How Do You Research Salary Rates?

Posted May 25, 2017

On the internet, it’s not hard to research typical salaries for the kind of job you are interviewing or hiring for. Here are some sites that may give you just what you’re looking for:

Jobstar.org—This internet address links 300 sites that maintain salary lists, and it’s kept updated. Jobstar.org is one of the largest and most complete lists of salary reviews on the web.

Salary.com—This is the most visited of salary-specific job sites, and it has a wide variety of information. Salary.com has expanded over the years—use the navigation bar at the top to see its resources.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics—In its Occupational Outlook Handbook, the BLS publishes and regularly updates a survey of salaries in individual occupations. You can opt for a print version as well.

Salaryexpert.com—There is plenty of information here on salaries, and it includes a free salary report for hundreds of job titles, varying by area, skill level and experience. This site also has some salary calculators.

Glassdoor.com—You can search this site by location and job title or company.

Some other options

This sampling gives you a good start. In addition, there are a couple of other sites worthy of note:

At Payscale.com, the first screen provides job seekers with information on what they should be paid and it also gives employers information about new hire compensation.

Under these main links are reports: 2016 Compensation Best Practices Report, Gender Pay Gap and the 2017 Salary Negotiation Guide; it even navigates to compensation software to start paying employees, as it touts, “the right way.”

PayScale explains that it “links individuals and businesses to the largest salary profile database in the world.” Job seekers and employers can check out data about different countries, exploring thousands of jobs.

The site also offers this advice: Try a salary range rather than a specific number, and don’t just take straight pay numbers into account; think about benefits. Both employers and employees should be ready to walk away if they can’t agree on the full package.

At Salary Search, employers and job seekers are reminded that many salary tools use historic survey data, but culling current job openings is a better indicator. That kind of data is available at this website, or so it touts.

The site also brags that it’s keyword-based, so you can search using any mix of skills, keywords or job titles to get the median salary of all jobs matching your query, using the rationale that skills or qualifications are more important than job titles.

Salary Search boasts that its information is extracted from more than 50 million job postings from sources in the past 12 months that are updated with fresh salary data automatically.

It’s clear that whether you are a job seeker or an employer, there’s a wealth of information available to the keen researcher who spends some time delving into salaries.

Scott Maichel

I’ve been in the Payroll and HR business since 1992 and currently I'm the Managing Partner with AmCheck San Diego, a local boutique Payroll-HR services firm focused on helping small to mid-sized employers. Since co-founding the AmCheck San Diego office in 2006 I have worked closely with hundreds of employers in the San Diego community. My experience has enabled me to develop a unique service offering for employers that help them minimize the transactional aspects of their job so they can focus on the tasks they enjoy – like leaving the office at 5 o’clock occasionally! I pioneered several unique offerings in my industry like the AmCheck employment attorney hotline, the PEO transparency analysis and the AmCheck college scholarship program - which helps our clients attract and retain good employees. I’m an advocate for the San Diego broker community. I’ve been a Board member of the San Diego Association of Health Underwriters (SDAHU) since 2012, I served as past President and currently serve as the VP of Membership. Since 2006, I’ve been a frequent public speaker and educator for the broker community in helping them level the playing field when competing against PEO’s or payroll companies that offer work comp and benefits. I have traveled to Washington D.C. on 3 separate occasions to lobby on behalf of benefit brokers to increase broker commissions and make the ACA easier for brokers and employers. My personal interests include supporting several Autism focused organizations including; Autism Speaks, The Autism Walk, The Music Therapy Center of California and Banding Together. I enjoy running, architecture and I’m a huge Chicago Cubs fan.