the old retirement plan. And we will generously offer our apologies". And then got angry and said: "you should've said earlier".

Re:After your first payroll

[grimJester]

At one job, I had on paper that huge payments were made in a retirement fund. After nine months, I figured out this wasn't the case at all. When I confronted management about this, they just said "it was a mistake, it was the old retirement plan. And we will generously offer our apologies"

This is fraud. Did anything actually happen beyond "correcting" your contract?

Re:After your first payroll

[cerberusss]

Nope... they said they made the offer when the old retirement plan was still in place... I said they would've known that the new (not so good) one was starting, and they basically didn't give me an answer. And well, at the time the company was getting into financial heavy weather. Little things like my complaint weren't important at all. I went looking around and moved on to a very appealing job, and left it at that. I talked with my gf about the situation, and we decided I could use my energy better than fighting the Man.

The easy life...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are smart enough, you can make quite a decent living via felonious activity.

Tax, free too.

Just stay away from intoxicating substances and loose-lipped partners.

Got to go, my pilot says the runway is clear...

The Canadian version?

[Adeptus_Luminati]

Anybody know of any Canadian versions of these websites out there? It's about freggin time somebody came out with this (obvious) idea! THANK YOU!

I've managed to negotiate my way into a substancial salary about 4 years ago, that I'm even comfortable with today without a single raise; however, I can't keep this up much longer, and the 'Secret HR books' (essentially a compliation of all company jobs of supposedly similar 500 to 1000 companies within my province), cost several hundred dollars each, and are not available for regular employees to peek at, possibly not even available for a non-large company to purchase.

So where is a Canadian employee to go these days for accurate information? I've found that most job-hunting websites out there do not reveal actual salary ranges until you get to some interview stage.

Thanks,
Adeptus

Re:The Canadian version?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to your local University and ask if they compile a Salary Book. It will probably be in the archives department. Some even stick it online. Depending on the campus it may be limited to teaching, or it may be a full dump from payroll, right "down" to the groundskeepers.

Academic payscales present a reasonable cross-section between union minimums and faculty tenured bonuses. Just keep in mind that in Canada the public funding is not as delightful as the $CURRENT_PARTY_IN_POWER claims. So a multi-national corp. should do better.

Re:The Canadian version?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can check out the Alberta Wage and Salary Survey at http://www.alis.gov.ab.ca/wageinfo/Content/Request Action.asp?format=html&aspAction=GetWageHomePage&P age=Home

It's from 2005, and it's not as useful if don't live in Alberta, but might be handy if you threaten to move to Calgary if you don't get $X...

Re:The Canadian version?

[Anonymous Coward]

Labour Market Information - Wages & Salaries

http://lmi-imt.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/standard.asp?ppid=4 3&lcode=E&prov=&gaid=&occ=&search_key=1&pre_sel_cr iteria=0

"Get an idea of what people are paid in various occupations across Canada."

Re:Ways to avoid having to mention a number, polit

[cerberusss]

You: "I notice that you have not offered me $PERK, where $PERK is an unsigned integer variable, 4 bytes long, automatically allocated on the stack.
HR: "?? WTF ??"

Another way to avoid giving a precise number

[Anonymous Coward]

As a job candidate, when I am asked about the salary I expect to receive, I often respond by giving a wide range, e.g. $70,000-$95,000. This way the potential employer knows that I believe I am worth up to 95k, while this lets him know that I am ready to work for as low as 70k. The employer often give you an offer slightly above the lower end, so choose it to represent what you want. In the end, the employer feels like he hired someone worth 95k for *only* 70k :-)

or how to be a sucker

[node 3]

Most sensible managers will want to pay a fair salary for the job they're having done simply because it attracts good applicants and a basis of fairness improves morale and hence productivity. Yeah, better to not take your destiny into your own hands. Better to not look out for your best interests yourself, because your manager is clearly more capable of looking out for your own best interests for you and is just as concerned, if not more so, as you are that you are paid well.

Don't rock the boat, Mr. Anderson. The Matrix values the contribution of each and every one of its many batteries...

Or better yet, how about I give you the finger, and take charge of my destiny as best I can.

You only live once. If your boss has shown he/she can be relied upon to look out for your own best interests, by all means, grant them your trust. Otherwise, you have to make a choice. Are you going to take control of your life, or leave that up to the whims of others?

