I’ll have a salary review coming up soon, and would like to know what a reasonable request from my side will look like.
I looked at salary.com and it gives a pretty broad summary review that suggests that I could ask for more than what I am earning now, but wants to charge me $50 for a more detailed report. I don’t trust that this will be a useful way to spend money.
What methodologies have people here used to find this information? I am a software developer, if there are specific tools available for this.
While I’m at it, what resources for finding software jobs have people used? I have no experience looking for jobs in the US, as I moved here with my work. The big sites such as monster.com seem pretty lame to me, and always seem to link through recruiters. I like the look of something like jobs.joelonsoftware.com, which disallows this, but this doesn’t have much available in my area.
I’m also a software developer in Atlanta – I’ve used the salary.com data before, but find it a bit on the high side. I did a job search last August/September after being laid off from a declining software company – I used Monster & Dice as my primary job search sites. Craigslist isn’t too bad either – I got one of my best recruiter contacts from there.
It’s true that you’ll get lots of recruiter contacts from Monster – most of them will be crap, but there are a couple of good recruiters out there, and if your resume catches their eye, you’ll find yourself set up with lots of interviews. That’s what happened to me; after 3-4 weeks of no activity, the last 2 weeks of my search were packed with interviews, having at least one a day. For the first time in my 20-year career, I actually had multiple job offers an had the luxury to pick & choose between them. The Atlanta market for software jobs was pretty hot back then – as far as I know, it hasn’t slowed down too much, so if you decide to move on, you should be in relatively good shape.
The job I ended up accepting was not from a recruiter contact – one of the company’s HR people saw my resume on Monster and brought me in for an interview. I spoke to the director of engineering and two senior members of the dev team, and received an offer several hours later. Pretty much the same thing happened to me in my previous job search about 5 years ago (the job I was laid off from last year).
A professional association for software developers, or your specific type of software development, or perhaps the project management institute (PMI), would be good sources for both of your goals. Professional associations often benchmark salary data and make it available to their members. They also allow you to network, which is one the best ways to learn about other job opportunities.
From the HR perspective, salary.com is widely regarded as giving numbers on the high side. You will need more ammunition besides salary.com to negotiate for a raise. Asking about your own company’s salary structure, such as what the range is for your position, is a good first step. Asking what they’d need you to do to get to the next level/the level you’d like to be at, is a good approach. Also, ask what they will do to help you get there, like put you on a certain kind of project or pay for a certification exam.