A reader contacted me via IM this week to ask for help with his job search.
GRS reader: hey JD
J.D.: Hey, David.
GRS reader: i am in talks with a company to go work in the us, arizona to be precise, and they asked what are my salary expectations
GRS reader: i have no clue what they are… I am 23 years old, and I just want to live confortably for the period I stay there, i.e. no need for car, rented house (maybe roomate), etc
GRS reader: what would be a good salary for that profile?
J.D.: Well, it totally depends on the industry and location and your job. There’s no one right answer.
J.D.: If I were in your position, I would use Google to research information about similar jobs.
J.D.: I would try to locate similar firms adverstising for the same position that might give a salary range.
GRS reader: its an internet marketing job
GRS reader: i talked to another friend and he said an entry level salary is around 35k gross
J.D.: These sorts of situations can be very intimidating, because you don’t want to leave money on the table, but you don’t want to come off as too aggressive, either.
J.D.: Your best bet is to find as many comparables as possible, which may be difficult.
J.D.: Your best weapon is knowledge. The more you know about the situation, the better position you’re in. Do some research to see if you can learn what similar people in the field are paid. Don’t be afraid to ask questions (as you’re doing with me). I don’t know the answers, but somebody will.
I could only give David vague suggestions — I didn’t have any concrete ideas to improve his bargaining position. What he really needs is some sort of crystal ball that could let him know what a fair salary is. 
Over the holiday I stumbled across a site called SalaryScout, which is designed to just that.
SalaryScout sounds like a great idea, and obviously people find it useful because the site has over 5000 members. From what I can tell, there are daily updates to the salary information. However, the site wouldn’t accept my registration for some reason, so I can’t give a more detailed review.
Fortuantely, I was able to find a site that looks even better. Indeed, which bills itself as a “search engine for jobs”, also offers salary information.
Indeed gives job seekers free access to millions of employment opportunities from thousands of websites. Indeed.com includes all the job listings from major job boards, newspapers, associations and company career pages – and we continue to add new sites every day.
If the home page is to be believed, Indeed has listed nearly one million new jobs in the past week alone! 
Its salary search is quick and easy. Using it, I was able to learn that David should expect to earn $45,000 as an internet marketer in Arizona. (That’s better than the $31,000 that Indeed says Oregon-based bloggers make.)
Indeed also allows users to browse jobs (or use the default “search engine format”), access job search tools, and participate in discussion forums. SalaryScout looks promising, but Indeed seems to have all the information a job-hunter could want.
Finally, the U.S. Department of Labor publishes an online Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is just a fancy way of saying “career information guide”. Though its interface is not as slick as Indeed’s, the OOH contains a ton of information for each career, including descriptions of working conditions, relevant qualifications, job outlook, estimated earnings, and more.
Armed with these three tools, David can enter salary negotiations informed, and in a position to ask to be paid what he’s worth.
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SalaryScout is still in it’s BETA phase, but seems to be growing on a daily basis. I did find the information to be relevant and useful. I would try to register again.
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I think a better bet is to locate websites that are applicable to your profession. This is particularly important in computer professions where salary can vary widely based on training and experience. I look at publicly available salary schedules, Universities and government organizations generally have their salary schedules posted, so that’s a good place to start. I also make sure to check the local cost of living. You HAVE TO make more $$ in Seattle, SF, or Phoenix, or you will be living in your car.
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there are some careers where you can’t factor in what you are worth money-wise. E.G. Fireman, teachers, etc.
The intrinsic values need to be accounted for in those cases.
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I’ve used payscale.com in the past with reasonable success. How does that compare to other salary-type sites? Thanks for the link to indeed. I’m looking for a better job and a quick indeed search brought up some jobs I’m going to apply to tonight.
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For what it’s worth, I have a rather unusual niche job that never comes up in on salary sites. I ran it through Indeed for the city I work in and it gave a reasonable number for a person with some experience in the area. It also gave pretty realistic numbers for some other cities I’m familiar with and put in.
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Making sure you’re paid what you’re worth is even *more* important when you’re starting a new career. Since raises are often based on a percentage of initial salary, starting out “behind” hurts you in the long run. This is one of the reason women still lag behind men in salaries.
And… of course, since the Supreme Court ruled that you only have a 180 day window in which to sue for pay discrimination, you can’t expect much legal help either.
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focus on what you are worth and what the industry pays. don’t go negotiation salary with the idea that you can scrimp on such and such like not having a car. that is just setting yourself up for low pay.
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People from outside the U.S. should understand that in many US locations – you do need a car. Many other countries have better transit systems – especially train and trams. But here in the US – unless you’re in New York, Chicago, San Fran, DC, Boston or a major metropolitan area – a car will be a must.
Having said that, anything in the $30 – $45k range should be enough to lease a car. But if you’re not planning on leasing it for the full 36-48 months, you might want to just buy used.
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Good links, I’m gonna check uut the INdeed site.
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Ah, the salary dance… It’s best to give a range. The low end should be a little higher then the minimum you would accept. The high end should be a little bit higher then an offer you would cancel the rest of your interviews for. Don’t be afraid to make a counter offer, but making a counter offer allows them to take their offer off the table most places.
The best salary information comes from friends in the same industry in the same job market. My friends that share salary information all make about 10% more than the Indeed average, and we don’t have all that much experience. We’ve also discovered the best raises come by leaving your current job. Loyalty is for suckers.
