Salary for fund accountantHello, I am deeply confused about salaries for my job title. My background is 2 years as a mutual fund accountant for a big regional bank and 9 months as an insurance accountant for a big bank. My current official title is investment account III. My official salary is mid 40s. My job location is in the northeast. The monster salary wizard is generic. If I choose accountant III in the salary wizard and modify based on zip, it says I should be making 50K. Am I underpaid? I used the salary indicator when I accepted the insurance position as guide for expected salary. What I asked for as a salary range was 47-50K. The employer came back with something lower. So what gives. Any suggestions on how to find a specific salary for my industry/specific job title and area. Thanks MW The internet salary sites tend to run high.... Your best bet is to find job postings with the same or similar title as you have, and that have the same requirements and have the salary ranges posted. These can be on the net, in your local newspaper, careerbuilder.com, monster, etc. One site I like is America's Job Bank--salaries are listed for most positions, and, though I haven't used their salary guide in a long time, I think it tended to be more accurate than, say, salary.com. Also, somebody here has recommended a salary survey that I think is specific to the accounting/financial field. Was it Chet? Anyway, I think it's the Robert Half Salary Survey or something.... To be blunt, it's sort of silly to wonder if you're underpaid based on what any salary survey says job like yours should be paying. Among other things, you don't know the sample size of the survey, how the sample population was chosen, how honest the responses may, or may not have been, or a hundred other things. So, don't base your evaluation of your present salary on what some salary survey says. At best, a salary survey is a rough guideline you can use for informational purposes, but that's about all. Keep in mind that each employer gets to decide what a particular job is worth to his/her organization and to budget for that job accordingly. What you, yourself, are worth to an organization is a function not only of the value the employer has put on the job, but how well you're qualifications match the requirements of the job - and all that is done on a individual basis, not on basis of surveys. Bottom line? It's the individual employer who gets to decide what an individual job is worth to his/her organization based on the qualifications of the individual job seeker. Make sense? Paul W. Barada The Negotiation Expert | |
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