If you're in the UK you might want to look at...

[bad_fx]

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/ It gives similar information. Of course anything like this should be taken with a large grain of salt.

I've been working for over twenty years....

[OneSmartFellow]

...with less than two months of slack time (no paying work) in that period (not including holidays, of course).

My experience in watching both permies, and contractors (of which I am one) negotiate pay raises is that it is a waste of time. If you want a significant raise, change job (move to a different company), otherwise you will almost invariably be stuck banging your head against the HR pricks.

Those of you promised a bigger bonus or raise 'next year', or given the excuse that 'this years results weren't very good' for your paltry inflation + 1% raise have only yourselves to blame for your lack of upward mobility.

Companies - whole economies - rely upon relatively constant wage costs, and they really can't afford to deviate much for any individual worker.

I'm not bitter, just telling it like I see it.

Only the Executive/Director level gets large wage increases and respectable bonuses, and that's because companies are for their benefit - hint, hint ***not the shareholder*** - despite what you are told in school.

The shareholders job is to accept risk in the hopes for a high reward. The Executives job contains almost no risk, requires little true skill - other than perhaps political nous - and yields huge rewards.

crap!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting paid like 20k$ too much... oh well, at least I've got this awesome list of tips to negotiate a fairer salary.

Re:crap!

[Dogtanian]

I'm getting paid like 20k$ too much... oh well, at least I've got this awesome list of tips to negotiate a fairer salary. Have you ever noticed that when a child yells "It's not fair!" it's never because they've been given *more* chocolate (or whatever) than someone else?

The art of salary negotiation ...

[Ihlosi]

I would be extremely cautious haggling with my boss over large sums of money.

... is knowing where a "large sum" begins for the boss.

Mystical? Pah

[isorox]

There's nothing mystical about my salary.

I get paid a basic salary, plus London weighting, about 5-6% of that is deducted for pension, which they then match. I get paid 10% extra pre-pension for unpredictable hours, then 3/70 of my pre-pension weekly wage for every hour of overtime I work. Any hours between midnight as 4 attract about $15 an hour bonus, and between 4 and 6 attracts an extra $30 an hour. I then have Income tax deducted (post pension), the first $10K tax free, the next $4K at 10%, the next $70K at 22%, and the rest at 40%. On top of that I have 11% of another part of my monthly salary for national insurance (pre-pension) on every pound of my salary >$800/month, and 1% of my monthly salary over $5000 a month. However that reduces somewheat (I have no idea how much) because of my pension. I then finally have money deducted (pre-tax, post-pension) for my student loan (10% > $30K) perks like taxi journeys home > 40 miles when public transport isn't working (40 miles is free, but I used to live 55 miles away), membership of the work club. The occasional work-paid do has tax deducted (although not all). Fortunatly there's no tax on company mobiles any more, and as I work in Central London there's no need or desire for a company car, which save more tax.

Easy as pie. My next salary negotiation will involve me coming off one set of terms (with the hourly overtime) and onto a set of terms that will pay me a fixed rate for working an extra day, but no hourly extras, however my basic pay (and therefore company pension contribution) will increase accordingly.

My role has increased in responsibility over the last 6 months too (hence the renegotiation rather than the standard 2.5% yearly increase). I've taken over someone on a much higher basic salary, but with more experience, and on non-overtime conditions.

So working out my next required wage and conditions is a walk in the park.

Re:Mystical? Pah

[Dogtanian]

I get paid a basic salary, plus London weighting In your experience, how much is the typical "London weighting" (are you referring to government jobs or just the phenomenon in general) and does it actually cover the vastly inflated costs of living in London?

Re:Mystical? Pah

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Let me preface this reply by saying that I've never personally chosen to work in London, so this is based only on the offers I've personally had but declined, and things I know friends have taken.

The short answer is that for high-tech jobs, the salaries in London can be anywhere from 30% to 100% higher than outside. Of course there are some that fall below that, and a few (mainly around the City) that pay significantly more. For example, a reasonably senior developer job worth £50k outside London would probably pull £70-80k in London.

