talentup-documentation

Author: TalentUp Team

  • 2.1. Market Salary Search

    The Market Salary Search feature is the starting point for exploring real-time, market-aligned compensation insights on TalentUp. Designed for HR professionals, recruiters, and compensation analysts, this tool enables you to quickly access and compare salary data for any role in any location—across industries and company types. Whether you’re preparing an offer, running an internal salary audit, or benchmarking compensation strategy, this feature provides you with access to TalentUp’s extensive market intelligence—based on millions of validated data points.

    What You Can Do with the “Market Salary Search” Feature

    • Search by job title or job description
    • Analyze gross, net, company cost, or contractor salary
    • Filter results by company size, funding, sector, and type
    • View market salary distribution by seniority
    • Explore variable compensation, supply and demand, gender gap, and benefits

    How to Perform a Salary Search

    The Market Salary Search feature allows users to research and analyze salaries for specific roles in a chosen location. It provides not only the average salary but also a complete breakdown of total compensation, market dynamics, and benefits. Below is a detailed explanation of how to perform a search and how to read each part of the results page.

    Step 1: Perform a Search

    At the top left of the page, you will find the search bar. Here you can enter the job title you want to investigate. For example, typing “Data Scientist” will display information about salaries for that role. Next, enter the location in the second search box. In this case, “Berlin” is used as an example.

    [IMG1]https://talentup.io/apidocumentation/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-11-07-a-las-13.39.17.png[IMG2]

    Once both fields are completed, click on the Search button. The platform will then generate a detailed salary report for that role and location.

    Additionally, there are filters available below the search bar to refine the results further. It is especially important to narrow the search to the specific industry you are recruiting talent for, as compensation levels can vary widely between fields.

    You should always align the filters with the types of companies where the talent currently works or with those where you are competing for talent. For instance, even if you are a startup but are looking for talent from larger companies, you should adapt the filters to reflect those organizations rather than your own.

    These filters include:

    • Sector: Allows you to specify the industry or field (e.g., IT, healthcare, finance). Salaries can differ significantly depending on the sector.
    • Type: This function lets users select their company type (Startup, Scaleup, International, IT Consultancy, or Research/SMB) to refine and personalize salary data. Choosing the correct type ensures more accurate and context-specific compensation insights.
    • Number of employees: Refers to the number of employees in the organization.
    • Funding: Useful when analyzing startups. It shows whether the company is early-stage with limited budgets or well-funded with greater resources to pay higher salaries.
    • Peer group: Lets you compare specific sets of companies or competitors against each other.

    Applying these filters helps narrow down the data to more relevant results tailored to the specific situation you are analyzing.

    Step 2: Reviewing the Main Salary Results

    Once the search is complete, the right side of the page displays the main salary summary. This is the most prominent information and is intended to give a quick but comprehensive overview of how much professionals in the selected role and location earn.

    [IMG1]https://talentup.io/apidocumentation/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-11-07-a-las-13.56.55.png[IMG2]

    The first number to focus on is the Total Market Compensation. This combines three elements:

    • Base Salary: The fixed annual pay without bonuses or additional incentives.
    • Average Bonus: Variable pay that employees may receive based on performance, company results, or individual agreements.
    • Average Stock Options: The average value of equity compensation offered by companies, more common in startups and tech firms.

    Together, these three elements show the full earning potential. For example, in the screenshot, the base salary is 46,600 €, the average bonus is 4,500 €, and the average stock options value is 7,600 €, resulting in a total market compensation package of 51,100 €.

    Alongside this breakdown, the system provides a Confidence score. This value indicates how reliable the data is, based on the quantity and quality of available information. In this case, the confidence level is marked as “Excellent,” which means the figures are based on solid and sufficient market data.

    Finally, there is a Market Competition indicator. This shows how difficult it is to secure jobs for this role in the given location. It explains whether there are more candidates than available jobs (which drives competition up and salaries down) or if demand is higher than supply (which benefits job seekers). In the example, competition is considered a “Balanced Market” .

    Step 3: Exploring the Pay Table

    The pay table provides a more detailed look at salary distribution across different percentiles or experience levels. Instead of showing just an average, it highlights how salaries are spread out in the market.

    [IMG1]https://talentup.io/apidocumentation/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-11-21-a-las-13.24.10.png[IMG2]

    The percentiles are usually represented as follows:

    • P10: The 10th percentile. Salaries at this level represent entry-level or the lowest-paid professionals in the role.
    • P25: The 25th percentile. This typically represents junior professionals with some experience.
    • P50 (Median): The 50th percentile. This is the middle point, meaning half of the professionals earn less and half earn more.
    • P75: The 75th percentile. Represents more experienced professionals, often at mid-to-senior levels.
    • P90: The 90th percentile. Salaries at this level usually correspond to senior or highly specialized professionals at the top of the pay range.

