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Decent Salary for what we do?

Montrey

Montrey

Member
Hello fellow board members.


What would you say is a fair/decent salary for someone like us. That builds dashboards/data visualization/is a financial analyst/ BI developer?


I was hired right out of school at a fairly low salary rate and my skills have developed 10 fold. I do/know more than my experienced counterparts(everyone says that! No really, I have..). Dashboarding and BI are new to my company and I think it is growing on everyone but I'm pretty sure the people who do what I'm doing are getting paid substantially more at other companies.


Thanks if you have any info. :/
 
Montrey


There is probably more variance between countries in this areas than locally in your area so my advice or others will be of limited use to you.


I would suggest for you to look at local Job Advertisements or talk to Recruitment Agencies.


I would also caution that as a Graduate you may now have better BI skills than your counterparts, but do you understand the business processes as much as them? In my area it is the understanding of the business processes and data flows particular to your industry which is more important than a fancy chart.
 
I was in this situation when I got my first job out of college. I was doing Analyst work that my boss said he would normally require 5+ years experience, but he trusted me (and probably his budget) to do the work. I was hired as a Customer Service rep/Analyst and being paid as such.


From what I've found out about salary it varies by industry, are you in a high or low margin environment, does the company have a history of the role and valuing the role.


I ended up leaving for a new position that paid much higher but the company puts a value on the analyst. The company I left has not filled my position after 10+ months and they are doing fine.
 
Region, area, costs, standard of living, cost of living, taxation, population all these have a bearing on the rates of pay available to people in the area. If you have a high population (cheap labour), low to modest infrastructure then cost will be low so correspondingly wage payments will be low. If you look at a country like China where there is a huge population goods and services are provided at a low cost due to the large labour market, but as the infrastructure is built up with the tax incomes generated by this huge labour market the costs of living are increasing and now there is a demand in China for a “fair” wage to be paid.
 
Hi Montrey ,


My opinion :


I have seen that how much you get is to a large extent dependent on how you 'market' yourself.


What is important is how do people perceive you ? How do they think you can give them value ?


One way to add value to yourself is through certifications ; I agree that certifications , on their own , may not mean much , but in this cut-throat world of ours , it is one way of differentiating one candidate from another.


Having said this , the best way to find out your market value is to start doing jobs online ; I think https://www.odesk.com/ is one such avenue. If you can build up a good reputation , you can command your own salary. Of course , this same method works even in the physical world ! Reputation is everything , which is why joining professional groups such as LinkedIn is a must. Expand your network , and let others know that you are interested in new opportunities.


Narayan
 
Wow thanks for all the information guys. Some really good points here.


Thank you so much.


@itsnotmagic

I may have to move companies as you mentioned as your story seems very fitting to my situation.


Again, Thank you guys so much.
 
Narayan, thanks for the link. I'd consider myself in a similar situation to Montrey and ItsNotMagic. Maybe it's time I took a crack at freelancing...
 
Hi, Montrey!


At this point nothing I could say will be a revealed secret after what the previous little-young-novice-unexperienced guys posted before. Just my two cents, one serious and another not so serious.


The serious one: regardless the geographical zone, the vertical market, the cost of live, and all that stuff, for 10K/monthly (dollars, euros or pounds), let the devil hire you (and when refrigeration costs get higher than expected don't hesitate moving to another hell... there are a lot of hells out there).


The not so serious one: keep on improving always, no matter what your skills become, no matter what your environment media shows, it's like playing chess, you'd like to play against the betters not just win among the guys at your neighborhood.


My best wishes on your career. Good luck!


Regards!


PS: I'm wondering which one of the cents was the serious... both?... any?... good question!
 
I liked your post SirJB7. I took both cents and read 'between the lines'. :)


Unfortunately, I think I got somewhat taken advantage of because I'm at $36k a year.

In the next few days I'm going to ask my boss if we can open a new, never been used, position at our company. BI Developer/Strategic Analyst. I'm thinking $55k is a bargain and I would be happy with that and would actually feel incentive to keep producing the great BI tools I already have been creating. (I think minimum for this kind of position is around $65k in the open Market.


Thanks again for the info and I'll keep you posted on how it goes! Great words of advice and great friends on this board. :)
 
I would have to absolutely agree with Hui, the business aspect is equally, if not more important than your excel skills. Because of the stigma that goes with excel, not saying i believe in the stigma, but without the business knowledge that backs up your skills, unfortunately, the value isn't as great as one would think. You need to know your business. If you have both, then yes! you are definately under paid. Remove your personal bias and look at your business sense and your excel sense and see if you truly are under paid. If so, pitch the new position or look around. I came to the same realization and did both, and landed a fantastic job.
 
Make sure to check out Chandoo's latest article. Looks like Montrey caught his attention.

http://chandoo.org/wp/2012/05/25/how-much-salary-excel-survey/
 
Wow! awesome! I feel awesome now. haha. I always wanted to get something on the front page. Albeit not Excel, but still cool. I think it is information everyone would like to know too.


Love this site! Has helped me so much with my fledgling career and is the only reason I would able to demand a higher pay.


Thank you Chandoo! (and the community)


@Greg

Another great piece of advice.
 
Totally agree with Hui,Greg and all. I used to be pigeon holed into a job role until i convinced my boss on paying for my first indepth 2-day excel class. from there i continue to explore and learn on the job. I used excel to demonstrate what it can do and consolidated 5 separate reports (used by all the regions in the company) into one big dashboard. During a annual mgr meeting (over 100 people) when someone from the biggest region was showing off their results and reports. One of the mgr from my region stood up and said to the whole group "Fred has created one report to replace all these reports you are showing here. It is so much better and I think you all should take a look at it." My work life is never the same since then.


