Dive Brief:
- In order to compete for the best technical and engineering talent, Silicon Valley firms have upped the ante on starting salaries that too few other firms can beat, Bloomberg reports. According to insiders, the Silicon Valley salary for a first-year employee is nearly triple the national average.
- Jesse Collins, a Purdue University computer science graduate, collected data from some 290 job offers he and his (anonymous) peers had received to note differences around the country. Bloomberg News compared these statistics with the average salaries that Glassdoor listed for the same companies. While some of the data was slightly different, it nearly matched except in areas of bonuses and stock options.
- Graduates should consider the cost of living in Silicon Valley; starting rents are set around $3,000 per month. An interesting footnote is that many of the contributors to Collins's salary data mentioned they hadn't tried to negotiate their salaries during their interviews.
Dive Insight:
It's important to note that this was a general starting salary offering, and no diversity recruitment data had been gathered about the gender, race, age or other identifying factors of the candidates.
What companies can learn from this is that all organizations involved in the hiring of STEM candidates can follow the same practice, lest they make bad offer to the most talented candidates. While it's true that cost of living must be factored into the very high salaries and benefits that Silicon Valley companies offer new hires, benefits packages provide important value beyond salary level.
Perhaps more companies should put together a salary and cost of living comparison to show to potential hires. This should help them formulate a more reasonable decision based on their needs.
