To better match the right people with the right companies, Glassdoor includes salary estimates in job listings.

Here are some frequently asked questions related to Glassdoor salary estimates in job listings for job seekers and employers:

Why are you showing salary estimates in job listings?
For employers, salary estimates in job listings help you recruit and hire. It helps employers significantly by driving greater interest to your jobs and reducing time in the recruitment and interview process by ensuring only informed candidates with the right expectations apply. 

Providing pay information at the beginning of the recruiting and interview process helps candidates self-select out, reducing the number of resumes needed to get to a hire in half (Based on applicant-to-hire ratios in a 2015 study of 30 million applications from a leading third party recruitment agency). Hiring decision makers also report that when they hire informed candidates (including candidates informed about pay realities), the top three benefits they see are better retention rates, and more productive and more engaged employees (Glassdoor Survey, August 2017). Since introducing salary estimates in job listings in late January 2017, preliminary data shows that more job seekers are clicking on and applying to jobs with salary estimates, bringing more interest to an employer’s job listings (Glassdoor Internal Data, August 2017).

For job seekers, including salary information in job listings helps too, providing them the added pay information they’ve been asking for, and helping them find jobs where pay realities meet their pay expectations. In fact, data shows that job seekers want more insight into salary and comp during the job search process, as nearly all (98%) job seekers and employees say it would be helpful to see pay ranges included in open job listings (Glassdoor Survey, April 2017). Seven in ten (72%) job seekers and employees also report that salary and compensation are among their top considerations before accepting a job (Glassdoor Survey, April 2017).

I am the employer for a job listing and the salary estimate is off. Can I update the estimate?
Yes. If employers feel a Glassdoor estimated salary pay range is off on your job listing(s), employers are welcome to update pay ranges themselves by logging into their Employer Center with a Free Employer Account. Once in, just click on the Jobs & Recruiting tab, and then All Jobs. Pay ranges on jobs that employers update will be reflected within one business day. If pay ranges are not updated or there is a problem, employers can contact our salaries team. Once updated, the employer provided salary will appear on the job posting.

I am the employer for a job listing in which there is no pay range displayed. Can I put a pay range on this job listing?
No. At this time, employers can only update pay ranges on job listings with a Glassdoor estimated pay range.

I am the employer and we did not give you permission to include pay information in our job listings and/or job alerts on Glassdoor. Please remove it.
At Glassdoor, our goal is to help match the right people with the right employers by leveraging workplace transparency, including offering more information around pay to help ensure pay expectations meet pay realities. In turn, this helps employers recruit more informed candidates which employers say lead to better retention rates, and more productive and more engaged employees (Glassdoor Survey, August 2017). We are also committed to treating all employers equally, regardless of paid or unpaid relationships with Glassdoor. As such, we do not remove salary estimates from a company’s job listings on Glassdoor.

However, pay ranges can be updated to reflect more reliable pay ranges that you, the employer, would like displayed. All you have to do is log into your Employer Center with a Free Employer Account. Once in, just click on the Jobs & Recruiting tab, and then All Jobs. Pay ranges on jobs that employers update will be reflected within one business day. If pay ranges are not updated or there is a problem, employers can contact our salaries team.
 

Can self-serve or third party pay range information be updated on a posted job?
If a job is a self-serve job or a third party job board job, then those jobs will not be visible in the employer center and therefore employers will not be able to update the salary estimates on those jobs with the new Employer Center feature. In these situations, please follow the below process:

1. Contact our Salary Estimates team to let them know you'd like to provide pay ranges to update the ranges currently displayed on your job listings (expect 2-3 business days for a response).

2. Our Salary Estimates team will provide forms for you to fill out regarding what pay ranges are off, and what correct ranges should be. Feel free to fill out only the jobs you need to adjust - no need to fill out every single job in the sheet.

3. Our salaries team will review the information and if there are no questions, our team will update your job listings to display the pay ranges you provide. This process can take up to seven business days.

Ability in self-service to add salary ranges was added in Q1 2018 when employers are adding new job postings and ability to override Glassdoor salary estimates on individual job listings. These salaries will show up on jobs as "Employer Provided."
 

Salary estimates in job listings appear to be from the employer. Can you fix this?
Glassdoor displays on the job listing itself and at the top of the job description that pay ranges are a Glassdoor Estimated Salary. In addition, by clicking on the 'exclamation point' next to this, we explain that pay ranges are not necessarily endorsed by the employer and that actual compensation may vary based on experience. We also describe how we calculate Glassdoor pay ranges. 

If an employer does provide salary information, this will be distinguished on the job as "Employer Provided" salary.

I am an employer and understand that I can update pay ranges on my job listings. Can I do the same thing to update pay information on my salaries page?
While we are currently accepting employer-provided pay ranges to display on job listings, this does not apply to salary information on company profile pages. However, our product team is exploring possibilities to better incorporate this type of feedback on salary company profile pages as well.

At this time, the best way to help improve the accuracy of salary information on your company profile pages is to encourage your employees to contribute a salary report. The more information we have from employees about salaries, the more reliable the salary information becomes over time. For more information on salary estimates on company pages, please see this article.

How are salary estimates calculated?
Salary estimates are generated by Glassdoor using salary data from millions of U.S. employees and third-party sources using patent-pending machine learning algorithms. Salary estimates factor in recent user-generated salary reports for similar job titles at the company, its competitors and other employers for a specific location.

Glassdoor also wants to remind you that salary estimates are estimates. They do not represent guarantees of actual salaries and they are not necessarily endorsed by the employers. The purpose of salary estimates is to use predictive data science to provide job seekers a likely salary range so they can make more informed job decisions, and help employers recruit informed and quality candidates. For this reason, Glassdoor does not guarantee the accuracy of estimates. We encourage job seekers to supplement Glassdoor’s salary estimates with other research to help you make the most informed job decision as possible.

What is being shown exactly in a salary estimate?
Salary estimates in job listings display a range for annual base or hourly pay and are specific to job title, company, and location. They do not factor in variable compensation, such as bonuses, commissions, tips, stock, benefits or other components. They also do not factor in years of experience. At this time, salary estimates are included in some job listings on Glassdoor for annual salaried jobs and hourly pay jobs but are not included for jobs in which pay is primarily commission-based. In some cases, salary estimates are displayed on jobs in which a portion of the pay is commission-based.

Are salary estimates in job listings completely accurate?
No. Salary estimates are estimates, derived from patent-pending machine learning algorithms. At this time, the median error (as measured by the difference between an estimated base salary and a user generated salary for a comparable role) of our base salary estimates is about 13%.

Why are there salary estimates in some job listings, but not all?
Salary estimates currently appear in more than half (approximately 52%) of online job listings found on Glassdoor in the U.S. only. In the near future, we hope to increase our coverage of salary estimates in job listings, including increasing coverage to markets outside the U.S.

If a salary estimate is not provided in a job listing found on Glassdoor, it means there is not enough data available for our proprietary algorithm to calculate a reliable salary estimate. But, as more data becomes available, a salary estimate may appear in that job listing at a later date. 

How old is the salary data that Glassdoor uses for salary estimates?
We use salary data from millions of current and former employees to generate salary estimates, applying an emphasis on recent salaries over the past two years. Part of the algorithm also takes into account inflation trends to provide the most helpful and reliable salary estimates possible.