Researching average pay

It’s a bit of a minefield when it comes to understanding what average pay is. There is the average pay of Australians and how that differs state to state and between genders. Then there is the average pay for jobs in different sectors and so on and then by state. It’s no surprise that most clients who come to see us want to know the best way to find out the average pay.

Our tips are to perform your own benchmarking by looking at salaries:

• Hays Salary Guide
• Glassdoor – this is a confidential self-reporting site and we find people tend to under report. We put that down to the competitive nature of people!
• Robert Walters
• Check out job boards like Seek, Indeed, LinkedIn and Apply Direct

Having completed some research and knowing what the ‘average’ salary is it’s time to turn your focus to asking for what you’re worth. There is sooooo much information out on the Internet that tells you what to do. That’s great! The trick is in how you go about it.

Negotiating the salary you’re worth

Firstly, if you don’t actually believe and understand what value you bring to the table as an employable asset the negotiation is going to be tough. You will need to work out what value you bring; be able to quantify it in bottom line terms and relate that to your capabilities.

Next, the negotiation itself. We recommend that take some time to plan it out. Be sure to have prepared your game-plan. What you really, really want. What you absolutely will not accept – and be sure to stand by this. What are the other flag points in terms of what you will accept. By having this written down and planned out you will set yourself up for greater success. We have a negotiation planner that can help you with this at The Salary Coach. 

Be sure to anchor the negotiation with your number. It is what you dance around through the negotiation.

Lastly, think through all of the scenarios for the negotiation and what your boss, the agency or HR are likely to raise as objections or mechanisms to throw you off, and have clever responses ready. When being presented with confronting information or statement ask questions. For example, if you are told they have benchmarked and this is what you are worth you can respond with – how did you benchmark? Can I please see the benchmarking? This will bring both accountability and transparency to the negotiation table. It will also enable the conversation to open up as you explore both the benchmarking and value you provide.