Three Minute Truth's - Salary Survey's

When the truth isn’t the whole truth….

The first 6 weeks of the year tends to coincide with ?“New Year, New Me, New Job” motto/mantra. In our daily work we are grateful for this boost in activity. As people return to the office post-Christmas there tends to be a re-evaluation about things in their lives, their professional career will usually feature high on this list of things that needs overhauling. Candidates who look to re-assess their career can fall into any of the following categories; not being paid enough, worked too hard, not being challenged enough, overlooked for a promotion, **insert your own personal gripe**.

Reflecting on this, we have spoken to multiple candidates and clients with vastly differing views on the market. Perception is reality as Roy Keane noted recently – from our side it’s important we look at a few external factors that can distort reality i.e the truth.

Over the next few weeks we’re going to break down some of the key factors that contribute to the distortion from expectations to reality. This week, with salary reviews and promotions due, a hot topic we’ll look into salary surveys and the reasons why you might need to approach with caution.

Salary Survey’s

One of the great things about American Sports is that everyone’s salary is publicly available. There’s no sugar coating or hiding. Anyone who watched “The Last Dance” in Lockdown 1 will remember Scottie Pippen was 122nd highest paid player ?in the league. These are facts. An accountant in Dublin’s salary is not publicly available information. An accountant in Dublin can earn a wide range of money. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

When talking with candidates we always look to ascertain what they want from the next role – learning, progression, development, happiness, location, money etc. Frequently, passive or newly active candidates will state their salary expectations based on information ascertained from a salary survey. Salary surveys’ are great if you are Scottie Pippen negotiating a new deal. Unfortunately, in Ireland they provide information, which is great but no context, which is not so great.

The unfortunate truth is that companies can tailor who they choose to survey, to suit their own agenda.

You say “But they use real salaries?”

?Yes, they do. But, they can choose who they ask. Maybe they want to inflate the average salary for a certain cohort of professionals to make the market look enticing e.g Newly Qualified Accountant average salary is €60,000 p.a. This is great. You now have all you need to know when you qualify right? Sadly not. It’s easy to sift through the companies renowned for a higher-than-average base salary and choose to survey these candidates. The flipside is that companies can easily identify that pay a lower base salary and set the market average at €52,000.

Neither answer is wrong, it’s just without full context and as such has been tailored to suit the surveyor.

As a wise man once said – Trust, but verify

One final note on this – the salary’s listed regularly fail to include benefits – bonus, pension, health. We’ll delve into this further in next week’s piece.?