Salary range for business intelligence/reporting analysts in NC
January 29, 2013 8:56 AM
What is a reasonable salary range for a business intelligence/reporting analyst? Every site I have reviewed seems to indicate that the pay range is much higher than the reactions I receive when quoting my salary requirements seems to indicate.
Business intelligence/reporting analysts design reporting and analytics, usually from a data warehouse through a business intelligence tool like MicroStrategy, to assist in management decision and oversight of business functions. I include that brief description so that people who do not know that exact title may know the job under a different name.
I am looking at jobs in the cities in central and western NC. I have more than five years of experience in reporting design, deployment and analysis, a relevant business graduate degree, and have always received lavish praise from bosses and peers for my work. I am not a programmer, although I can build SQL queries well enough and understand relational db structure. My current job uses a MicroStrategy reporting tool, and I am the sole reporting analyst tasked with using MicroStrategy to design queries and extract data for analysis and reporting, which I design and implement along with reporting based on data generated outside of that environment. I am female.
I have researched all the online tools that offer salary ranges for jobs similar to mine. They all begin at about 45k and go up from there, but the median I've seen is generally about 60k in this area. Based on my skill set and experience, I have been quoting the mid fifties to mid sixties in interviews, but invariably the recruiter lets a long pause build, then doubtfully asks if I'm able to be flexible. I know that you're supposed to play the game with them and not give them a range, but I've not had any luck with it.
Is this simply a game they play because they want to knock down my price, or are my requirements actually unreasonable? What is reasonable?
Business intelligence/reporting analysts design reporting and analytics, usually from a data warehouse through a business intelligence tool like MicroStrategy, to assist in management decision and oversight of business functions. I include that brief description so that people who do not know that exact title may know the job under a different name.
I am looking at jobs in the cities in central and western NC. I have more than five years of experience in reporting design, deployment and analysis, a relevant business graduate degree, and have always received lavish praise from bosses and peers for my work. I am not a programmer, although I can build SQL queries well enough and understand relational db structure. My current job uses a MicroStrategy reporting tool, and I am the sole reporting analyst tasked with using MicroStrategy to design queries and extract data for analysis and reporting, which I design and implement along with reporting based on data generated outside of that environment. I am female.
I have researched all the online tools that offer salary ranges for jobs similar to mine. They all begin at about 45k and go up from there, but the median I've seen is generally about 60k in this area. Based on my skill set and experience, I have been quoting the mid fifties to mid sixties in interviews, but invariably the recruiter lets a long pause build, then doubtfully asks if I'm able to be flexible. I know that you're supposed to play the game with them and not give them a range, but I've not had any luck with it.
Is this simply a game they play because they want to knock down my price, or are my requirements actually unreasonable? What is reasonable?
I have had several recruiters contact me for these type of positions and after 5 years of experience they seem to range from 70-90K. However I have to admit that some recruiters I have talked to have indeed balked at this range because it seems that a lot of people nowadays are being hired at quite a low range. I started to get better salary offers once I highlighted my managerial experience rather than technical (since I wasn't so technically strong to begin with) like mmmmbobo says above make sure you are as experienced as you believe you are.
posted by The1andonly at 1:31 PM on January 29, 2013
posted by The1andonly at 1:31 PM on January 29, 2013
Agreed with above, my experience has been that people with 5+ years of BI experience should be earning in the 70-90k range. That's in a big city mind you, not NC.
posted by Sleddog_Afterburn at 2:57 PM on January 29, 2013
posted by Sleddog_Afterburn at 2:57 PM on January 29, 2013
I live in this area, and I have noticed a stunning difference in pay for jobs that appear similar to each other at different organizations. I'm not in your field, but am in a similarly technical but not IT field. What I've noticed: the smaller the city, the lower the pay. Stuff in the Triangle pays much better than stuff anywhere else. Cost of living is somewhat higher, but you don't have to live very far outside the Triangle to get a big drop off in cost of living. Small companies can pay a lot less.
The News and Observer newspaper in Raleigh has a database of the salaries for all state employees on their website. This is actual data attached to names, so it is more reliable than glassdoor or other salary sites. I'm sure there are BI people working for state government.
Your description sounds like you have experience with one reporting tool, and you're really skilled with that tool. Maybe expanding your knowledge into either strategic planning or big data/data warehousing or something else related to BI would help you land more highly-paid jobs.
posted by jeoc at 6:47 PM on January 29, 2013
The News and Observer newspaper in Raleigh has a database of the salaries for all state employees on their website. This is actual data attached to names, so it is more reliable than glassdoor or other salary sites. I'm sure there are BI people working for state government.
Your description sounds like you have experience with one reporting tool, and you're really skilled with that tool. Maybe expanding your knowledge into either strategic planning or big data/data warehousing or something else related to BI would help you land more highly-paid jobs.
posted by jeoc at 6:47 PM on January 29, 2013
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I don't know how much differences there may be with cost of living between the two regions.
However, it does sound like you have been very successful in your current job, but you might not have the sort of in-depth technical database knowledge that recruiters are looking for. If I were you, I would get more proactive about expanding your database skills and also selling those as well as you can. I assume you're not describing your SQL skills as "good enough" in an actual interview, right?
posted by mmmmbobo at 11:00 AM on January 29, 2013