Then I will look at the jobs to see how many matches I might have or if they have all the positions that I think are critical. I also look to see if it has levels within each job that I can relate to the levels within our jobs. After this, I take a look at the information that the survey provides in terms of the data elements that are reported to see if it meets my needs. Base salary, allowances, STI target amounts/percentages, actual bonus paid, LTI information (cash, stock, options, etc) and new hire information. Do they have additional information on common company practices? You can never have enough information.

Since I have international needs, I like to find a survey that covers as many of the countries where we have employees. However, I also like to see how the survey breaks down data within each country to specific cities or regions. I will also check on how easily it will be for me to collect and submit survey data and how flexible they are in working with you.

I will also want to make sure they are diligent enough to make sure everyone is matching the same way.

Thomas : I definitely look at the participant list and type of jobs covered. I also look at how specific the jobs are (for example, do they have an ‘engineer’ or a ‘hardware engineer’ or are they as specific as ‘system design architect’ and ‘ASIC design engineer’?) and how many levels there are for each job. The survey has to be relevant. You need good data, but you also need something defensible if your managers or executives are sceptical.

Tan : It is important that the survey be representative of the industry of interest, be it the industry of which your firm is part of and/or all-industry. The preceding determines the relevance of the data. Also important are the quality and granularity of the data in the survey reports.

Anon : The best survey would be one that has jobs either the same or similar to those of our peers.

Rae : Relevance to your organisation, size of operations, talent pool, and location specifics. If you can ascertain methodology for job matching and market data input, this can be valuable in assessing a database.

Gresens : The survey should have good position benchmark positions that clearly elaborate the job’s essential functions and the skill and experience required to perform the job. In some of the less valuable surveys brought to my attention, the survey position matching is based on job title exclusively.

These are not credible in that what a position is titled may vary dramatically from company to company based on, among other things, industry and corporate culture. Another key element of a good survey is that it is compiled based on salary information submitted by HR professionals representing each corporation. Many surveys presented by employees and which appear in industry publications are based on employee self-reporting (and in most cases based on job title) which does not have credibility when placed next to other professionally conducted surveys which use employer data and benchmark descriptions.

Davidson : The first factor is to ensure that the survey is relevant for the sector in which one is seeking information. For example, it would be pointless to look for financial services information in a manufacturing survey. Linked to this is the issue of just how specialised you need the survey to be.

If, for example, you are looking for a role with a very small population (say, a financial engineer specialising in exotic derivatives), a general financial services survey is unlikely to cover the level of detail required.

Second, I would look at the survey validity. When was the survey carried out? What is the sample size? From how many organisations has the sample been drawn? What is the geographical coverage of the survey? What is the job matching and validation process? How detailed are the job descriptions? What factors are being measured, for example, total cash, base salary, equity grants, option grants (and how they are priced). I would also look at the level of statistical analysis carried out within the survey itself. Finally I would look at the format of the final results ie whether it is in PDF format (makes data manipulation more difficult) or whether it is provided in spread sheet format (makes data entry and manipulation easy).

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