SalaryScout - You decide how much you’re worth!

How much do you think you’re worth? Want some figures to back it up? SalaryScout is more than just a useful tool, but also a persuasive plus-point to back you up in any dispute over pay. Dubbed merely a ‘research tool’, SalaryScout deserves a lot more mainstream attention and recognition than it’s received. Still, the ability of SalaryScout, is that it can help you ‘determine more precisely how much your skills and abilities are worth.’ This may be useful for anybody who is in any postition anyway.

There is a fully browsable database in which you can see various salaries from different positions in different sectors, in different size companies under different circumstances. With only a very small number of users currently signed up and using this service, many are completely unaware that they could be getting paid far, far more elsewhere.

There’s also a ratings and comments section. You can find out what others think of your pay, your job, or even just have a darn good chat about anything you feel like. There’s even an RSS feed for the listings, letting you get instant notifications when new listings are published, etc.

The site appears however to be rapidly growing. In the past quarter of an hour of me sitting here, writing this post, the site has gained an additional 39 users. That’s up from the measley 906 it was when I started writing. However, in amongst all of the truly great services that SalaryScout provides, something seems to be missing. There seems to be no social aspect to the site at all, other than the ability to rate and comment on jobs.

A more personalized feel would also be nice, but as the site has only just launched in Beta, obviously, there’s room for improvement. Nowadays though, ‘Beta’ can mean anything. The ‘Beta’ tag simply makes some sites blend in with the crowd and look the part. One feature I do like, is the tag style ‘geo’ locating at the bottom of each page. The country name is made bigger, the more users that have signed up from that area. Inevitably, the USA is heading the pack, with by far the biggest amount of users. Every other country is currently the same size, with the United Kingdom slightly bigger.

Despite having a few niggly, minor bugs to work out (404 Errors on the site, a few broken links, rather long sign-up), SalaryScout made a generally good first impression. I’ve been rather impressed with the ability and thought behind it and believe that once, (if ever), it gets out of Beta, I’ll be looking forward to expanded functionality and some additional bonuses. The Geo-tagging was nice, but on top of that, there was nothing that really set the service up there at the top. Nevertheless, a great job done!

Above, there’s a bit of a downsized view of the SalryScout home page, in all of it’s Technicolor and well designed glory. I must say, that even if I wasn’t very pleased with the bugs, the great design helped me regain some lost confidence. Via the MoMB.