In preparation for our “2016 Compensation Resolutions #3” post on the need to rely on internal equity planning over the vagaries of using market data in establishing compensation programs, I realized that my “preface” was over 1,600 words, and that my social media manager was going to have a stroke.  That led to three posts out of one.  The first spoke to the issue of using recruiters “data” in your planning.  Now we take on something just as scary – the “prediction” method of market data collection based on models, algorithms and projections.

Popular on the internet, and really cool if you can afford it, these programs allow you to input some demographic information, push “submit” and voila, a highly accurate prediction of the market rate for any given job springs up.  This purportedly eliminates the need to have an actual compensation program or consult published salary surveys.  Now, one…