Thursday, June 19, 2008

Through the Glass Door

Money talks -- and so can you, about salaries, bonuses and more, without giving away your identity.

So far, 43 people who claim they work as Google software engineers have anonymously reported salaries of $50,000 to $150,000 to Glassdoor.com, a new Web site that allows workers to swap salary information and ratings on employers. A hundred Booz Allen Hamilton staffers supposedly have shared their pay.

Glassdoor.com launched last week, but the company says it has been collecting comments for months from 250 companies in tech, consulting and finance, including from Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco and Accenture. (It has a smaller number from 9,000 others.)

Glassdoor joins Salary.com, Vault.com and others that provide salary information and employee views. Glassdoor is free, but users must first contribute a review or salary survey.

Some of the top salaries so far are at Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo. The highest-paid Booz Allen staffer reported a $155,000 paycheck as a senior technology consulting associate. Booz Allen spokesman George Farrar said, "There is no guarantee that the salary and other data that is entered is valid."

-- Vickie Elmer