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How To Compare Multiple Salary Offers
SaiCareers.com
Congratulations! If you are reading this article, you are probably in
a situation where most want to be: confused with multiple offers.
After considering long term growth opportunities, company values,
corporate culture, and the rest, there remains one important item to
compare: the compensation package.
In their quest for attracting talent and reducing attrition, HR
managers, these days, have become increasingly creative with compensation,
especially the intangible benefits. From free meals to free wheels,
benefits have never been juicier.
Intangible benefits, however, often make it difficult for even the
most seasoned professional to compare salary offers. It is no more a
game of comparing apples against apples or oranges against oranges;
while it is very easy to compare dollars against dollars or
percentages against percentages, how does one compare flex time, free
parking, telecommuting opportunities, etc? This article outlines four
simple steps to compare multiple salary offers.
Identify components
List all items being offered, from base pay to stock options to work
from home options.
Rank items
Next, rank all the components based on order of importance (to you),
starting with most important first.
Assign a value to the intangible benefits
This is probably the most challenging part. Value could either be a
dollar amount or a rating system (using stars, alphabets, etc.). If
you decide to assign a dollar value, you will need to do further
analysis. How would you, for example, assign a dollar value to flex
time? Well, one way would be to determine how much money it would
actually save you. If flex time saves $500 in babysitter fees then you could
use either that number OR you could look at the opportunity cost for
that time period (Does the flex time allow you to take up another job;
if so, how much could you earn in that time? That figure could also be
used in lieu of the previous approach.)
Compare items side-by-side
As the final step, compare all items side-by-side.
(Our
Compare Salary Worksheet
clarifies these concepts further.)
Finally, don't forget:
Long term growth opportunities, potential career, learning benefits,
comparable salaries (of others in your profession), and regional cost
of living are also important factors that must be considered when
comparing multiple salary offers.
Related Articles:
Salary Negotiation Don'ts
Salary Negotiation Tips
Salary Information
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the following article: "How
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