I know my Excel skills aren't Ninja level. But thanks to Excel and learning from so many talented people once I have got a solicitation from someone at work to set up our own company to take on projects. Knowing Excel well enough has opened up so many doors for me. And coming to this blog has, copying someone else quote, put "rocket fuel" on my (carrier) jetpack.
 
Cool story, Fred. Always awesome to get recognition from the boss in front of a larger crowd. =)
 
She wasn't even my boss. She's the only female manager in the region and one of the 26 managers I used to support by providing periodic/analytical reports. ;)
 
Didn't realize how many people are in the same boat. I think we all have one thing in common though. We all strive to be the best at what we do. Never wanting to stop learning and a passion for what we do.
 
@Montrey

Hi, PEEG!

Strive? What's the meaning of that word? I humbly thought that we're simple the best at we do, without any effort.

Regards!

PS: I'd be getting asleep, did I write "we"? Who's stolen the big I in my keyboard?

PS2: If a better one appears, well, just apply the famous "that looks like an accident..."

PS3: Any effort... noticeable at least!
 
Interesting thread, guys!


Hui is right on the money when he talks about associated skills. Excel is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Other skills and experience let you see where you want to go and you then use Excel to get there - NOT the other way round.


As for any stigma around being an Excel expert, while it's generally unjust I'd say that some ninjas do need to increase their peripheral vision in the ways just described.


I'd never style myself as an excel expert, but rather as a specialist in Management Information or Data Visualization, "enabled" by advanced (I wish) excel skills. And Chandoo knows this: in his Excel School charting module he spends the whole of the first class discussing how to select the right chart for the job in hand... without even mentioning Excel!
 
Hi All


Last time I looked we had over 1050 responses to the Salary Survey


Expect some stats later this week


Hui...
 
I just stumbled across this post after filling out the survey, and I agree with Hui in that you may be really good with excel, but may be lacking in business experience. That being said, I'm curious how other excel analysts quantify they value they add?


If you're trying to pitch the idea that you should get paid more to your boss, the first question they ask is going to be why? Comparing yourself to the "market average" is one way to do it, but that still doesn't explain how much $$ your spreadsheets have saved the company.


I think the value an excel expert adds to the company falls into two buckets: 1) saving time, and 2) transparency. But those are still hard to quantify. Do any other excel experts out there have any success stories in demonstrating the value you add to the company?
 
I would say its hard to put a number on how much money a spreadsheet has saved a company. But what you can do is point out how beneficial a spreadsheet has been and/or used by a certain individual for day to day decision making.


Lots of decisions/ideas may spawn from what you have put together. The way you present your data. I am in a position to give the data in a meaningful way for the higher ups(senior VP and president) to make decisions. Of course I could make conclusions or decisions myself but that is not needed of my level.


So the question comes back around again. How much should an individual who provides accurate data, visually telling data, and provides information to decision makers quickly on a basis day after day. I believe speed is a factor too. If you can turn a block of data into a visual/meaningful analysis very quickly using your excel skills I believe this should be compensated for.


I feel I was hired to do some things which I have exceeded greatly and am now making things that are way outside what I was originally hired for. I think my compensation should be increased because of it. Deciding a decent $$ amount is somewhat tricky though. We all do different things and all have our specialties. I feel $55K USD is fair though.


What we do is in growing demand. More and more companies are finding the value of their data and need to understand it. This is where we come in.
 
Saving time and being transparent are very good but may not be the only value added function excel users can bring to the table. Once a new process is set up and workers are trained (I personally developed a reporting process using excel and reduce turnaround time but a day or two), there is no more incentive for a company to keep me around. They can always train a junior worker to pick up the establish process and run with it.


I think the bigger value of an excel analyst is to be able to run spreadsheets real well and can also tell "actionable stories" days after days, months after months, or years after years. analystical reports generated by us have to tell the readers something valuable, something they can take away points that is insightful, thought provoking, make people want to discuss (even argue) issue with others and to be able to act upon the stories (reports). And I think that's where our true values are. A good excel user can also have a very good business sense. You just need need to be exposed to the business side of the operations. Talk to sales people, talk to operations people, talk to finance/accounting. learn from others on how to look at a business. it's not that difficult.


When a newly hired general manager told me "Fred. you have made my career in this region." or when a VP say out loud to me and my colleagues "YES! This is what I was looking for for a long time. This explain why the numbers are down and where to fix it. Yes! Yes!" I know then our value is beyond just Excel. But knowing Execl well is our foundation.


We write stories using Excel. And we have to be good in Excel to tell a good story.
 
So you're really saying that our value lies in doing analysis, i.e. taking large amounts of data and summarizing it in an easily consumable format. Does that sound about right fred? But the question still is, how do you quantify that? The number of stories you've told?


And Montrey, I would look up business analyst roles and salaries in your area on glassdoor.com. That site seems to be a pretty good gauge for how much money companies in your area are paying for such a skillset, at least in the U.S. that is.
 
I don't think we can "quantify" everything. What we provide is a service, not a product. And that's why we have to actively collect customer feedback, just like any other service oriented businesses, to prove the service we provide is a higher quality than the customers' previous experience. And that's why we collect "stories".


Why do we like coming back to Chandoo.org but not other Excel blog. There are a ton but it just look more tidy, professional and easy going here. And I feel a lot less intimidated (knowledge-wise) in the learning process here. So i spent a lot more hours here than any other excel blogs combined.
 
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