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salary.com has always seemed to give good answers for me…and best of all it also has a cost of living calculator, so if you’re at a job in another part of the country, or if you’re at least familiar with the cost of living in another part of the country, you can get a comparison of 1) the difference in pay for the same job between the two areas and 2) the difference in cost of living between the two areas (1 & 2 are usually not the same value…).
The other thing I like is that it breaks down salary by experience, which Indeed did not appear to do. There’s a huge difference between pay for 5-10 years experience and pay for 0-2 years experience.
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That’s useful info, and I’d certainly look it up before starting a negotiation like this, but I would go about it a completely different way.
Instead of negotiating based on what other people are paid, negotiate based on the value you’re bringing to the company. For instance, if you can fix several problems and save the company $500,000, why not asked to be paid $125,000?
In the past, I’ve done this on a salary plus bonus system. I baseline the salary on the industry average, and then I insert a contractual bonus if I’m able to do certain things for the company.
Last year, during my first year of working with the company, my bonus was four times my salary. If I’d negotiated for a salary only, I would’ve been paid far less than what I’m worth.
Jon
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This is another neat one:
http://www.opensourcesalary.com/OpenSourceSalary/Home.php
It is dependant upon people providing basic information about their salary. Not sure if it reaches far outside the IT realm.
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Personally I deflect questions about ‘salary expectations’ before I’m in the interview phase since I think it’s skeevy for an employer to ask me to do their market research for them. If they don’t want to interview me because they are worried I will want notably more than what they’re willing to pay then they can publish a salary range. As I’m closing in on 40 and financial secure I can afford to be snottier than David can, however.
Regardless, I think a company demanding this kind of info from an applicant is showing some warning signs. It’s hard to tell what they’re warnings of, but none of the interpretations are very flattering for them.
If they can’t address this issue with a salary range it’s potentially an indicator that they don’t have a good internal salary guideline for positions. Or they don’t follow it and don’t want to let some of their lowballed employees know how much they’ll pay for a job similar to theirs. Or worse, they want to lowball you!
Alternately they just have no idea what they should be paying, which is an indication that they can’t be bothered to read salary studies and want you to do it for them.
Or they know they’re not paying competitively and don’t want to interview people who won’t take their abnormally low salary. This might not be so bad if they’d address the issue with a salary range but instead they’re choosing to try to have their cake – pay less – and eat it too – keep this salary cheapness a secret from the world at large.
Be suspicious of companies asking for salary expectations.
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When I was freelancing as I writer I was used to being paid by the word (for magazine articles), but once I was asked for an hourly rate. I was caught flat-footed, I hadn’t even considered what I’d want for an hourly rate. Fortunately my client offered me what she was paying someone else which sounded reasonable to me, and it was, but it’s a good idea to have an idea of what you would charge per hour in case you’re in a line of work where someone might ask that question.
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There is no hope for raises where I work; everyone is paid within 20 cents of minimum wage. Because my credit is in the tank, a lateral move with advancement potential (no promotion path here) is not a realistic option.
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One thing that I have found useful is to find out what the person who manages you is paid. You will never make more than your boss, so if you know your boss makes X, you can ask for 90% of X.
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a friend was going through interviews, and one company had the nerve to ask him how much he was offered at a different employer (they knew he had a standing job offer there, as he had done several internships)! That seems horribly unethical. Then the offered him the same, even though they were in a high cost city and the other employer is in a VERY low cost area. Yeah, he didn’t take that job!
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Some salary research is too general. For example, a couple of years ago, I was researching the typical rate for a marketing manager. Unfortunately, there was a huge range, because this included people who were actually sales execs and people who were in more senior management positions. Sometimes, salary research isn’t much help. Imagine being told that the range is $45k – $120k. That’s not much help.
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Here’s a list of the best-paying jobs with the least education required.
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Those numbers are all horribly off. At least for the job market I’m in. Even looking at the list JD just posted I can pick out plenty of jobs that pay double what is listed on there.
This year I’ve already made 20% more than it lists my average yearly salary as.
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My advice on pay is that if an employer really wants you, they will make your pay work out appropriately.
So make them want you, and theyll be putty
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I can’t disagree with another commenter’s recommendation of Salary.com enough. I’ve always found their salary ranges to be way over-inflated for the positions that I search for. It is perhaps more useful if you have a very specific-sounding job to search for, but for the more generalist, entry-level types of positions that many 23 year olds will be applying for, it is next to useless.
I hate to be a pessimist, but speaking as a 24 year old, I don’t think there is much that someone just entering the full-time workforce can do in regards to salary negotiation. You can do enough research to make sure that you’re not getting completely hosed, but, in my experience, most companies are not very receptive to salary negotiations for an entry-level position that they had 500 other qualified applicants for.
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I do interviewing for a living and asking about compensation is a must in every phone screen (except for entry level). My company is a lifestyle firm (media, close to the music, nightlife, dining entertainment scenes) and there are lots of perks. But, we don’t pay well. I don’t want to advertise that too much to scare off some of the really experienced industry people who can make better money.
Unless you are in a company that pays top dollar, you always need to have an idea about salary expectations coming in. Sure, some people use that as a way to lowball the candidate, but I need to make sure you aren’t the $500k guy applying to a $150k job.
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there’s another grassroots transparency movement from the SalaryBase project (link: http://www.salarybase.com). According to the site, it’s all based on real employment reports. Any additional piece of info I reckon helps.
– shelly
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