Salary Surveys & Competitiveness

The Internet has been a great tool for job seekers. Now, more than ever, you can learn more about the jobs you’re applying to, what the company is looking for, and more. You can even look up possible interview questions and, perhaps most importantly, competitive salaries.

That latter benefit is important. One of the keys to job happiness is knowing that you’re paid what you are worth. Employee retention is much higher at companies that prove they value their employees compared to companies that do not, and great talent are more likely to work for companies that value their employees and pay them good wages.

The problem, of course, is that not all companies and not all employees are created equal. So salary surveys can pose some challenges in the workplace as well. The published salary reports may not take into account: Skills and Expertise : While you can adjust for “years of experience” you cannot adjust for knowledge and talent.

Some people are naturally better than others and deserve more money. Others are worse and deserve less. Pay is supposed to be about the value you bring to the organization.

There are those that singlehandedly help companies earn millions that probably deserve far more than their salaries, and there are those that barely help the company make their salary that probably earn less. This is tougher to take into an account with salary surveys. Tasks and Needs : Two identical careers may have very different needs, and thus different salaries.

A “marketing associate” may do completely different tasks at different companies and thus have different value to the company, but their title is going to be the same, and thus their salary survey is going to be the same. Money in the Business : Not all businesses have enough money to pay what other companies pay. Of course, this is justification for a great talent to look elsewhere, so this isn’t necessarily a “problem” so much as a reality of the modern business.

But while these companies may not have money now, growing companies will have money in the next few years, and may simply need that expert to help put them over the top. This makes it harder for great jobs and great employees to connect when the company is still new and not necessarily as profitable. Changing Errors : Finally, the modern workplace is changing constantly.

Technology changes, value changes, and so on. Before, a salesman could receive the most money in an organization. Now, the Internet sells for people, so it may be the marketer that makes the most money.

Technology can change so quickly that experience in the field may mean nothing. And in fields like engineering there is now an influx of talent that has diluted the marketplace, and that should bring salaries down. Both employers and potential job seekers lose when they do not adjust their expectations accordingly to the ever-updating marketplace.

All of this also assumes that the math is being calculated properly as well. Some salary surveys will include bonuses, others do not. Some are small samples, others are not adjusted for location.

Depending on where you look and how you conduct your data collection efforts, there is a lot of error that can be introduced into a salary survey.

With all these problems in mind, salary surveys are still useful for both employers and job seekers. The issue is simply taking them with a grain of salt, and possibly adjusting your offer based on that information. For example, if you’re a company that simply cannot afford what people say in the salary surveys, you may need to find a way to make sure that what you can’t pay in salary, you make up for in free perks (like working from home). If you’re an employee with a job offer that is less than what you see on the site, you may need to truly calculate your value before you turn it down and be honest with yourself about your experience first.