Month: June 2021

Competitive Pay: Anyone who has spent time looking for work may have come across the same hiring buzzwords again and over again. “Competitive pay” is a phrase that is frequently used in job descriptions to attract top personnel. While these two words are appealing to people trying to increase their earning potential, it is not often clear what they actually entail. To help you grasp this phrase and what it means for you, read on for a description of competitive pay, specifics on what’s normally included in a competitive compensation package, and methods to obtaining one.

What Is Competitive Pay?

When it comes to compensation, “competitive” often means offering compensation that is comparable to or better than the market worth of a position. Human resources may pay competitive salaries on the open market with an additional percentage of that amount for the position. It is possible that this percentage will fluctuate depending on the company’s pay philosophy. Compensation is also somewhat competitive compared to what other organisations in the same sector and geographic area might be willing to pay for a similar position.

5 Factors That Determine Competitiveness

Your pay may vary greatly, depending on the conditions around your job, such as industry and location. It is also crucial to bear in mind that the value of your stock holdings will fluctuate greatly, so you should expect changes in compensation. In the table below, see an overview of elements that can affect compensation.

1. Job Title
It is not uncommon for jobs to be paid based on a market rate, and it is important to take that into consideration when setting a competitive wage. You should check compensation data from trustworthy industry resources such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to see if you’re getting a fair deal. The first step is to determine the average market rate, and use this value as a guideline to help you determine pay competitiveness. Also, remember that compensation ranges can vary based on the position, so make sure you’re clearly referring to the job title when completing your research.

2. Experience Level
As a rule, most employers will offer pay that matches either your experience level or the amount of experience essential for the job. Experience level, price range, and employment track all impact the variety of tasks one is capable of doing, and whether or not a role is entry-level, mid-tier, or above. The best example of this concept is entry-level employment, which requires no experience and is compensated little. In contrast, mid-tier roles demand several years of expertise and are paid less. In order to get an accurate picture of what kind of compensation you can expect, you need to take into consideration both your education and your capabilities. Also, it is important to keep in mind the demand for your competitive skillset in order to establish a fair wage.

3. Industry

In addition to creating the norm of competitive pay, the industry you want to work in wields tremendous control on the payment you may expect. For these highly lucrative areas, such as technology and finance, to remain attractive places to work, salaries will likely be more competitive to attract top personnel.

In other words, if you want to have a career path that you have defined, but you are not absolutely set on a specific industry, then you should apply for the same position in other industries to find out whether the compensation packages vary. If you are looking for a high wage, investigate industry averages to find the industry with the highest average compensation. Apply to as many companies in that area as possible to identify the company offering the most competitive wage.

4. Geography
The location of the market also impacts the typical market rates of a position. This is commonly found in areas with a higher cost of living and higher minimum wage standards, and thus must compensate more to account for these additional expenses. It’s generally more accurate to narrow your inquiry to a specific geographic location when obtaining salary and wage information. Wage data is provided by the BLS on the basis of various geographic regions, as well as various states and cities within each region.

5. Job Availability
Like the market price fluctuates depending on the amount of supply and demand, pay fluctuates accordingly. Pay in a high-demand position, where there is a shortage of workers, is most likely to be competitive. Alternatively, a post may be in low demand, but the qualified candidates present to make up for the lack of demand, which means that the market rate of the post decreases. In the event that you’re interested in a hiring pool that works to your advantage, look into this list of jobs in high demand, which tend to increase quickly.

What’s in a Competitive Pay Compensation Package?

Competitive pay does not only relate to the amount of money that is paid; it is the entirety of compensation. Also, see if you can learn about what other perks are provided, such as paid time off, insurance, retirement options, and other bonuses.

Paid Time Off

In a compensation package, one of the most essential factors is the quantity of paid leave that is granted. Staying healthy is vital, and taking time off from work is a key part of this. In addition, time off from work is required if anything happens in your personal life or if you are sick. Taking frequent vacations, whether abroad or locally, is also effective in establishing limits at work to reduce burnout. You are more likely to maintain your performance and to strive for both personal and professional goals when you can successfully balance your life and job.