But direct comparisons of salaries in the UK can be quite misleading, because some places pay salary and let you choose how to spend it, while others pay lower salaries but have genuinely compensating perks. And of course, the kind of business that's based in London and pays an extra £25k tends to believe your soul is included in the price. ;-)

For what it's worth, no, that kind of difference doesn't really pay the cost of London living, at least not in any of the nicer areas where house prices are astronomical these days. It does, however, easily cover the costs of a season ticket to commute in by train from one of the nice surrounding counties, as long as you're prepared to give up 1-2 hours of your life every day on top of the typical London working hours.

Re:Mystical? Pah

[gknoy]

So working out my next required wage and conditions is a walk in the park.

... a park full of rabid weasel-mimes. =)

Re:Mystical? Pah

[Dogtanian]

Useful reply, thank you.

US Bureau of Labor Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could go to the http://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm and check out their data which I'm sure is far more accurate than that given by the other sites.

How to find out how much money colleague makes

[Anonymous Coward]

To find out how much money your colleague makes is quite easy in Finland. Just send an SMS with text "vero firstname lastname city" to number 16400 and you will receive full tax info of a said person (vero = tax). Reply includes person's total taxable income and assets from last year. That info may give you a rough estimate of a person's true income. Are there similar tools available in other countries?

Or you could work for IBM

[gelfling]

Where they just dictate your bonus and salary which generally varies in the 0 - 3% range.

Not all that

[s31523]

I tried that site, payscale.com, and it was sort of lame. The spread of salary for my "type" of job was over 30K. My organization, which is not uncommon, has 6 levels of various engineers and has reasonable salary ranges for each one, maybe like 20K or so spread. This site seems like it could screw you as well as help you, i.e. tell you your high-end salary is X when your currently make X+20k. The bottom line, you know what your worth and you should always go into a new position higher than you left your old position.

Information Hoarding.

[Bright Apollo]

The one reply I hadn't seen involves what may be more common in your workplace: being paid relative to your immediate peers.

Let's imagine what would happen if everyone's salary information suddenly appeared on their office door or cubicle wall. The uprising that would follow would be interesting and justified. The company doesn't want you to know that you're paid less than the other guy, who's slack you've been picking up for the last two years. The company figures it's a wash anyway: they probably don't like overpaying for mediocre performance either, but they have you so it averages out *to them*.

Suddenly informed, you now have the advantage of knowing that you're underpaid just within the company, apples to apples, by 25%. The company can no longer average it out: it has to cut the loser's pay or bump yours, if it chooses to continue averaging it out.

If the loser doesn't like the pay cut, separation makes it easier to average it out. And the playing field is truly level.

-BA

Re:Information Hoarding.

[Aqua_boy17]

it has to cut the loser's pay or bump yours, if it chooses to continue averaging it out. If the loser doesn't like the pay cut, separation makes it easier to average it out. And the playing field is truly level.

Or, they do nothing which I think is much more likely to happen in a not-for-profit (where I work) or in government. It's been my experience that it's very rare for these types of organizations to ever actually reduce someone's salary.

As to being paid relative to your peers, you're right about salaries being transparent. If they were, there would be a revolt and no work would get done for some time. Case in point: we had a DBA fired on the spot when she was confronted and admitted to sharing salary information from our payroll system with her peers. She got busted because others in her own group found out what everyone else was making and predictably, the lower paid staff were angry and complained to their manager. It was a good six months before all the dust settled from that and the employees that remained in the admin group got over their anger and settled down to work. I don't know if any salary adjustments were ever made or not.

Bottom line, I'm happy where I am now. But if I find out that the person coming in off the street that I have to train is making more than I am, I'm going to be pissed and I'm going to be a less productive employee. But is there anything I can do about it? Depends, but probably not, at least not where I work.

Re:Information Hoarding.

[gatesvp]

So you got one reply with a cute story. Mine's not cute. I worked for a small consulting firm for two years (left on my two-year). I knew what they were billing, I knew what I was making, and what my co-workers (both on-site and off-site) were making. So when they gave me a $500 recruitment bonus for bringing on a new guy (in an industry where our competitors pay 2k), I knew that I was getting the short end of the stick (especially when he came in at the same salary with less credentials and less experience/time with the company). With no profit-sharing in place, that guy saved them a few thousand dollars in job ads and generated tens of thousands of dollars in the first year alone and my cut was a sub-2% bonus, once. Heck that was less than 1 day of billing for him.

