How to tell if your salary is normal

What is a normal salary

When people talk about earnings, they often focus on some indicator. Is it enough to live on, how much does neighbor Vasya earn, or why does a TV star earn more in a day of filming than the average worker earns in several years? But this is not entirely representative.

It is not by chance that the labor market is called a market. There is a demand for it and there is a supply. And the salary is adjusted depending on these two parameters. There is also, of course, a minimum wage, that is, an amount less than which a full-time person should not receive. But employers are easy bypass this obstacle, employing people for half a day or even a quarter.

Therefore, you should focus primarily on supply and demand. Two market participants - the employer and the employee - pursue their goals. The first is trying to buy the work of the second, or rather, the result of his efforts, with the greatest benefit for himself. And, of course, he is interested in spending less. Although the employer of a healthy person understands that the quality of work largely depends on payment, so many are willing to pay market rates or even more.

But the situation on the job seeker market is also important here. If there are a lot of them, they start compete between themselves. And the easiest way to increase your attractiveness is often just to reduce the price. In this case, dumping occurs, and industry average wages may decrease.

Plus, companies' offers depend on their budget. Managers may be happy to pay millions to all their talented employees. But if there is simply no money, then salary offers will be modest.

The applicant, in turn, is looking for a salary in order to feel financially comfortable and secure. The numbers, of course, will be different for everyone. It's enough for someone housing, food and sometimes entertainment, while others want to buy expensive things and save some more.

That is, in fact, a normal salary is the point where the offer of a particular employer and the requests of a particular applicant meet. There is no universal indicator here, only a relative one.

How to figure out how much you want to earn

This seems like an easy question. In reality this is not the case. For example, in one survey involving more than five thousand people from all regions of Russia, respondents said that would you like receive 192 thousand rubles. And although this is an average answer, it can be assumed that people were not based on official calculations, but on their own estimates. Because the average Russian salary is up to deduction Personal income tax amounts to 71.5 thousand. And this takes into account top managers and other employees with salaries of several million, who were unlikely to participate in the above-mentioned study.

That is, the desired salary is almost three times higher than the average. But now people already live somehow, eat something, pay for utilities with something, and so on. In other words, they satisfy basic needs. Yes, perhaps not completely. Yes, they might want to throw in a little to live better. But a difference of three times is too big, so the requests do not look calculated.

We need to be closer to reality. Firstly, rarely does anyone manage to achieve three times increase in wages. Secondly, a large salary itself is described more likely by the word “cool” than “normal”, but we are still talking about exactly that here.

In reality, it is worth having three salary plans in mind:

1. Base. This salary covers only basic needs. Receiving it is not very pleasant or comfortable, but in a situation where there is no other income, it will do as a temporary option.
2. Normal. This is the golden mean. You can satisfy your basic needs, put aside a certain percentage each month that you choose yourself, and still have some money left over to spend on miscellaneous items or send additional money to saving. Unplanned expenses, of course, will be different for everyone. But a normal plan involves about 20–30% of the total amount.
3. Luxurious. In this case, you don’t have to count expenses at all; at the end of the month there will still be money left.

Of course, no one forbids being content with a normal salary and not striving for a luxurious option. Another thing is that requests will have to be made friends with proposals from potential employers.

How to estimate how much they are willing to pay you

You will have to focus on average figures, which are not necessarily the ultimate truth. There is always a chance to eventually come across an employer who will immediately offer more. But generalized indicators provide support from which to build.

First, study the services that job search sites offer. For example, HeadHunter has "How many recipient", at SuperJob - "Salary meter».

But it’s much safer to manually select vacancies on different sites, try them on yourself and see how well they match your experience and skills. Because general information is unlikely to be useful to you if it is an entry-level position that has the same title as your current one, but which you have left for a long time grew up.

Another option is to ask your friends if you have an established social circle in a professional environment.

A normal salary will be, as they say, “in the market,” that is, with slight deviations from the average for your specialty and position.

What will help you sell yourself more expensive?

This does not provide a guarantee, but it increases the chances of finding a place with a higher salary.

Skill development

The better you are as a specialist, the easier it is for you to compete with colleagues who dump. Because it will be clear why your work costs more. But there is a nuance: the greatness of an applicant is not always conveyed through a resume. Therefore, the promoted personal brand and connections.

Slow search

When you are very limited in time, the risk of quickly taking what is given increases. Therefore, it’s good to start looking for a new job before quitting your old one, or to accumulate a safety net for the period between jobs. This way, you can take your job search slowly and wait for the perfect offer rather than making compromises.

Nice resume

Here everything is similar to Tinder: you can be as good a person as you like, but they will choose you based on a set of photos. And if they swipe to the left, no further conversation will take place.

A resume should make an impression, and for this you need to correctly draw up, and for a specific vacancy. If your resume shows you as a great specialist, the company may initially be ready to offer you a higher salary.

Bargaining at an interview

We started with the fact that the applicant usually wants to get more, and the employer wants to spend less. Therefore, before the interview you need to prepare not only to present yourself, but also to haggle for a salary.

This will require arguments. Something like “Now I earn this much and want 30% more” does not sound very convincing. It's better to talk about how you can benefit and back up your words with examples from the past. Imagine that you are a seller in the market, only you are selling yourself.