Penny for your Thoughts: More Young People Share Salary Information

I have been busier than a busy thing lately. I’ve been finishing school, including the final push to print and distribute the magazine I published; working an editorial and marketing internship at an educational publisher, applying for a real start-of-my-career-type job (and getting hired!); trying to read all the books I’ve been thinking about longingly since September, and developing a serious twitter habit.

I have not blogged in over a month. These are my excuses.

Part of my internship, though, was market research (read: spending hours on the web, poking around educational and web2.0-type sites and following the links I found). This convoluted path led me to an article in the NY Times that was so blog-worthy, I knew I wanted to make the effort to start up again.

The gist of the observation is pretty straightforward — while a cultural taboo may still be in place in some circles, younger people are sharing their salaries with one another, and aren’t embarrassed to ask or tell.

One of the interview subjects, Arielle Green, is paraphrased as suggesting that for her friends, “It helps them strategize — when to push for a raise, when to start looking around.”

Having just come out of the interview/job offer process myself, I can completely agree. While the general range of salaries my instructors had advised me I could expect after graduation was helpful in establishing my overall expectations, it wasn’t specific enough. I had to submit an expectation of salary to HR at one potential employer along with my resume - no range provided, just tell us what you think you’ll make. And I was nervous - I think understandably. Too low, and you’ve undervalued your skills and contributions, too high and you’ve priced yourself out of the market with “unrealistic expectations.”

Thankfully, some of my friends in the industry and co-workers at my internship were able to give me some more guidance. If they’d been too reserved or uncomfortable to give me an idea of what they made, and how they negotiated, I’d have been at a loss.

Bill Coleman, chief compensation officer at Salary.com points out, “This is a generation that is much more attuned to teamwork, collaboration and sharing information. Everything they do is a kind of group event. How do you know, when you get your first job offer, if $45,000 is a good offer, a bad offer or an O.K. offer? You go to your friends.”

Now, I’m not suggesting everyone has to start shouting their salaries from the rooftops. There’s definitely an appropriate time and place, and appropriate company, for those kinds of personal conversations. Salary conversations can lead to some very uncomfortable pauses, especially if one person makes significantly more or less than the other, as the article also points out. It’s definitely a balancing act.

Still, I’d argue that as long as you’re discreet and discerning, sharing your income with close friends and colleagues is a valuable way to gain otherwise unattainable perspective.

That said, I’m new to all this, and I’ve never been burned. What do you guys think? Have you ever had a conversation about income, only to have it come back to haunt you? Are the benefits of discussing salaries worth the possible discomfort? How else can you get the information you need to know whether you’re low-balling yourself, or shooting too high?