DECEMBER 6, 2000
PAY & PERKS
Mining the Web to See What You're Worth | With up to 500 sites with info on salary trends, how can you find the surveys with the most reliable information? WorldatWork can help
| The interview hums along. You pass the reference checks. The hiring manager offers you the job -- and then comes the tricky part: naming your price.
For most of recorded history, the only gauge many job seekers had for whether their price was right was anecdotal evidence -- or a stern "no" from an employer. Increasingly, however, job seekers are turning to salary surveys on the Web to estimate their earnings potential before they begin negotiations. And that's O.K. -- as long as you pay close attention to what you're doing.
HANDY TIPS. At least, that's the implication of recent guidelines issued by WorldatWork, a nonprofit association for human resources professionals. The Scottsdale (Ariz.) group created the strategies for its members, many of whom set corporate-compensation policies. But the tips are also handy for anyone carrying a resume, says Douglas A. Grieser, a WorldatWork researcher who helped draw up the list.
The guidelines were prompted by the proliferation of Web pages devoted to tracking salary trends. Indeed, today 300 to 500 sites either post salary tables or link to pages that publish such information, according to Gerry Crispin, co-author of CareerXroads, an annual guide to Internet job-hunting. Many more sites -- mainly those of trade journals or professional organizations -- offer at least partial data for specific occupations, Crispin says.
So what credence should you give to all these numbers? Here are some hints from WorldatWork for making that decision:
Seek sophistication. The best surveys show how salaries vary by location,
industry, job duties, and other factors.
Methodology matters. Good studies disclose how they were done, including information on the sample size, whether employers were included in the survey, and if so, how many employees they had. The most-authoritative information, Grieser says, comes from the latter.
Find a good source. Unfortunately for job seekers, the best studies,
typically conducted by human resources consulting companies, can sell for thousands of dollars -- if they're even available to anyone other than to the employers who participated. The next-best place to turn to, Crispin says, is survey data collected by professional organizations, many of which post at least part of their information online. Some organizations require membership before you can get access to the salary data. Cough up the dues, Crispin advises. "You may have to join the damned association -- but you should have in the first place," he says.
Timeliness counts. The numbers in any decent salary survey should be fresh. Just how up-to-date? Less than than a year old, but preferably closer to six months, says Mary-Ellen Mort, director of Jobstar.org, a nonprofit career site with links to a number of salary surveys. The best surveys are those professional groups conduct year after year. Over time, they refine their techniques. They also hear from members if figures are way out of line, she says.
Mort offers two other tips of her own:
Use the info well. Too often job seekers take the numbers as gospel. That's a big mistake because there's no one correct salary for a job. What the figures do best is provide an idea of salary ranges for a profession or specialty.
Network, diplomatically. People in jobs similar to the one you want are natural sources of salary information. But because income is a sensitive subject, you need to broach it tactfully. Never ask a person to tell you his or her salary, Mort advises. Instead ask something along the lines of: "I hear that ABC company offers a salary range of _ to _ for XYZ job. Does that sound fair?"
If the person answers, "That seems low," you've learned something useful. If
the answer is, "What was the name of that company, again?" you know you're golden.
By Pamela Mendels in New York
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Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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