I have always believed that you work to afford the pleasures of life. This is why negotiating your salary is one the most important tasks of your job and you need to take this task seriously not only when you are looking for a new job but also when you are preparing your performance review.
According to leanin.org and its article published in November 2019, on average Hispanic and Latin people are paid 46% less than white men and 31% less than white women. A study in Glassdoor has also shown that millennials are less likely to negotiate their salary and more than 60% of people don’t negotiate their salary when receiving their first job offer. The salary gap and the low wages can only be reduced if we all contribute to negotiating our pay to receive a salary in line with the market.
This is why I will give you 5 Free tools that you can use to understand your market value and negotiate your salary. These tools must be used in combination with your personal situation including the role you are applying for, your experience, the cost of living of the city you live in and the size of the company.
Glassdoor
I have used it since my first job in Australia. It provides salary information according to the job title and city where you live. It is quite simple to use, you just need to log in into Glassdoor and click the “discover salaries” button. In less than 30 seconds you will know the average salary you can expect and you can even scroll down to find the average within some companies. Easy to use and it has really good information, especially if you are working for a big company, you will know exactly the salary that you should target when you receive your offer.
Glassdoor in the US launched a new tool called “Know Your Worth” to get a personalized report, however; it’s still not available in Australia. I will keep an eye on this tool and I will let you know all about it when this becomes available in Australia.
Payscale
PayScale offers a feature called “What I am worth?” that creates a personalized report based on your experience, position, education and skills. The questionnaire is quite full on and they even ask your political preferences, that personally, I found it really inappropriate.
But thankfully you can skip the responses and get your report. The report is good, it provides good insights and it gives you even options for career pathways and diplomas you can do to increase your salary.
I find it a bit overwhelming and not as accurate as Glassdoor. But definitely, a tool to check out especially if you are looking for your next job or a career transition.
LinkedIn Salary
It’s a great tool, really easy to use and because we all have a LinkedIn account there is no need to create a new account. The insights with its global network of more than 450 million users and being one of the main tools used by companies and recruiters to find employees is highly reliable. The free version gives you the average salary in your city for the position you have searched for.
If you have LinkedIn premium you can access to more insights including the average salary per company size, industry, level of education and the top locations where you can have a higher salary. I highly recommend this tool.
Salary Guides
Recruitment companies have also a large range of information and annually they publish a salary and benchmark guide for hiring managers and job seekers. It’s really simple, go to google and type “salary guide Australia” you can even pick your role title. You will see than companies including Hays, Michael Page, Hudson, Adecco and Robert Half have an updated salary guide. You will need to give them their email and they will send you the latest version within seconds.
Information in the salary guides is highly accurate and reflect salaries in the Australian market. I use them all the time. The only comment to those guides is that sometimes they miss information about the company size and the type of company, and we all know those aspects are also highly important when we refer to salary.
Enjoy the negotiation and let’s all contribute to a world with equal work opportunities for everyone!
Diana Amado
JobNow Founder
