LinkedIn, a Microsoft-owned business/jobs service, is launching a new tool to help job-seekers find positions with the highest base salaries (via VentureBeat). The tool is part of the company’s LinkedIn Salary service to help those looking for work, and shows a list of jobs in a given category and ranks them starting with the highest one. LinkedIn’s project manager Erika Hairston told VB:
“If the salary potential is your guiding light, you’re not alone. In fact, research shows salary to be the top factor that motivates you in your career, and one of the first things you’re interested in learning about a role. We introduced LinkedIn Salary to provide you with a reliable source of up-to-date information about the factors that impact the way you’re paid, increasing transparency and helping you to have more informed conversations.”
By seeing the jobs with the highest available pay, users could compare them with others based on their skill level, or perhaps use the data negotiate for a higher pay based on what others are paid for similar positions. “With these personalized insights we hope you have the tools you need to make informed decisions about your earning potential,” according to a LinkedIn blog post.
As mentioned in the company’s “Most Promising Jobs” list, the highest paying job available right now is a Site Reliability Engineer, paying an annual salary of up to $200,000 per year. At second and third place, Enterprise Account Executives and Machine Learning Engineers tie in at $182,000 annually each.
LinkedIn cites that as companies become more transparent about their base salaries, it helps close the pay gab which likely leads to better motivation and therefore increased productivity in the workforce. The same holds true to job applicants, as being more transparent about the desired pay based on personal research will help them to negotiate with their future employer to find common ground for the two parties.
The company has made several improvements to its service over the past few months, including combining the Jobs, Recruiter, and Pipeline Builder talent tools onto one platform and rolling out its LinkedIn Live video streaming service. These recent improvements should help improve the overall experience in the ever-expanding working world.
