Online Tools for Negotiating Salary Increases

"ONLINE TOOLS FOR NEGOTIATING SALARY INCREASES

The Internet has changed the art of salary negotiations. Whether you are haggling bucks for a new job or simply trying to improve your compensation in your current one, info is power. If you can prove --- or even seem to prove --- to your boss that you are underpaid, your leverage may be humungously increased.

A proliferating number of Web sites now offer results of salary surveys and some even offer customized compensation analyses. Many of these online services offer basic information free --- a list of job titles and their price tags --- but charge fees for detailed data addressing factors such as skill sets, geography, company size, industry, and labor market demand. You may not want to cough up bucks to learn perhaps that you aren’t really so crummily paid. But patient and persistent clicking will probably yield without cost all you need to know.

Check out these sites:

• www.jobsmart.org. Here you will find links to 300+ compensation surveys accessible on the Web. The emphasis of this site is on California, but there is plenty of valuable information for residents of other states.
• www.execunet.com Lists information on salary, bonus and options for 650+ management jobs and is fertile ground for basic information. This site, however, charges $125 for details. Whew! Dem is some pricey details.
• www.wageweb.com Fee salary information for 150+ clerical, professional, and management jobs. $100 smackers for the breakdown.
• www.futurestep.com This is a commercial venture sponsored by the headhunter firm Korn/Ferry, in partnership with the Wall Street Journal. For professional folks earning $50,000+, the site will estimate your salary market value based on your indicated desired position, geographical preference, and your current industry. Register here and you will be subject to approaches by Korn/Ferry recruiters, which may not be a bad thing.

You may learn through these surveys that you are overpaid. Don’t let such edification shackle you to a job that you don’t enjoy --- the phenomenon known as golden handcuffs.

As in all negotiations, the most effective tool you can wield is the willingness and temerity to stand up and walk from the table.

TOILING AT THE WRONG JOB

If your problem is merely that you are not making enough money to suit you, maybe you ought to rejoice, or at least get a grip. A majority of Americans got stuck in their unsatisfactory jobs for such reasons as a lack of choice or simple chance, while only 41% hold jobs that they had planned. Not only that, about half of Americans say that job stress interferes with their health, personal relationships, or ability to do their job. All this was revealed in a poll conducted by the Gallup Organization for the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee, a congressional panel formed to make better use of job information.

Even so, these malcontented workers do think money would be a salve. The poll showed that 40% of the disgruntled survey respondents reported that bigger bucks would give them an incentive to accomplish more in their work, while 31% said that more recognition would do the same.

I admit I haven’t conducted a study of 1,350 people, as the Gallupers did. Still, for nigh on thirty years, just about every day I’ve commiserated with folks who are soured on their jobs; therefore, I’ll risk portentousness by observing that a raise in pay acts as an antidote to job whining for about six months max. Then the halo effect wears away, and the discontented raise junkies are once again looking for the financial fix. An old Spanish proverb comes to mind: "I don’t want the cheese. I just want out of the trap.

- Richard Tanski"

<Note from JobFairy.com: Go to the Money Matters section for more information about how to calculate what your skills should be worth and which skills to start working towards.>