Here’s a Serious Question: How Much More Could You Be Making?

No matter what kind of jobs you’ve held down in your career, you’ve probably wondered about the same thing at each one: should I be making more money? While salaries and pay raises are often considered hush hush, a new culture of transparency is burgeoning. And even if you don’t work at a company that’s falling in line, their information can help you answer a nagging question: how much more could you be making?

In many ways our salaries depend on our experience and skill sets, but there’s often an even more important factor: negotiating. It’s tempting to think that when you get hired for a new job you’ll be making something comparable to the previous employee in the same position, but even if you’re doing the same work at the same level, you’ll almost never earn a bigger paycheck without asking.

So how does a transparent salary policy help? And how does that even work?

When Slate reporter Jordan Weissman spoke with an employee at the social media upstart Buffer last year, he already knew how much she made because the information is public. Guarding salary information is engrained in our culture of work: it’s taboo to ask someone how much they’re making. Not knowing where you stand financially within a company can leave you feeling isolated, resentful, and jealous. But when you know what everyone else is making—and more importantly, when they know how much money you’re earning—things change fundamentally.  “What is wonderful about it is there’s no question mark” a Buffer employee said. “There’s no speculation, which has helped us to trust each other.” “There were some hesitations, just because it’s such a strange feeling,” the same employee added.

Buffer, a social media application that allows users to schedule posts on Twitter and Facebook, takes it a step further: salary information isn’t just disclosed internally, it’s public information. And that means it can even help people that don’t work at the company. Buffer, which also boasts a remote-work friendly protocol, offers a public salary formula that breaks down how much you’d make at the company depending on a specified role. The salary calculator considers five factors: role/position, experience, how many dependents you have, a choice between stock options and salary benefits, and how long you’ve worked at the company. For example, a marketing specialist with an intermediate level of experience working for Buffer in New York City could expect an entrance salary of $73,690 if they opted away from the riskier stock options. The calculator won’t clue you in to every type of position, but it’s definitely a start to that pesky question: how much more could you be making?

Check out the calculator here and read more about Buffer’s transparent salary policy here.