How can I find out how much a person makes a year?

How can you find out how much someone makes? What’s your best salary research tip?

To help you with research tips to know how much someone makes as salary, we asked CEOs and business leaders this question for their best ideas. From searching on Glassdoor or Levels.fyi websites to including alternative job titles in your searches, there are several research tips that may help you find the information you need about someone’s salary.

Here are eight best salary research tips:

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01

Search on Glassdoor or Levels.fyi Websites

The easiest way to know the salary for a particular company and title would be to search the title and company on glassdoor or levels.fyi websites. They have individual salaries updated by various users and sometimes show average salaries based on various locations.

02

Ask a Mentor

The mentor you have, whether they are inside your company or not, should have a broader perspective on what others in your industry or organization earn. Your mentor might even know the person’s salary in advance. Although he or she may not be able to share that information with you, be specific about what you’re hoping for. Your mentor should be able to give you some guidance if you say something like: “I’m planning to ask for a raise, and it would help me to know if I’m earning less or more than others in similar positions here.”.

03

Do a Search on LinkedIn Salary

Surprisingly, not everyone knows about LinkedIn Salary. It allows you to search based on job title and region. Results are based on its own database of classified ads and allow drilling down to the actual positions the numbers are based on. You will want to check a variety of job boards for similar information but they’re “boards” while LinkedIn has become a legitimate social media platform, so you do the math.

04

Look Into Actual Job Postings

Browsing online is the obvious approach to finding out what average salaries for a particular career might be. Websites such as Glassdoor do a pretty accurate job in finding what individuals might make in a year. However, why not take it one step further? If you look into actual job postings at specific companies, you may be able to get an idea of what certain salaries are. Doing the right research, you might even be able to track down a contact, such as HR, who might educate you more about the types of compensation their company offers.

05

Ask The Person Directly

Asking the person directly will get right to the point. As a society, we need to be more transparent about salaries to ensure that workers are getting compensated fairly across the board. In a polite and professional way, reach out to a colleague and let them know you’re thinking about negotiating your salary and would love a ballpark estimate of what theirs currently is so you can get an idea on what you should be asking for. While this topic is still difficult for some people to discuss, be sure you’re friendly with the co-worker and it’s not a stranger in the office. This is a great way to gain information and determine what next steps should be.

06

Check The Office of Personnel Management

Salaries of non-profit organizations and local governments, in particular, are public. Try the US Office of Personnel Management for government employees. It can be more difficult for municipal employees, although the town or area is required to have a salary report. GuideStar can be checked for non organizations. Salaries of top executives is also bound to be revealed by publicly. So, if you want to know how much a public company’s CEO or other top executives make, financial websites should have such information readily available.

07

Use The Online Site PayScale

The salary for different job positions and industries can be found on online sites. PayScale provides information about the salary range for almost all kinds of jobs. For that, you need to just know the position and industry of the person. If you know their company, you can search for their available jobs on recruiter sites. It will tell about the salary they are offering for similar positions. This is also helpful in getting a rough estimate of their pay.

08

Include Alternative Job Titles in Your Searches

When researching salaries for positions, consider alternate job titles. For example, a digital marketer may be referred to as a digital strategist, director of web marketing, internet marketing specialist, SEO manager, or a whole slew of other titles. Many occupations have various titles that all more or less entail the same job responsibilities and salaries. Recognizing this can prevent confusion on whether or not you are researching relevant information and also save time.

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