Did you know that there is a magical place on the internet where you can find out exactly how much you should be paid? It’s not a myth, and it’s not an urban legend. It’s called MyPayScale, and it’s a free tool you can use throughout your career. With it, you can evaluate your salary and determine how much you should be paid compared to people with your job title in your area, who have similar skills and education. Whether you’ve used it before or not, here are some tips and tricks for understanding your salary report and how it can support your case for negotiating a higher salary.
Get Your Free Salary Report From PayScale
The first step to achieving salary glory is getting your hands on your free salary report from PayScale. You can get a salary report for a job you currently have, or for a job that you are evaluating. Whatever your situation may be, getting your customized salary report is step one.
Explore Your Salary Dashboard in MyPayScale
Once you get your free salary report, you can login to your MyPayScale account and access your salary dashboard. Once there, you can do a deep dive into your pay snapshot. Here’s how to navigate.
Total Pay: Based on the information you provide, PayScale calculates your total pay. Total pay simply means how much money your base pay is, plus accounting for other factors that affect your salary, like yearly bonuses and extra PTO. This number will be relatively close to your actual salary.
Percentile: What do percentiles mean, in terms of your salary? In short, it’s a way to see how your pay compares to that of other workers in your field. If your salary is in a lower percentile compared to the median, that might be a warning sign that you’re being underpaid and it’s time to ask for a raise.
Make Your Case For a Higher Salary
If you’re heading into the final stages of a job interview, congratulations! You’ve got all the information you need to negotiate a higher salary than you had before. On the other side of the coin, if you’re evaluating your current job, there is a chance you might be underpaid. If so, that is your cue to schedule a discussion with your manager to negotiate a raise or a promotion. By using PayScale data to start the conversation about salary, you can easily build a business case for getting the salary you know you deserve.
[infogram id=”0ec07bee-6d95-431b-b8f0-9821c8d57d84″ prefix=”t7i” format=”interactive” title=”Quick Facts About Salary Negotiation”]