Health Insurance

In addition to being a requirement for being employed, health insurance is a commonly included compensation package and will vary based on whether you are employed full time or part-time. More favourable employee benefits, such as medical, dental, and vision insurance, are quite common, which means it should come as no surprise that better quality health coverage is frequently a highly valued pay in today’s competitive labour market.

Retirement Options

A large number of businesses also feature retirement plans as part of their compensation. It all depends on your workplace and your available options, but you may be able to contribute part of your income to a 401(k), 403(b), or Roth IRA to start saving for retirement. This strategy is beneficial because your employer will often match a certain proportion of your contributions, which means you should maximise your contributions by donating the maximum allowed each year as long as you can afford it.

Other Benefits

Salary, paid time off, health insurance, and retirement choices comprise the majority of a basic compensation package, but they are not the only alternatives that are open to you. You should feel free to ask about other compensation advantages, such as bonuses, stock options, and profit-sharing when making your decision on a job offer. The following are a few ideas for salary-related conversations to include in your next discussion:

• Signing bonus
• Performance bonus
• Relocation bonus
• Stock options
• Profit-sharing plan
• Supplemental budget (e.g., for wellness or career development)

How To Ask for More Competitive Pay

When a job description specifies that there is an opportunity for competitive pay, this indicates that the organisation or corporation is prepared to negotiate compensation. When applying for a competitive position, you should remember that compensation is determined by a variety of criteria, some of which are unique to you as an applicant. Ascertain the information described above, and use these three simple steps to leverage that knowledge and try to negotiate for the pay you want.

1. Pick Your Competitive Pay Priorities

If you want to have a better understanding of your compensation priorities, you should get prepared while negotiating your wage. Compensation is the most important negotiating topic in many wage conversations, but in other cases, it may not be possible to offer a higher salary because of budgetary limits or a company pay scale. The information in this table clearly shows that if this is the case, what alternative forms of compensation would be important to you? In order to be more effective in asking for a one-time signing bonus instead of a greater salary, you may be able to more easily argue for stock in the firm being more aligned with your financial goals.

2. Backup Your Request With Evidence

One thing to ask for is a larger beginning salary or greater benefits, but that’s not enough. To successfully negotiate better pay, you’ll need to be able to offer a solid argument. Convince your audience of your viewpoint by providing facts from credible research on the market rate for your position, region, and industry.

Consider what you are being paid competitively when negotiating your pay. If your compensation is equivalent to or better than the market rate, then utilise this figure as a reference point when speaking with competitive employers. You can craft an argument for why you deserve a higher income or better benefits by discussing how you have the relevant qualifications, abilities, or experience that will improve the workplace.

3. Politely Stand Your Ground

Wage negotiations are handled by HR professionals who are ready and willing to negotiate, and even if they have room to negotiate, they may answer by indicating that the position is budgeted for the amount they offered. When you make a request, you are allowed to gently challenge the person and ask them to look into your request.

Do you not know how to stand your ground in a professional manner? Test yourself: Say the following:

I understand that the position is budgeted for a specific amount, but based on the value that my abilities and expertise may give to the team, I would want the opportunity to explore a higher compensation of [desired amount].

In order to not lose any of their current customers, they should let you know that that is all they can provide, as well as the opportunity to provide better terms later on. Income increases and job mobility are among the opportunities that you should not lose out on. Lastly, maintain your principles in order to benefit your salary and job mobility.

As you’ve learned, finding out about competitive pay is really exciting. So if you come across this term when you’re job searching, make sure you feel as excited as you can. Keep in mind that competition will vary based on the market rates and what you bring to the table, so adapt your compensation expectations to reflect your research.

Even if your study does not reveal your ideal compensation, you should be confident in your talents and utilise these tactics to negotiate the most competitive compensation package feasible. In either case, whether you wind up with a signing bonus, additional vacation days, or that coveted higher income, you and your budget may be delighted with your achievements.

Sources: American Marketing Association | Digital HR Technology |

The post Competitive Pay: What It Means and How To Get It appeared first on MintLife Blog.

