Knowing your market value is critical when you’re looking for a new job or negotiating a raise at your current company. With the right salary research, you can determine the typical pay range for your role, experience level and location. This allows you to set appropriate expectations and negotiate fair compensation.
Conducting thorough salary research takes some time and effort. But it’s one of the most important investments you can make in your career. Read on to learn proven tips for researching and benchmarking salaries in your field.
Why Salary Research Matters
Here are some key reasons to make salary research a priority:
- Avoid leaving money on the table – Without market data, you risk undervaluing yourself and accepting lower offers.
- Set realistic expectations – Salary research helps prevent you from overestimating what you’re worth.
- Negotiate with confidence – Solid salary stats allow you to negotiate firmly and back up requests with facts.
- Choose jobs wisely – Comparing salary ranges helps determine which roles are most lucrative.
- Achieve pay equity – Research can reveal if you’re underpaid compared to peers.
- Detect discrimination – Unexplained pay discrepancies may indicate gender or racial bias.
In short, salary research helps maximize your earning potential by arming you with critical pay insights.
Step 1: Define Your Target Job
First, you need to determine the specific job title and focus area you want to research. Some examples include:
- Accountant
- Software Engineer
- Project Manager, Construction
- Marketing Manager, Digital Media
The more precise the job title, the better. Generic titles like “accountant” are too broad. Roles like “staff accountant” or “senior financial analyst” will produce more relevant salary ranges.
Also focus on the exact type of position you hold or want to hold. Tech jobs are a good example. Titles like “software developer” cover many different skillsets and specialties. Jobs like “front-end web developer” or “Python developer” are better targets for research.
Step 2: Consider Your Experience Level
Salaries often correlate strongly with years of experience. Be sure to factor your experience level into your research for the most applicable salary range.
Entry-level jobs are for those just starting out with 0-2 years of experience. Look for terms like “associate” or “junior” in the job title.
Mid-level roles require 2-5 years of experience. No experience descriptor is common at this level.
Senior-level jobs typically call for 5+ years of experience. You’ll see words like “lead” or “principal” in the job title.
Specialized roles may require even more experience. For example, an “architect” job often requires 10+ years in the field.
When possible, filter salary data by years of experience to get comparable numbers. Make sure the experience ranges match yours as closely as possible.
Step 3: Consider Your Location
Salaries vary enormously by geographic location. A $75,000 salary in Cleveland, Ohio might be $125,000 in San Francisco for the same role.
Ideally, focus your research on salaries for your target metro area. Most sources let you filter by city or region. If data is limited for your exact location, look at major nearby metros with similar costs of living.
In addition to metro location, consider if you are looking at salaries for roles based downtown in a major city versus the suburbs. Pay is often higher for downtown roles to account for parking costs and higher taxes.
Step 4: Use Salary Data Sites
Now it’s time to consult online salary data sites. These provide the most comprehensive, up-to-date pay information. Here are some top recommended sites:
1. Glassdoor
Glassdoor is one of the most popular sites for anonymous company reviews, interview insights and salary data. Key features include:
- Millions of user-submitted salaries for a wide range of jobs.
- Ability to filter by job title, location, company and other criteria.
- Free basic access to salary averages, ranges and graphs.
- Paid access via Glassdoor membership provides more salary details and advanced filters.
2. PayScale
PayScale offers robust compensation data contributed by users and employers. Benefits include:
- Salary profiles for over 7,000 common job titles.
- Filtering by experience level, company, skills, education and more.
- Free access to PayScale’s salary calculator.
- Paid plans unlock detailed salary reports, comparison tools and other features.
3. Indeed
Leading job site Indeed also provides excellent salary insights, such as:
- Average salaries drawn from job postings and member-submitted pay.
- Salaries by job title, location and company size.
- Completely free access – no membership needed.
- Lower number of salary profiles compared to Glassdoor and PayScale.
4. LinkedIn Salary
LinkedIn Salary leverages pay data from LinkedIn member profiles. Benefits include:
- Salaries filtered by industry, years of experience, company size and more.
- Completely free access to salary averages and ranges.
- Lower number of job profiles versus Glassdoor and PayScale.
5. Salary.com
Salary.com collects organizational compensation data to estimate market pay rates. Features include:
- Thousands of free salary averages searchable by job title, location and experience.
