Uploaded October 3, 2016
“If you work in finance and accounting you may have a nice salary bump coming in 2017, with human resources firm Robert Half International Inc. projecting a salary increase of 3.7 percent for the sector in the upcoming year.
The financial picture looks even rosier for professionals in those jobs in the Bay Area, said Randall Micek, Bay Area regional vice president for Robert Half. Here, senior and staff accountants will see the biggest starting salary gains in 2017. You can see a breakdown from the entire report in our graphic above.
The region can afford to offer large pay packages to the top talent available, said Micek, because its cachet as a competitive area with a good quality of life.
“San Francisco is a unique, desirable place to live and work in with its robust business climate, great companies and quality of life,” Micek told the Business Times.
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That talent typically breaks down into two types of candidates, Micek said: The active candidate who is highly qualified and within two weeks will be hired, and the passive candidate who is employed and receiving multiple offers and can take between one and five months to hire.
“It’s still like the real estate market,” Micek said. “Companies need to hire quickly in order to secure highly skilled talent and also ensure they make a strong first offer.”
But no matter how long you’ve been in the business, Micek recommends always doing your homework in order to be prepared to negotiate the best possible salary.
“Do your research to understand what the market salary rate is for your position,” Micek said. “Focus on measurable facts with job opportunities versus an emotional connection to the job. Know who your competitors are. Don’t accept counter offers.”
Robert Half arrived at the numbers by polling their staffing and recruiting professionals about how they base their salary projections on the thousands of actual placements. They also collect the salary data from field offices across the United States to publish the national salary ranges, as well as local variances to calculate salaries for more than 135 cities, as well as review employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.”