Shopping is my hobby. In fact, before the days of Amazon, I would spend nearly every Saturday out shopping with my Mom, Mommom and sister. You might be thinking to yourself, “every Saturday? How much were you spending?” (My Dad was wondering the same thing). But it wasn’t as much as you might be thinking. There was a method to our madness. Knowing what we needed, we’d start at the cheapest store and work our way up until we found what we were looking for. That way, when we found it, we’d know we couldn’t find it any cheaper!

So, what does any of this have to do with your salary? Well, if I’m willing to put that much work into paying the best price for a sundress, you better believe I’m going to recommend putting some research into your compensation.

THE FACTS

It can be easy to feel helpless when it comes to your salary. Afterall, we don’t sign the checks! But you have more control over your salary than you may realize.

Take the offer process for example. Statistics show that individuals who counter their initial offer receive, on average, a 7.4% salary increase.

“Sure, Kelly. Everyone knows offer negotiation is important, but from there it’s out of my hands.”

Wrong!

Surveys show that 70% of employees who have asked for a raise, received one. And of those 70%, over half of them received the amount they requested, while just under half received at least a portion of what they were asking for.

But despite these odds, just 37% of Americans have ever asked for a raise. Just 37%!

Imagine if there was a 70% chance of winning the lottery. I’m willing to bet that far more than 37% of us would be in line for a ticket.

WHAT'S STOPPING US

So what’s stopping us from asking for a raise?

Statistically, individuals report a plethora of reasons ranging from “I am uncomfortable negotiating salary,” to “I don’t want to be perceived negatively.”

But one way to combat whatever is stopping you from asking for a raise is to know what your skills are worth in the market. Knowing how your salary lines up allows you to enter these conversations with confidence and leverage.

So here are four resources to help you benchmark your salary.

FOUR SALARY BENCHMARKING TOOLS

1. U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

Here, you can view official wage data by region and occupation, and you can also compare salary ranges between industries. This is a great place to start because it doesn’t require any of your personal information and it allows you to view a wide range of data across many occupations and locations.

2. SALARY.COM

This is another free tool that is helpful for viewing salary ranges for specific roles. It also has a feature that will allow you to compare multiple roles side-by-side. While the user interface is a bit clunky, that data is being pulled from a large data set, making it widely applicable to many different roles.

3. LINKEDIN SALARY

LinkedIn salary is free to use for one year if you opt to complete their salary survey. The survey questionnaire does not take long to complete, and asks fairly basic questions related to your role, skill level and compensation. However, if you do not want to provide LinkedIn with your information, you may want to explore other tools.

4. PAYSCALE

This is another site where you’ll have to provide a bit of personal information up front. However, when you are using Payscale’s “For You” module (they also have a “For Your Business” model for employers), you’ll get a customized report depicting exactly where your salary is relative to others in your market.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Use all, or at least a few of these resources to capture a clear and accurate picture of what your salary range should be for your role, location and experience.

Put the time in to do your research, you may be pleasantly surprised and be paid within or well about others in your range. But if you’re not, now you will know. And when you know, you can do something about it. The statistics speak for themselves, your odds are greater than you think!