Estimating Salary

[w166um]

Anyone know the best site or method for estimating salaries in different cities based on position and experience?

Thanks in advance.

[Tyreny]

For any position below upper Management, take what you think it should be and subtract 15%.

For any upper Management position, take what you think it should be and add 15%.

Seriously though, I always look at real estate sites to compare housing that is similar to my current and compare the difference in prices to get a quick snapshot.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by w166um

Anyone know the best site or method for estimating salaries in different cities based on position and experience?

Thanks in advance.

There are some sites out there that claim to be good salary estimators based on industry, job title, and zip code. Some of these sites are salary.com, monster.com, and others. From perusing these sites, I'd say they're about as accurate as my attempt to guess the outcome of the Superbowl in 2025 would be. Most of them seem to vastly underestimate the salaries in high-paying industries (law, banking, etc.) and vastly overestimate the salaries in typical corporate industries.

I think the best thing to do is try to network a bit within your industry and ask around. You'll get much better info from professionals in your line of work than you will from any web salary calculator.

Also, the answer to your question really depends on which city you're in and which city you're moving to. If you're moving from Cedar Rapids to NYC, expect a salary bump (which will be negated by cost of living increases, anyhow, but that's a different story). Conversely, if you're moving from Chicago to Tulsa, expect a salary decrease under most circumstances.

Originally Posted by Tyreny

For any position below upper Management, take what you think it should be and subtract 15%.

For any upper Management position, take what you think it should be and add 15%.

Seriously though, I always look at real estate sites to compare housing that is similar to my current and compare the difference in prices to get a quick snapshot.

Upper management positions are almost always done by contract, which makes normalized salary estimation totally pointless to a large degree. You're not going to get a salary offer and then take it; you and your lawyer are going to be negotiating with the potential employer's lawyer and HR people, etc.

[Phelps McManus]

Expounding Millie's comments, you could use the averages to compare cities. So, if some site (sorry I don't know any) says a programmer with 5 years of experience gets $60k in Houston and $75k in San Diego, you may not get those numbers but the $15k difference is probably pretty close.

Similarly, the averages between fields match up OK too. So, if your are picking your college major based on potential salaries, you may see an accountant in Houston with 5 years experience makes $65k.

Really, though, you can expect to get paid jack shit when you first start out. Work hard, get raises/bonuses, switch companies for a higher base salary, rinse and repeat. Sticking with a company for the long haul (7+ years) is typically not a good idea as you are limited by what your bosses make (or made when they were your level). Also, if you start with a low base salary and get standard (3-5%) raises every year, you really start to fall behind.

Wait, what was the question again?

[AladainAF]

Seriously though, I always look at real estate sites to compare housing that is similar to my current and compare the difference in prices to get a quick snapshot.

I dunno. California pays shit wages from what I recall. Then again, home prices in Texas have already been cheap. And I can tell you from personal experience, Texas companies tend to pay very well.

A QA Engineer with 6+ years of experience in central texas should expect about about $67-$70k starting. A help-desk technician working on-site (read: not phone support) should expect about $18-$20 an hour. A project manager working on-site should expect about $35-$40 an hour. A test technician at a company like Dell, HP, etc should expect about $20 an hour starting, $25-$28 experienced.

Those numbers are from my experience.

edit:

programmer with 5 years of experience gets $60k in Houston

A programmer with 5 years experience in Houston, especially working for a company like Chevron, or another Oil/Gas company, should expect $90-$100k.

[Phelps McManus]

Originally Posted by AladainAF

IA programmer with 5 years experience in Houston, especially working for a company like Chevron, or another Oil/Gas company, should expect $90-$100k.

Hey those weren't my numbers, I got them from some site I made up.

[Sharmai]

Originally Posted by Phelps McManus

Really, though, you can expect to get paid jack shit when you first start out. Work hard, get raises/bonuses, switch companies for a higher base salary, rinse and repeat. Sticking with a company for the long haul (7+ years) is typically not a good idea as you are limited by what your bosses make (or made when they were your level). Also, if you start with a low base salary and get standard (3-5%) raises every year, you really start to fall behind.

