TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
At 08:01 AM 11/19/2007, Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
>Salary surveys are pretty much useless for jobseekers, except
>perhaps as a means of keeping score and getting an idea what offer
>represents a reasonable "ballpark" amount vs. an obvious lowball if
>one has been out of the job market for a while. I've never used
>the surveys to try to convince a company to offer me more money. In
>most cases, the range has been set before I've even been called
>in and is pretty much immutable, and even when a company discovers
>through unsuccessul hire attempts that its offers are not
>competitive they usually only make adjustments for the next
>candidate; if you turned down a lowball offer, would you be inclined to
>accept if the same company came back at you weeks or months later
>with a better one, or would you just figure that they're going to
>be the same way in the future as well?
I've run into many situations where this is exactly so: the company
has an idea of what they're going to pay and they won't break the
bands of their salary range even when it would make all the sense in
the world. As an example, I know of one company right now where
the Tech Pubs Manager salary is at the same range as the Principal
Writer salary. There is actually a Manager salary range that is
higher--which managers in other departments get--but the Tech Pubs
Manager salary has been preset to this. There is at least one
Principal Writer at the top of the salary range through longevity,
which means that the TP Mgr is going to be making less than some of
the writers while doing more work. This tends to be a bit
disheartening and makes everyone distrust HR.
>Where surveys can be useful is in discussions between hiring
>managers, HR and senior management in the setting of range prior to
>making offers. If senior management can see that the BLS says the
>middle of range for a particular position is X, the Radfords say
>1.1X and their last dozen or so (non-writer) hires wouldn't come
>onboard for less than 1.2X, a survey of writer salaries that says
>writers are in a similar demand state can help the hiring manager
>get the range for a writer opening increased. A survey that
>confirms the Radfords (and yes, in case you're wondering, (a) the
>Radfords are almost always substantially higher than BLS and (b)
>the Radfords are regarded as more accurate, otherwise nobody would
>pay $20k/year to subscribe to them) would be somewhat less
>useful, but nowhere near as useless as one that just parrots the
>garbage that company HR can already get for free from the BLS
>website.
Although I've run into several wonderful counterexamples, most HR
departments are not that responsive. It's a shame, because it hurts
the companies as well as the employees, but there it is.
Yours truly,
John Hedtke
Author/Consultant/Contract Writer
www.hedtke.com <-- website
Region 7 Director, STC
541-685-5000 (office landline)
541-554-2189 (cell)
john -at- hedtke -dot- com (primary email)
johnhedtke -at- aol -dot- com (secondary email)
Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