I was the first one to receive "the award", I put on a company smile (whilst I steamed inside), and I guess they mis-read me, b/c it became company policy. They announced it by internal e-mail and received no internal replies (wonder why). They followed that up with a newspaper job posting (for multiple positions) and received less than a dozen unqualified replies. The newspaper ad cost at least 3k and we know this. When 3k gets you zero qualified applicants, you'd like to think that one qualified one would be worth $500 :)

Obviously, I left, and everyone in my ex-company will be getting significant pay raises this year or there likely won't be a company next year. I know, I've spoken with everyone, they know the financial reality. When we got a $500 x-mas gift from the company, we know how much that really cost them and how much they were holding back.

My point is simple though, assume that employees know exactly what everyone else is making. B/c we talk. I did, others knew what I made, and others shared back. If managers foolishly think they can hide the truth and they can "play the wage game" then somebody is just going to oust the pay structure. There are exceptions (Sales), but in IT where everyone acts in teams, you have to assume that people talk and do drinks and share.

If you can't post your salaries on the wall for everyone to see, isn't that really just a sign that you're ashamed of your pay decisions?

Negotiate Pay????

[boyfaceddog]

Please! The only "negotiations" most of us non-executives have for pay go soemthing like this:

PHB: "You did a good job last year. You could use some improvement. We're giving you a 6% raise as a reward."

Employee: "I met all of my improvment criteria from last year. Is that the most I can get?"

PHB: "Don't tell any of the other employees, but you are getting the highest raise in the section."

Employee: "Uh, thanks?"

Of course there's always the alternative which is "Don't let the door hit you in the *ss on the way out."

while ($have_job) {
    MUMBLE ("I love my job.");
}

Re:Negotiate Pay????

[/dev/trash]

Holy crap they paid you 6%? What's it like getting raises that outpace inflation?

"Web Developer" redux

[ediron2]

What you said:

Now see if you can guess the real reason a lot of managers get irritated by sites like this. Hint: It's nothing about being forced to pay what's fair.

Most sensible managers will want to pay a fair salary for the job they're having done simply because it attracts good applicants and a basis of fairness improves morale and hence productivity. Granted, not all managers are good or sensible but, honestly, most do try to be. Unfortunately, sites like salary.com, through their inherrent generalizations, often give thoroughly skewed impressions of what's fair and can cause all kinds of problems once someone that is fairly treated gets the impression they're being taken advantage of.

The flip side works against employees too... The last thing an employee wants is an ignorant manager finding a far less skilled job that kind of sounds similar and deciding 20% pay cuts or terminations and new hires are merrited.

Sure, they're a useful tool - but be seriously careful about building assumptions off over generalized data.

What I heard:

a lot of managers get irritated by ... being forced to pay what's fair...will try ... through their inherrent generalizations... give thoroughly skewed impressions of what's fair. An ignorant manager -- that kind of sounds similar -- Sure, they're a ... tool -- be seriously careful.

There *are* places like you describe. I've worked at a couple. But I've also worked in several other much-worse places. And my wife worked several years in a fortune-500 corporation's HR (human resources) as a recruiter. She got out because the entire HR department, like IT, is considered a bottom-line *LOSS* that senior management is always trying to minimize. Her firm's too-obvious euphemisms for this were 'profit centers' and 'cost centers'. As a cost-center, HR were always overworked and underpaid. As for fair pay, her job performance was literally based on dumbass metrics *INCLUDING* the percentage saved vs. national salary average in new hires. Yup, this pretty much guarantees that HR becomes a backwards mediocrity filter.

Re:"Web Developer" redux

[nomadic]

Her firm's too-obvious euphemisms for this were 'profit centers' and 'cost centers'.

That's actually the standard term used in the business world. It's always tempting for senior management to squeeze the cost centers, usually ending with hits to the profit centers too because they're not getting the support they require.

Are you a manager or an owner?

[spun]

You assume that people using the site are idiots, that the questions the site asks won't accurately fit you into a job category that matches your experience, and that everyone using the site will take it as gospel. Never mind the fact that any HR department worth its salt already has this data, so your last point is moot.