Wait, what was the question again?

Though my experience is short in comparison I'm sure I whole heartedly agree. In the last 5 years or so I have gone from hourly to temp contract to salaried and at each position I saw and met people who had been there for years getting the 3-5% raise. After 2 years at each I would go out and look for a new job with a significant salary boost and after 6 months of searching I would get it. The company I am at now has given me a 11% raise the last time and looks to be doing so again which is good but I have no doubt that in 2 years I'll likely be seeking a company that will pay me in the 60-70k range.

60-70k is a lot for Indiana so don't look down on me to much!

[AladainAF]

At the really big company I was with early this year before quitting there, I was there for 6 years.

If I recall my raises were 2%, 3%, 2%, 4%, 7%, 11%, 7%, 4%, 0%, 8%.

They were always wild with raises, made no sense.

In either event, I've been with the company I'm with now since 2/18 this year and have already gotten a 10% raise. Win!

[Niceshot23]

Those website's aren't accurate at all ... they generalize jobs by category.

You have to find specific job titles with specific job roles and experience in each one of those roles in order to get a more accurate salary range. (i.e. computer software engineers in my area make anywhere between 55k-130k+ depending how many languages, your experience with it, what your previous salary was... etc)

[Gauss]

Originally Posted by w166um

Anyone know the best site or method for estimating salaries in different cities based on position and experience?

Thanks in advance.

Wages by Area and Occupation

I don't know if you can search by experience, but they do do wages by area and give percentiles.

[Tyen]

Originally Posted by Sharmai

60-70k is a lot for Indiana so don't look down on me to much!

^^ truth

[Phelps]

Check out the Department of Labor statistics. That should pretty much be the one and only place you ever need to look for any job titles at all. It should also be the only one you do go to, considering the alternatives. Really now, Monster.com? A paysite for applications does not make a reliable source in my book.

Anyhow, I looked up electrical engineering in my case. Things look rather good for the feild as a whole, so it's a good thing I'm interested in it.
Electrical Engineers

[xKALECx]

Originally Posted by AladainAF

At the really big company I was with early this year before quitting there, I was there for 6 years.

If I recall my raises were 2%, 3%, 2%, 4%, 7%, 11%, 7%, 4%, 0%, 8%.

They were always wild with raises, made no sense.

In either event, I've been with the company I'm with now since 2/18 this year and have already gotten a 10% raise. Win!

Try the medical field.....3%, 3%, 3%, 3%, etc..... For 15 years running the ER that was my raise. The most offered. That is the state avg for licensed professionals in hospitals too. It took moving to administration to finally get a substantial bump.

[Millie]

Sticking around at one company definitely makes little sense in today's economy. At my previous job prior to going back to school, I was getting 2%, 11%, then 2% again each year. The 11% year was nice, but it didn't make up for the 2% years by a long shot. Especially considering how it was a promotion, and a promotion should have carried a bigger pay increase than that.

For reference, inflation (in a normal economy) is roughly 4%. If you're getting 2-3% raises, your salary is not keeping up with inflation. It's kind of insulting that employers even offer raises of under 4%, to be honest.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by Millie

Sticking around at one company definitely makes little sense in today's economy. At my previous job prior to going back to school, I was getting 2%, 11%, then 2% again each year. The 11% year was nice, but it didn't make up for the 2% years by a long shot. Especially considering how it was a promotion, and a promotion should have carried a bigger pay increase than that.

For reference, inflation (in a normal economy) is roughly 4%. If you're getting 2-3% raises, your salary is not keeping up with inflation. It's kind of insulting that employers even offer raises of under 4%, to be honest.

Heh, I plan on jumping jobs every 1~2 years for a while. Unless I see room for a promomotion. The nice thing is the person who hired me expects me to do this since he's the one who ingrained it in my head (He's been my boss at two different companies, I followed him to the current one).