Web Sites That Provide Salary Help

from the career center in the Wall Street Journal

In a tough job market like this one, the dreaded "what's your salary range" question becomes even more difficult to navigate. Give a number too low and you could lose out on thousands of dollars. Answer too high and you could price yourself out of the running.

There are a number of salary calculators and online Web sites, but many offer just an aggregated or best-guess figure. A few sites, however, offer more.

One site creating a lot of buzz is Glassdoor.com. It takes a unique approach by asking people to state their salary. Posters remain anonymous but are required to give a detailed description about what it's really like to work at a specific company. After entering that information, the site allows visitors to find out what jobs pay at different companies.

Another useful site is PayScale.com. Users need to fill out a multipage survey about how long they've been on the job, degrees held and work experience before getting to the actual salary figures. But the site does offer a few nice features. For example, job hunters can add or change information such as location or size of the company and get updated pay ranges. And, as with Glassdoor, its anonymous profiles detail benefits workers receive, which could help fine-tune a salary range and give insight into perks that may be open to negotiation.