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You love your job, and you enjoy working with your current team. There’s just one question that continues to nag at the back of your mind: Are you being paid what you’re worth?

Salary data can be difficult to come by, even in the digital era. And while your company’s culture and your job’s demands are important factors, receiving fair compensation for the work you do is often the deciding factor in choosing the right job.

Here’s how to determine whether you’re being paid what you’re worth – or if you’d do better by switching to a new position:

  1. How has your pay increased in recent years?

If you receive regular raises to your base salary, or if you can tie your recent pay increases directly to outstanding work you’ve done, chances are good your employer’s pay structure is sensitive to the value you provide the company. If it’s been a few years since your salary has increased, if increases have only just covered the cost of living expenses, or if raises and promotions aren’t clearly tied to performance, it may be time to reconsider your workplace.

  1. What’s the range of competitive pay in your industry?

Websites like Salary.com and Glassdoor.com aggregate pay information for jobs in cities and states throughout the country. While this data rarely digs deep enough for you to analyze your compensation, it’s worth looking at to see where you fall in the overall range. Discovering you’re in the bottom third despite years of experience, for instance, may tell you your current employer isn’t staying competitive within the industry when it comes to salary.

  1. How much are your benefits costing you?

Rising health insurance premiums or deductibles, decreasing employer shares of retirement and similar costs eat away at the total value of your compensation package. To counter them, your salary needs to increase – and if it isn’t, your overall compensation may be treading water or even sinking. By evaluating what your benefits cost each year, you can better determine how your salary fits into your overall compensation.

  1. What options are available?

To understand how your current compensation stacks up to that of your fellow professionals, don’t hesitate to talk to a recruiter who specializes in your field and industry. Recruiters collect specific data, and they can show you what opportunities are available and how much you can expect to make by pursuing them.

At SMR Group, our recruiters connect sales and marketing professionals to outstanding employers and jobs in the medical device, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries. To learn more, contact us today.


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