Are you paid enough- how to tell

[Mr.Bing]

I've seen several Geoexpat threads on salary, so thought I'd share an interesting CNN Money article about PayScale, a salary benchmarking/data company that offers free basic valuations of how you compare to others in your field and geography.
albeit far from perfect, I tried it out for fun and it was surprisingly accurate with other industry benchmarks i've used for my field. at least i was happy to learn i wasn't getting shafted!

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/busin...030106?cnn=yes

[entropyfan]

Well, Looks like I was overpaid! Sweet!

[ontheroad]

But can you really compare with what people are earning in other countries? Also, a lower salary in HK than in Europe or the USA might in the end be higher, because of the taxes here. And countries each have their own pay scales. The best way to find out if you're being paid enough is by asking a recrutement office, or by asking around, here in HK. For the same job, in the same company, the best pay we got was in the US, and the lowest, in France and Australia. Same with bonuses.

[Mat]

When you start to ask yourself the question: am I paid enough comapre to XXX ? it often (I didn't say all the time, just often) means you are not...

[tango]

When it comes to comparing pay, first we ought to differentiate xp and local. For someone who has to leave everything behind (friends, family, etc.) and work in an entirely different location (language, culture, drinks,...), the non-monetary cost is higher.

In surveys such as payscale.com or salary.com they usually take data from local only. Just a cautionary note to consider.