Are You Paid What You're Worth: A Complete Guide to Calculating and Negotioating the Salary, Benefits, Bonus, and Raise You Deserve

This is the best book I have read about compensation, developing a pay structure and understanding how an organization sets pay. It is written to be interesting and understood by normal people with a slight inclination to learning how organizations set pay. Read just pages 30-70 and you learn most of what the book has to offer. To get the raise you need, read that section and then also research actual pay statistics for free on the web or if you are really serious, even buy premium salary reports that give the same numbers HR people use to evaluate "market pay" from salary sections of websites like Monster, AOL, Yahoo, Hotjobs, Careerbuilder and Salary.com. There are two numbers you need to know to calculate ranges of market pay: what do recruiters say you would earn by switching jobs (ask a headhunter or cruise above job boards to research) and what do HR managers report to surveys (look on salary sites). Having an opinion on these two numbers and then applying yourself to understanding the processes described in this book will make you a winner in the career long pay negotiation game. Good Job Mr. O'Malley. Buy and read this book.G. Kent Plunkett, CEO, Salary.com

This is a brilliant distillation of the quagmire of complexity surrounding all forms of pay-for-work. And it is a very pragmatic book, based upon decades of field-work of an obviously gifted psychologist. It will empower you in a number of ways: (a) you will get paid what you're worth; (b) you will learn where you are on the continuum of workers economy-wide; (c) the astute reader will come away with concrete ideas about where he needs to grow himself to move to the next level professionally; (d) hiring managers and HR professionals will learn to use compensation as a tool for corporate continuity and growth (e) executives and management consultants will likely be provoked to reconceptualize and restructure compensation strategies toward proactively achieving enterprise-wide buyin toward the shared mission of the firm.

Salary negotiation usually makes people nervous, but with this book even the most nervous person can feel educated and confident. O'Malley lays bare the mysterious inner-workings of salary grades and pay ranges. And he throws in the occasional anecdote to give concepts some life. The book's cover statement - "The Book Your Company Doesn't Want You to Read" - is not an idle boast.

Now, this book is a permanent part of my business book library. An important book for information and statistics on how company compensation systems work and how to get the best deal.