Your Salary - Get paid what you are worth
Published September 13th, 2006 in Budget Tags: budget, financial planning, Salary.If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
One of the most important aspects of a good financial life is ensuring that your salary is adequate and fair. The actual numbers differ for each and every person, but in general, you will want to have at least enough to pay for the necessities of life and some left over for entertainment. You are the only person that can answer the question of how much is enough.
There are many factors that need to be considered when trying to determine what a fair salary should be. Some of these factors include education, experience, geographical location, and level of performance. Other factors include the size of the company in which you work, the number of direct reports you are responsible for, and the performance of those employees.
Education level is key in determining what a fair salary is for any position. For instance, a programmer with a Bachelor’s degree can be expected to make considerably more than a talented programmer with no educational credentials whatsoever. Furthermore, the quality of the institution from which the degree was earned can make a considerable difference at least in starting salary for a given position. A degree from Stanford, for instance, will almost always be given more credibility than one earned at a public school like UC Sacramento. If you did not go to Stanford or some other major institution, don’t worry…these differences tend to iron themselves out in a short time once experience begins to play a bigger part in determining salary.
Experience is also a key factor in determining a fair salary level. In general, the more experience you have, the more you will make. There will, however, be a ceiling in most companies if you do not get educational credentials that back up that experience. A person with 10 years of experience will almost never make more money than a person with 10 years of experience and a Bachelor’s degree, regardless of performance level.
People who live in high cost-of-living areas should expect to make more money than people of similar educational and experiential backgrounds in low cost-of-living areas. If you live in San Francisco, it takes a far higher salary to purchase the basic necessities of life than it does if you live in Columbus, OH, for example. Most companies will be mindful of this, but you should make sure that your company does before accepting a position with them.
With the previous three factors, you can get a fairly good idea of how much you should be paid in a given position. There are many web sites out there that can help you figure out how much is a fair salary. Salary.com is a particularly good one, with a lot of wizards that step you through the criteria to figure out how much you should make. You can also pay for a highly detailed report that should really nail down a good figure to expect.
Your level of performance has the biggest impact on setting your salary level after you have been in a position for a while. Those who perform well and meet or exceed all the expectations of their employer can expect to receive a higher raise than an employee in a similar position who does nothing more than show up to work on time. Since this is the factor that you have the most direct control over, it pays to ensure that you know what the boss expects and do what is required of you.
A good financial future requires an adequate salary as a foundation to build upon. Education, experience, geographic location, and performance level all contribute to earning a good salary. You should ensure that you are informed about what salary level you should be paid at, and endeavor to improve the factors that will raise that level over time.
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