salary vs cost of living 2

[techmaximus]

salary vs cost of living

My company has a job opening in our San Diego, CA office that sounds very interesting to me. I read that San Diego is in the top 5 of most expensive cities in America to live in so I doubt I am not going to be able to live in San Diego on what I make where I am at now. But the first things these guys want to know is: “What’s your salary? “What do you want?” Is there a web site with some kind of formulas that one can use to figure salary from region-to-region? I guess what I want to know is what is my salary in the Southeast worth in the Southwest?


Techmaximus

 

[BobPE]

try a site called salary.com. It has a good database that can be manipulated to show regional differences in salary due to cost of living, demand, etc.

listing salaries on this site is a no no for some reason, just to give you a heads up.

Bob

 

[JAE]

There is a book called "Places Rated Almanac" that lists over 300 major metro cities in the US and compares all sorts of things about them (education, recreation, weather, cost of living, transportation, etc.)

Or, there are lots of web sites such as:

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/movecalc.asp

 

[mshimko]

There have been recent threads that discussed ways to handle the question "what's your current salary". I won't provide any specifics , other than to say that many differing views were posted on this forum.

By all means, though, if you do provide your current salary, and it's in a lower COL area, I would mention or add the COL factor.

 

[ARenko]

salary.com is very good, as BobPE mentioned. I'm guessing the salary adjustment will not make up for the cost of living difference, but certainly the salaries in San Diego should be higher than the southeast.

BTW, anyone know a good site to evaluate international salaries (specifically Paris)?

 

[MadMango]

Annual reviews are coming up in a few months where I work. I used Salaray.com to create a list of the national averages and regional averages for those that I manage.

I found out that our regional salaries were about 15-30% higher than the national average (Los Angeles). I also found that our corporate salaries were about 10-20% lower than the national average. I sent my report up the chain expalining this might be why we have such a high turn-over in the engineering department. I hope I didn't shoot myself in the foot, but I have a meeting with CFO, CEO, HR and my boss tomorrow.

*gulp*

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[ScottyUK]

MadMango,

If you're gonna shoot yourself in the foot, use a cannon...





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If we learn from our mistakes,
I'm getting a great education!

 

[sms]

Mango are you mad?!!?? Oh, I guess maybe you are....

I haven't looked lately, but salary.com used to have a calculator for overseas as well....

 

[TheTick]

A more nuts-and-blts approach...

Check out costs for yourself. 90% of that will be checking out rents or home prices. Groceries will be about the same. Energy costs can vary drastically, especially if moving between eaxtreme hot/cold and more temperate climates.

I moved back to Wisconsin from California. Make half as much and live twice as well. House, boat, good fishing, better schools.

 

[techmaximus]

JAE, thanks for the web site info. The calculator at

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/movecalc.asp

says it will take a 53.06% increase in my current salary to maintain my standard of living! WOW! I'm looking to get a raise, not maintain. I can't believe that they pay civil techs that much in the Southwest. This will require further study.



Techmaximus

 

[ARenko]

Like I said, you probably won't get the salary to pay for the COL difference. But maybe the increase in COL is offset by the quality of life in San Diego (it's a great city) - something you have to consider. Also, is the opportunity one that will be of more benefit to your career in the long run than staying where you are.

sms, couldn't find overseas salaries on salary.com, so still interested if anyone has any sites for that.

 

[TFL]

mad mango you HAVE to tell us how that conversation goes. maybe i will write a similiar report!

 

[JAE]

There is also the National Society of Professional Engineers - they do a salary survey each year and provide the results in the form of a book with an interactive CD which allows you to enter various criteria (education, PE vs. non-PE, etc.) - but it costs a bit.

Also, a firm named Dietrich does one as well. also $$.

 

[whyun]

My experience with Salary.com was not so good with the structural engineering profession. I think it was decent for Civil Engineering.

Structural Engineers Association of California puts together a salary survey annually tabulated based on region, by years of experience, job title, etc but I found it to be not reliable due to number of samples.

Free publication called "CE" and "Structural Engineer" publish their survey annually.

California real estate skyrocketted in the last five years...