This whole post comes across as a poorly disguised attempt to keep us plebes in our place. You want this data for yourself, but you don't want the people you negotiate with to have it. You want what every manager or business owner wants, to reduce costs and therefor keep more of the profits in your greedy little hands. One way to do this is to keep employees ignorant of their true worth.

This is why we still need unions. Or democratically controlled trade guilds, seeing how unions have all turned into what they were fighting: another boss.

I find SalaryScout.com more useful

[Oz0ne]

If you check the site out, you'll see it's similar, but offers a bit more information, and a lot more individual info instead of aggregate. You get to see not only compensation, but benefits, and hours works/tasks responsible for. Additionally it's got a peer review/rating/commenting system.

Re:Ways to avoid having to mention a number, polit

[tx_mgm]

A 4 billion dollar perk, eh? I don't think Exxon needs a new CEO at the moment, but good luck with that app =)

More stats!

[Metasquares]

While it's easy finding mean salaries, there's another important piece of information that I feel is missing - standard deviation. When I choose to accept an organization's offer, I usually have an idea of where my skills fall in the organization in the sense of a percentile of other people with my title. It's nice that I can see the 25th, 75th, and 90th percentiles on some sites (and thus estimate the SD if I had to), but with the SD, I could calculate any percentile I liked, assuming that salaries are normally distributed.

Median would be nice too, since there are always outliers that may bias the mean when it comes to salary.

Heck, give us skew and kurtosis as well. The more statistics we're given about salary ranges, the better. These sites have the salary data required to compute these statistics; it's just a matter of doing so or giving the raw data away so we may do so.

Re:More stats!

[Anonymous Coward]

With that attitude you're never going to get that job at Burger King.

Different Approaches

[ddruid]

The http://www.payscale.com/ service works via the Internet by enabling individual employees to submit their job profile and salary data, which is then compared to others. Because a very large number (millions) of people utilize the service every month, the company claims it is able to use the volume of information statistically to determine accurate real-time salary information. The company generates revenue by selling aggregate data and web services to employers, to aid in determining correct market rates for hiring, benchmarking and budgeting, and by targeted advertising to employees that visit its web site. Salary.com uses purchased data in place of user submitted survey data. While the salary.com approach is arguably a more time tested approach to accurate numbers, it's less diverse as they have no way to accurately gauge the worth of a given skill, the benefit of a shortened commute, or the true value of a given degree. http://www.payscale.com/ wins hands down for my money. check out http://www.payscale.com/research if you don't believe me. Loads of free data to be found.

Where is the hiring manager?

[kbahey]

The one thing missing from what you wrote is the hiring manager.

HR alone cannot write what technical skills and responsibilities the position requires.

They have to rely on the hiring manager writing that up for them. The interview process will have to be at least two interviews, or one with two people present: the hiring manager, and the HR person. Neither of them can veto the other or force a candidate down their throat. In most places the hiring manager has the upper hand, and the HR person is there to ensure that company policy is followed.

I am surprised that a company leaves all this in the hands of HR completely.

Knowing Salary info is a good thing...

[sco_robinso]

My family has been working in HR for 40 years. I'm not in HR specifically (IT, actually), but I've learned a few things over the years.

First of all, knowing what your worth, and what the market is paying for your skills is never, ever a bad thing - nor should it be scary or bad for your employer. You should not shy away from your employer in asking for what you're worth. If market demand for your skill-set is low, you might not get what you're worth. But at minimum, knowing what you're worth is important. Personally, I live in a white-hot job market (Calgary, AB), so I am fortunate in that I can extremely easily get what I'm worth. Plus, here in Calgary, it takes employers months and months to find replacements, as the unemployement rate is effectively '0', so if you expect to survive in a job market like this, as en employer you do your darndest to keep the people you have, chances are you can't replace them.

Employee turnover costs approximately 150% - 200% of your annual salary. In other words, if you're making $50,000 a year as a round number, it would cost your employer approximately $75k to $100k to replace you. It seems rather high and bloated when you think about it, but when you factor in hiring costs, recruitment costs, lost productivity, lost time (training, interviews) - it really does add up. Even on the low end, you're employer would be 'lucky' to get away with 50% turnover costs. Therefore, asking for what often only amounts to a few percent raise, is peanuts compared to what it would cost if you were to leave. What's an extra $5000/yr if it would cost 5 or 10 times that just to replace you?