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Today marks 10 years since I started blogging about local SEO and related topics, and in my view it marks the real start of my business and all that’s brought – including 400+ posts, way more skill, great clients, a great living, some friendships, a better understanding of my place on this dustball, and a bit of fun along the way.

Therefore, as Klingon ritual dictates, I must offer up a few stray thoughts today, even if there is an 80% chance it’s all irrelevant to you and a complete waste of your time.  On the other hand, if you’re a business owner who’s interested in the blogging or “content” thing, or if you’re a longtime reader here, or if you’re a local SEO-er, there may be bits and pieces of interest to you.

As I alluded to in my post from 5 years ago, I had been in local search for a couple of years by June of 2011, but my business model was completely different (i.e. not workable), and I didn’t have a blog or any other good way to connect with the very few other people in local search at the time, with or most of the people who’d become my clients.  If I never started the blog, there never would have been a business that lasted this long, and the start date wouldn’t have meant anything to me.  So maybe June of 2008 is the anniversary of my career choice, and September of 2009 is the anniversary of the website.  But June 1, 2011 is the anniversary of the business.

Anyway, even though most of my comments are on other matters, there are a couple of drive-by points I’d like to make about local search in general on this auspicious day.

1. I’m amazed at what a friendly industry this still is. By that, I mean the vast majority of people who work full-time in local SEO are nice people. I still haven’t figured out exactly why that is.  I haven’t even figured out how that can be, given how many unethical agencies there are, how many questionable software “solutions” have come and gone, how much spam is on the map, Google’s ever-increasing shadiness, and of course the horrors of the last year-plus.  Despite all of that, there remains a Mayberry vibe, and I’m grateful for it.

2. Local search doesn’t seem to change much. Google’s tweaks, updates, ad injections, and rebrands seem like a big deal at the time, but they rarely still seem like major events in hindsight. Non-Google entities – other search engines, directories, software, services – tend not to influence the basic activities that separate some businesses from others.  “Revolutions” are few and far-between.  Mobile was a big deal.  Voice search…apparently not so much.

Neither of those observations is new to me, and probably isn’t a “Eureka!” moment for you, either.  In a similar way, if I were to recap what I’ve learned in the last 10 years, at least half of it would be exactly what I remarked on 5 years ago.  I’d say all of that still holds true.  But since then a few more things have dawned on me.

So, below are some observations, recommendations, and other neural gas from my last 10 years of blogging.  I hope these are relevant to you if you’re either a business owner who has some interest in blogging or other “content,” or if you’re in the local search industry, or both.

• Don’t write for a big splash on Monday; write a post that readers will find useful for years.  The post may address a problem they don’t even have yet, and those people’s first visit to your site may be many months away.  Delivering your solution to those people is tricky, but if you can do it even a few times, your blogging will be worth everyone’s time.  If there’s one thing I’ve come to appreciate in the last 10 years, and especially in the last 5, the “think in years” approach is it, and most of my other thoughts here today are about how to do it.  A blog post should be less like sushi and more like a Slim Jim.

• You need an additional line of communication immediately downstream of your blog posts.  Probably your best bet is your email newsletter and not a Twitter feed or Facebook page or similar medium that you don’t really control and can be booted from.  In any event, very few people will read your post and contact you with the intention of working with you.  Either there’s not a need yet, or they need to get to know you more.  Whatever you hope to get out of it, blogging should part of the system, rather than the whole system.  This is where my “seed audience” approach may help.

• You can’t just be a blogger; you still need to ply your trade.  Ever watch This Old House-type shows and wonder whether the hosts ever swing a hammer?  Skills rot, and then insights do.  If you become the “ideas person” then it’s a matter of time before you start writing about inconsequential stuff, because you’ve lost sight of your audience’s challenges and therefore any solutions.  You can’t keep growing plants in soil that never gets replenished.  Keep your focus on doing your craft, rather than on blogging.  That’s how you’ll keep growing the experience that makes blogging worth your time and your readers’ time.

• Customers / clients / patients are your single best source of ideas.  They never run out of questions, observations, or new challenges.  If you talk with them all the time and hear what they’re saying, you’ll never run out of “content” ideas.  This is a main reason I say you need to remain hands-on in your business.

