Once upon a time, negotiations about individual wages and salaries were typically handled in a meeting between the employee and his or her manager. The same approach was used both for individuals who were being offered their first job with the company and for existing employees who felt they deserved a raise. But in both cases, the supervising manager and the organization itself usually had the upper hand. This situation stemmed from the fact that both prospective and current employees generally had relatively little knowledge about prevailing wage and salary levels. They usually did not know what others in the firm were being paid, for example, or what similar companies were paying for similar jobs in different parts of the region or country.

To make things worse (for the employee), locating this kind of information was difficult. National and regional data were sometimes published in government reports, but the information was often dated and/or incomplete. Local information could sometimes be located more efficiently, but it too was likely to be dated or flawed. For example, when co-workers ask one another what they are being paid they may be reluctant to provide details. They may even inflate or deflate the truth to either make themselves look better or avoid creating resentment.

But the Internet has rapidly changed all that. For instance, several free Web sites now provide salary information for interested parties. Among other data, these sites include salary survey results, job listings with specified pay levels, and even customized compensation analyses. Other sites provide even more detailed information for a fee. Armed with such detailed information, more and more people today are negotiating better deals for themselves with their employers.

Sometimes the Web provides even more insights, especially for crafty negotiators. For example, some people have used Internet bulletin boards to track down other individuals who have recently been offered employment with a particular firm, find out how much they were offered, and then use that information as leverage in their own negotiations. That is, they can confidently discuss with their prospective employer what that employer has been offering to other job candidates.

In another interesting development, the big-time recruiting firm of Korn/Ferry recently set up its own salary site, Futurestep. But the firm faced internal negotiations when some of its own employees used the site to determine that they themselves were being underpaid! On balance, then, it seems like the Internet will be playing a major role from now on in the wages and salaries that employees expect and that companies pay.

Case Questions

1. How do you foresee using the Internet in your initial job search after you finish school?

2. Are there drawbacks to using the Internet to search for salary information?