Thanks to the Internet, Holly Peckham negotiated herself a 21% pay increase when she
switched public-relations firms.
Unsure about her worth at the outset of her job search, she found a U.S. salary
database on a Web site created by Marshall Consultants, a New York executive-search firm.
It was a trove of salary information supplied by more than 16,000 communications
professionals.
Ms. Peckham's conclusion: She should be making about $37,000 a year as an account
executive at a PR agency serving high-tech clients. That was about $9,000 more than she
was earning as an assistant account executive at Schwartz Communications in Waltham, Mass.
Chen PR Inc., also of Waltham, offered Ms. Peckham $32,000 and the desired promotion.
She refused, citing her online research. "I told them the national average was
between $36,000 and $38,000 and that I would be happy coming for between $34,000 and
$36,000," she recollects. "My hands were shaking." She accepted $34,000.
In a world where information is power, salary negotiations have long been greatly
imbalanced. But the Internet is changing that, as burgeoning numbers of Web sites offer
salary surveys, job listings with specified pay levels and even customized compensation
analyses. Armed with this data, workers are finding their hands strengthened as they
haggle over compensation for a new job -- or try to improve their pay at a current one.
JobSmart, run by a regional public library agency in San Mateo, Calif., offers links to
150 free salary surveys on the Web that draw about 4,000 visitors a day. Exec-U-Net, a
for-profit job search network, divulges free information about the salary, bonus and stock
options offered for about 650 upper-management positions entirely updated every two weeks.
For a fee, users can get more specific information and contacts for those listings.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot more [applicants] coming in, having done
online searches" for competitive salary information, says Barbara Ewen, a principal
at CHEN, the firm that hired Ms. Peckham. Ms. Peckham's research, plus her two years'
experience, convinced the firm to up the ante, Ms. Ewen says.
'Level Playing Field'
"The Internet has become the big level playing field for everyone" by
exposing businesses that "are way below everyone else as far as pay is
concerned," says Brian Krueger, a staffing and employee-development director for
Keane Inc., a big information-technology consulting firm in Boston.
Mr. Krueger already is feeling the heat. He tried to hire a new college
graduate for Keane's software-maintenance training program. But the young man balked at
Keane's proposed starting salary of about $35,000. Through Internet bulletin boards, the
candidate located another potential Keane recruit who had rejected a higher offer.