Bottom line is, find out what you're worth and make sure you're getting it. Salary.com and other sites are OK, but more times than not if you're in a job market of over 250k people, there will be very specific job market information for your particular city. See an HR consultant in your city, and believe me, it's well worth spending an hour or two with them for them to show you what you're worth. A good HR person will have access to all kinds of salary information for your city - and should be able to give you a whole gambit of information about how you're paid.

Any reasonable employer (which is about 98% of them) are always willing to have a sit down and chat about your salary (minimum wage and retail environments are slightly different). If you're not getting what you're worth, it typically wont hurt you to intelligently talk to your employer and ask for more.

Value is not always meausred in revenue.

[twitter]

As one commenter put it, "Find me a CEO with two employees, no revenue, and $200,000 in assets who makes $146,000 a year."

The $150,000 in created value is not a revenue. ... Moms are basically like the best nannies, and those make $40K. My wife deserves millions, but not in a free market.

Not to knock the nanny, but they don't do all of the things the wife does and that's how they measured the substitution cost. People who don't grasp this concept run businesses into the ground because they don't have a real grasp on what their employees actually do for company.

Re:Value is not always meausred in revenue.

[jb.hl.com]

Not to knock the nanny, but they don't do all of the things the wife does and that's how they measured the substitution cost. People who don't grasp this concept run businesses into the ground because they don't have a real grasp on what their employees actually do for company.

And the people who do grasp it pay lots of people $146,000 a year and run their businesses into the ground that way.

Re:Value is not always meausred in revenue.

[cayenne8]

"Not to knock the nanny, but they don't do all of the things the wife does and that's how they measured the substitution cost. People who don't grasp this concept run businesses into the ground because they don't have a real grasp on what their employees actually do for company."

Ok, but, the real value question here is...which one (wife or nanny) is more likely to give you regular blow-jobs?

Re:Value is not always meausred in revenue.

[Money for Nothin']

Ok, but, the real value question here is...which one (wife or nanny) is more likely to give you regular blow-jobs?

Depends - how much are they paying the nanny? :)

When will companies wake up?

[bcharr2]

It costs companies significantly more to hire a new employee than it costs to give a current employee a raise. Yet my experience has been similar to yours. It is usually more productive to change jobs than it is to receive a healthy raise from your current employer.

Why is this? I'm going to blame Human Resources for being inept, out of touch, and possibly just slightly jealous at the salaries commanded by those in the IT fields. If your HR department isn't normalizing pay scales between new hires and veterans, tracking local and national salary trends within the relevant career fields, competitively retaining your best employees, and breaking down the costs of new hires versus retaining current personnel, then you need to fire them. Or to put it another way, if HR isn't researching and defending raises for your top hires as vigorously as they research and defend their own raises... FIRE 'EM!

Companies themselves bear part of the burden however. The explosion of IT has also seen the rapid growth of many small to medium sized technology companies, mostly because many larger companies felt inept at managing their own programming departments. I've been on many interviews with small companies that seem to be centered on a cult of personality (the owner) who tries to sell you on the wonderful opportunity of working for their small company for a tiny sum of money. Promises of future raises and promotions and profit sharing are abundant, but overtime I expect these employees are mostly disappointed as their bosses only concern is growing their own bottom line.

The final part of the problem is the employees themselves. My advice is to get educated about your career field's salary expectations and just say "no" to small salaries accompanied with big promises and glowy joy-joy feelings. You simply drag everyone else in this career down when you settle for less.

Re:When will companies wake up?

[OneSmartFellow]

You simply drag everyone else in this career down when you settle for less.

A very good point indeed, and something that I always struggle to explain to new hires when I encounter them. Those of you who accept 450/day for a job that could easily pay 550+ are idiots, and no amount of "you don't understand my situtation" is going to convince me otherwise.

You are not going to starve to death, your house will not be repossed and your fatuous overpriced sports car or UAV (Urban Assult Vehicle) will still be on the road if you hold out for a better wage. ***unless of course you really are an idiot and have over-extended yourself to that state.

