Salary Information on the Internet

From: Dummies.com

Estimating the salary associated with a particular job title is a complex operation. Generally, your salary depends on a number of factors, including your job responsibilities, performance, tenure, training, experience, the company's size, company pay scales, the industry, and your geographic location.

Rather than piecing together a salary estimate on your own or depending on the industry grapevine, use one of the following three Web sites to obtain accurate, reliable salary estimates based on the compilation of salary surveys from various research organizations and government sources:

Salary.com: Enter your target job title into the Salary Wizard on the home page or click on the link to All Titles to select from a list. Then enter your zip code or choose from a list of states and cities. Identify your target job title from the list provided. If you need more information to make your choice, read job descriptions by using the link provided under the box listing job titles. Click on View a Basic Report to see a graph showing the base salary for your area. Scroll to the bottom of the report, and with one additional click, you can see how that salary compares to the national average, to the salary for the same job in a different location, or to a related job in the same location.

Salaryexpert.com: Select a job title or paste in a job description of your target career, enter your location information, and click on Search. On the next page, select View a Basic Report. The page that opens provides a report summary at the top and then more details about the location-specific wages and the national average wages. Scrolling down, you find a description of the job and additional sources of information. You can obtain a more detailed salary survey for more specific job titles, if you're willing to pay for the report.

America's Career InfoNet: Begin by clicking on the Occupation Information link on the home page. After clicking on Occupation Profile, you can use one of two methods to search for your target job. You can identify the relevant job family, then the occupation, and your state, or you can search for the career with a few letters or keywords. From there you check off the wages information option. The page that opens up shows you wage information for the state you selected and the nation. Below the table, look for several links that give you an even bigger picture. One link shows you how the wages for this occupation rank by state. You can also compare these wages to those of a different job or compare the wages across states you select.