You already know that PayScale.com is the place to go to
quickly generate a personalized Salary Report that tells you exactly how your
total compensation compares to people like you. (And if you don’t know that, go
complete your Salary Report right now.) You probably have even
spent some time poking around and looking at the array of charts and lists
contained on the report. But today we’re going to show you how to get the most out of that information.
Your Pay Snapshot
Your Pay Snapshot is probably the first thing you see when
you look at your Salary Report. You see your total pay (your salary plus any
monetary benefits, like bonuses, overtime pay and more), and what percentile
that total compensation puts you at. In the example above, the user ranks in
the 63rd percentile, meaning that he or she makes more than 63% of
people who do the same job, have similar education, experience and live in places
where the cost of living is comparable.
By the way, it’s important to note that we measure median
salaries, not “mean” salaries. We know, it’s a confusing topic- not everybody
has a crack team of data scientists they can refer to help figure this stuff
out. By focusing on medians, we eliminate outliers that would throw off the
data. You can read more about median versus mean in
this blog post.
Want a more detailed breakdown? Click on “Go to
your full Pay and Benefits Report” to see how all those different bits of your
total compensation compare individually. Here you can compare salary, bonuses,
medical benefits, vacation time and more.
Total Cash Reports
But wait, there’s more! If you’re a PayScale Premium user,
you can click on “Show all Total Cash reports” and you will see even more
nitty-gritty data. (We really love data here. So should you.)
Overwhelmed? Don’t be. To put it simply, this is where you
can look up what people report earning, on average, based on specific
demographics like Employer Type, Experience, Skills, City and Gender. It’s a
lot of information, but it makes it easy for you to identify actions you can
take to up your earning potential. Best of all, it’s customized for different
types of jobs and different industries. Notice how the example above is for a
teacher – if this was a Salary Report for a registered nurse, you wouldn’t see
“Average Total Cash by Subject Taught.”
If you see that your peers who have a certain skill that you
might be lacking in make significantly more than you, that may be something you
want to learn. If you see that earning power would be higher if you moved to
another city, then it might be time to reconsider your place of residence.
Local Companies That
Hire People in Your Profession
Thinking about switching companies without moving across the
country? Your Salary Report can show you local companies that you could work
for and how much they pay people with your skills, experience and education to
do your job.
You should note that we can only show you this if you’ve
included the name of your employer in your PayScale Salary Report. If you haven’t, go back and update your Salary
Report so that you can get this valuable information.
Median Salary by
Degree/Major Subject
Finally,
if education is on your mind, click through to the next report and get a
projection of how much you would make in your current area if you had a
different educational background on your resume. Again, if you fill out a
complete Salary Report that includes your job title, which industry you work
in, your degree(s) and which school(s) you attended, we can also show you links
to even more useful related charts based on all that information.
Hmmm… maybe it’s time to go back to school?
So hopefully now you see that your PayScale Salary Report does
a whole lot more than just tell you how much money you make- it tells you how
you compare to your peers and gives you hints on how to make more in the
future. Knowing how to read your Salary Report will help you plan for the
future and ensure that you are earning what you’re worth.
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