On-Call

[goobenet]

If you're offered a job with the status of 24/7 oncall (like an admin or engineer) tell them for starters you'll take $7.00/hour plus benefits. They pay you $7.00/hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, works out to $61,320/yr. Not bad for slightly better than min wage. :) Or whatever floats your boat... This would though negate any overtime, since you're paid 24/7.

Re:On-Call

[dottyslashdottydot]

I doubt that would work... it would mean that you're technically working 168 hours/week which is illegal is most places.

I used to work in a job that paid $25 standby pay per 8 hour shift on top of my regular salary to be on call. This obviously doesn't cover the time I was in the office anyway. An extra $400 per week was nice compensation to make up for the fact that I was always at the company's beck and call.

Now, I'm a contractor, and share on-call duty with one other guy. And no standby pay, either. No overtime, despite mandatory 45 hour weeks, no benefits, no paid vacations or holidays. Why am I here again?

Mentioning numbers

[DrVomact]

You're mostly correct. Normally, an applicant should never specify a salary or salary range during the interview process (above all, do not do it during a preliminary "phone screen"). Your objective should be to obtain an offer, and then negotiate salary. The reason for this is that before you have a firm offer, salary demands can only hurt you--the interview process exists to weed people out, and a high number can kill your chances at this point, while a low number will not help you. (Nobody wants to hire a cheap idiot...well, almost nobody.) Turn aside questions about salary by saying things like, "I really think this is the perfect job for me, and you are the kind of employer I've always wanted to work for. Salary is only a small part of the picture--many other factors will enter into making a decision to accept a potential offer from you". Yadda yadda yadda.

The picture changes completely when the prospective employer makes you an offer. The employer is now committed--you have successfully sold yourself as a desirable employee: they want you, and you know it. You will never be in a stronger position to negotiate than you are in those magic 5 minutes just after you obtain an offer, but have not yet accepted it. Unless the offer is obviously a generous one, ask for whatever you want--go a bit high to give yourself some negotiating room. I have never had an employer withdraw an offer at this point, but you should avoid being unreasonable or appearing greedy. Thank them for their offer, act flattered that they want you, and give some reasons for why you need and deserve more money than they proposed.

The problem I have run into lately is that I'm at a point in my career (or careen) where my salary has gone much higher than the average for people who do what I do. Several times, I have gotten to the offer stage, and found that what the employer wanted to pay was completely out of the ballpark. Going through a job search and interview process is time consuming and exhausting; I really hate to waste my time by pursuing a job that I'm not going to be able to accept, but the few times I've broken the "no numbers" rule have had exactly the effect one would expect--an abrupt cessation of interest on the part of the employer. I would really like to find an answer to this dilemma...anybody out there thought of a good one?

I don't know enough to evalutate the initial offer

[HornWumpus]

Best response I've ever heard.

RealRates.com

[linuxlover]

Any one had any success with realrates.com ?

Re:RealRates.com

[Anamanaman]

Yup... like 8 years ago. That site is ooooold.

Still the book that started it - Computer Job Survival Guide - is still one of my favorites. Followed Janet's advice since college and only good has come of it. Highly recommended.

MOD PARENT UP!

[loimprevisto]

Good advice about an oft-overlooked part of job seeking. These guys can save you hours or days of research and give solid advice about the job you're looking for.

Re:Ways to avoid having to mention a number, polit

[wurp]

Wow, those are some very helpful and well-thought-out suggestions.

I have one suggestion for you, though. It looks as if you expect most companies who would be interested in you to offer you a reasonably good salary. I think you should reverse that notion - most companies can't or won't afford what you're worth.

I am primarily a contractor. If I go out looking for a new contract and I get too many bites at $75/hr, I crank the rate up and start looking again. You are worth more than the market average (well, at least I am). Don't expect that most companies will make a reasonable offer. You're looking for that unusual job that will pay you what you're worth.

Re:Ways to avoid having to mention a number, polit

[jrockway]

> "I notice that you have not offered me $PERK, where $PERK is an unsigned integer variable, 4 bytes long, automatically allocated on the stack."

If someone said this in their interview ("dollar sign perk") I would immediately hire them, regardless of how the rest of the interview went :)

Re:Ways to avoid having to mention a number, polit

[g-san]

What, you want a salary or perk that can be represented in 16 bits??!!?

Re:Ways to avoid having to mention a number, polit

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be a floating point.