- Paid plans provide more robust salary reports and comparison tools.
- Lower transparency on the underlying data sources used.
I recommend checking at least 3 sites to get a balanced view. Glassdoor and PayScale tend to have the largest pools of crowd-sourced salary data.
Step 5: Use Government Data
Several government agencies publish salary surveys that serve as authoritative references on pay by occupation.
Two top resources are the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM):
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
The BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics offer robust analysis including:
- Mean and median salary averages for hundreds of occupations.
- Wages broken down by metro area and statewide.
- Analysis of how pay varies by industry, experience, size of company and more.
- Completely free public access to all data.
Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
OPM conducts in-depth salary research for federal government workers. Benefits include:
- Accurate picture of pay for occupations like IT, engineering, science, finance and more.
- Data incorporates COLA and locality adjustments by geographic area.
- Completely free public access to all data.
Government salary surveys are especially useful for validating ranges from private sector sources. The BLS in particular is considered the gold standard reference.
Step 6: Use Compensation Surveys
Many professional associations and industry groups publish annual compensation surveys for specific fields. These studies query employers to collect salary data for specialized roles.
Examples include compensation surveys for:
- Engineering – Published by societies like ASME
- Accounting – Conducted by state CPA societies
- Healthcare – Hospital associations and medical trade groups
- Technology – Tech trade associations like CompTIA
associtions like CompTIA
Benefits of industry compensation surveys:
- Relevant for narrow job categories not covered by BLS.
- Often break down pay by position, experience, certifications, company size and region.
- Provide trends over time for industry-specific occupations.
The downside is that accessing full reports usually requires paying membership dues to the sponsoring organization. But you can often view free executive summaries online.
Step 7: Use Academic Studies
Business, economics and HR academics periodically conduct specialized salary research studies. These provide unique insights beyond standard data sources.
Examples include studies of:
- Gender pay gap for various occupations.
- Salary impact of personality traits.
- Pay differences between specific industries and job functions.
- Regional pay disparities and cost of living impact.
Academic salary research is useful for drilling down on salary subsets in great detail. You can find many studies for free online through Google Scholar, university websites or academic knowledge bases like SSRN.
Step 8: Estimate Ranges
Once you gather salary data from multiple sources, it’s time to estimate an overall expected salary range.
Here are some tips:
- Note the lowest and highest reported salaries, excluding outliers.
- Focus primarily on median or middle salaries.
- Consider your years of experience and where your pay should fall.
- Weigh glassdoor and other crowd-sourced ranges most heavily.
- Factor in government and academic data to right-size ranges.
This analysis might result in an estimated salary range of $65,000-$85,000 for a mid-level accountant in Atlanta with 4 years experience.
Having a target range provides great confidence when negotiating job offers and raises.
Step 9: Research Salary Negotiation Tips
Now that you know what you’re worth, it’s time to negotiate your fair market pay.
Review these salary negotiation best practices:
- Have a minimum acceptable salary in mind before negotiating.
- Determine the typical negotiation range for your role.
- Ask about the offer timeline to plan your approach.
- Request the offer in writing before accepting.
- Respond with excitement before negotiating.
- Stay positive – never lose your cool or get confrontational.
- Focus on your contributions and capabilities, not just market data.
- Ask questions and listen to gauge flexibility.
- floating other offers to create leverage
- Consider non-monetary perks like extra vacation in lieu of salary.
- Secure the details in writing before accepting the final offer.
With preparation and steadfast professionalism, you can negotiate win-win outcomes and fair pay for all parties.
Step 10: Periodically Update Your Research
Salary expectations shift over time with economic conditions. Cost of living and inflation also drive salaries higher.
I recommend reviewing and updating your salary research every 12-18 months. Or whenever you are approaching a job change or promotion. This ensures you always have an accurate view of your earning potential.
Set a recurring calendar reminder to refresh your research at least annually. Use any significant changes in market pay rates to renegotiate your current salary.
Conclusion
With the right process, salary research is extremely doable for any career field or situation. Follow the steps outlined to benchmark objective pay rates tailored to your exact job profile.
Armed with accurate competitive salary data, you will expand your career opportunities and maximize your earning potential over the long-term. Regularly refreshing this vital research will empower you to command fair pay that reflects the tremendous value you bring to employers.