• Link out often and err on the side of giving more credit rather than less.  It compels you to do a little more homework on whatever you’re writing about, it makes for a more-helpful read, it’s just good form, and you’ll make more friends.

• It’s OK to slow down the pace.  The “write every day” approach has benefits, but isn’t sustainable.  Even if you put up something new once a week, you’ll run out of good ideas faster than you can get your hands on them.  Then either you’ll be forced to slow down anyway, or you’ll produce mush.  The right pace is the one you can stick with.  Case in point: I don’t post as often as I used to.  My “5 Years of Local Search Blogging” post was #276.  This one today is #405, rather than #552.  In the first 5 years I’d average 4 posts a month.  In the last 5 years I’ve averaged 1-2 posts a month.  So I’m going at about half the pace.  Has it hurt business?  Quite the opposite.  The posts are just more consistently useful these days.

• Avoid sounding corporate, or like a bigger organization than you are.  Avoid pompous words (like “ideation”), avoid industry jargon when you can, and don’t say “we” when you can say “I.”  Whatever you write or share, make it sound more like how you talk in-person.  I know that’s easier said than done, and I’ll admit that a very useful but stuffy post does more good for you and the reader than a less-useful but fun post can.  All I’m saying is go for useful AND relatable whenever you can.

• Don’t imitate anyone else, or at least anyone else in your industry.  Cover topics nobody else has, and do it in whatever style works for you, without necessarily thinking too much about it.  There’s a practical layer to that, which is that you don’t want to be an also-ran.  A decent number of people and entities in local search have done, shall we say, adaptations of my posts – often years after I wrote about whatever topic.  (I’d rather not name names.)  Often even the titles of the posts are similar to my originals.  Can’t say it doesn’t irk me a little, but those posts tend to be written by newer people, who often don’t have a mental bibliography of what’s been covered over the years.  The other reason not to cover other singers’ songs is that what you produce will be more memorable and therefore more useful to your readers.  I can’t tell you the number of times I talk with business owners who tell me they approach SEO/marketing in a certain way because of something I wrote in a post 3 years ago.  This may sound odd, but the universe knows if you’re original.

• Figure out what kind of habit or habits your posts will reinforce.  The people you’re writing for don’t want “fresh content”; they want to form habits that have payoff and can help them with problems big and small.  There is a place in the world for “daily news,” but people also get maxed out on that.  Also, the bearer of news often is not or will not seem to be a go-to person anyone wants to hire.  If your whole blogging or other content strategy is “news,” you’ll get an audience that just wants the news…and nothing more from you.  Instead, what you want is for people to think of what you produce in terms like, “every time I’m done with his post I come away with an idea I want to try,” or “every time I read one of her posts I learn about a problem I didn’t know about, and can avoid before it becomes a problem for me.”  Your blog (or other content vehicle) should be a gym, and not a sample tray at the supermarket.  Do that by focusing on specific questions and concerns, rather than on what you think will get clicks.

• Show gratitude to your readers.  Never take them for granted, even if they never pay you a dime or help in a conspicuous way.  The best way to do that is not to waste their attention with info that isn’t useful.  The next-best way is to ask for their feedback whenever you can and along the way to thank them for reading.  You may have a rough idea of what their situation is today, but you never know what’s next.  Some readers may be squeaking by today but will become a big success tomorrow – possibly due in part to the info you share – and he or she will return the good karma when you least expect it.  Other readers may refer you to friends or family who become great and longtime clients.  Some readers will get hit by a bus tomorrow.  Most people will read your stuff and benefit from it quietly.  Your audience isn’t a blob; the people in it will change over time.  We’re all just passing through town.  The question is what you do in the interim.  Pay extra attention to people who read your stuff year after year.  Ask them questions from time to time, and get to know them on one level or another.

 

This is probably a good time to say, whether you’re a longtime reader or just tripped on a banana peel and landed here, thanks for reading!

I’d be interested to hear if you have an all-time favorite post, or a favorite recent one, and of course I’d love any suggestions or questions.  (As always, I hope you’ll leave a comment.)

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