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

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...

[Joebert]

if you're a well-paid administrator

Or you work at Best Buy.

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.

[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.

HA! Nice try !

[tempestdata]

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

You aint foolin nobody mister!

Easy formula

[michaelmalak]

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

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 ??"

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: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!"