    This section allows you to see how much progression is possible in terms of pay as you gain experience or move into higher levels of responsibility.

    [IMG1]https://talentup.io/apidocumentation/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-11-21-a-las-13.24.23-1.png[IMG2]

    In the pay table, you can switch between different grading frameworks (TalentUp Seniority, TalentUp Levels, Gradar, Korn Ferry, Mercer, Radford, WTW Career Level, WTW Global Grade).

    These frameworks are essentially job-leveling systems used by companies to benchmark roles and compare compensation fairly across the market.

    When you select a grading system in the menu (e.g., TalentUp Seniority or Korn Ferry), the pay table restructures the data according to that framework’s job levels.

    This means the salary percentiles (P10, P25, P50, P75, P90) you see will correspond to the levels defined by that specific system.

    Benefits of choosing a grading system

    1. More accurate benchmarking
    Different companies use different leveling systems. Selecting the one that matches your organization (or the one you want to compare with) gives you a far more accurate compensation benchmark.

    2. Apples-to-apples comparisons
    Instead of guessing whether “Senior” in one framework equals “Level 4” in another, you simply switch grading systems and see salaries aligned exactly with that structure.

    3. Better internal alignment
    If your company uses Korn Ferry, WTW, or Mercer grades, setting it as default ensures your team always sees compensation data in your internal language.

    4. Easier external comparisons
    For candidates, recruiters, or HR teams working across multiple companies, switching gradings helps compare roles that use different terminology.

    5. Flexibility and customization
    You can select a system temporarily or set one as the default to keep the table aligned with your preferred framework.

    Gross Tab

    [IMG1]https://talentup.io/apidocumentation/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Gross.png[IMG2]

    Selecting Gross opens the Gross Tab, which provides access to all salary-related view options. Within this tab, users can switch between:

    • Gross Salary: Displays total earnings before any deductions.
    • Net Salary: Shows take-home pay after all applicable deductions and withholdings.
    • Company Costs: Presents the employer’s full cost, including gross salary plus employer contributions and taxes.
    • Contractor Salaries: Displays compensation structures specific to contractors, reflecting invoicing models and contractor cost components.
      The Gross Tab acts as the central hub for comparing salary perspectives across different employment types and cost layers.

    Current Quarter Tab

    [IMG1]https://talentup.io/apidocumentation/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Current-Quarter.png[IMG2]

    Clicking Current Quarter opens the Current Quarter Tab, which provides the available time-period filters used to adjust the salary data. The options include:

    • Current Quarter: Data associated with the present reporting quarter.
    • 3 Years Ago: Historical salary and cost data from three years prior.
    • 2 Years Ago: Historical data from two years prior.
    • Last Year: The complete previous year’s salary results.
    • Current: Data associated with the present reporting year.
    • Next Year: Forward-looking salary projections or planned compensation values for the upcoming year.
      The Current Quarter Tab enables users to easily navigate across historical, current, and forecasted periods when reviewing salary information.

    Bonus

    Bonus amounts remain flat within a given pay grade. Position | Location | Level | Experience grouping because, within the platform, bonuses are defined by job level (e.g., junior, mid, senior) rather than by years of experience. The available data does not provide sufficient detail to model bonus progression by experience, so all employees within the same level are assigned the same bonus benchmark regardless of tenure.

    Flat bonus values across multiple percentiles are typically the result of strong clustering in the underlying data. When a large proportion of employees receive the same bonus amount, multiple percentiles can fall on that same value.

    This effect is more pronounced in smaller datasets, where percentile calculations are less granular. With fewer observations, several percentile thresholds may map to a single data point, resulting in identical values across P10, P25, and P50. This contrasts with roles such as Interior Designer, where greater variability in reported bonuses allows for clearer differentiation across percentiles.

    Identical values across lower percentiles therefore do not indicate an error but rather reflect limited variability or concentration of bonus values within a given role and level.

    Blank or “–” entries indicate that no bonus was reported. This is most commonly observed in junior-level positions, where bonuses are typically not paid.

    Step 4: Market Insights

    [IMG1]https://talentup.io/apidocumentation/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-11-21-a-las-13.51.09.png[IMG2]

    The Market Insights section provides context about the balance between supply and demand in the labor market for the selected role and location.

    • Supply shows the number of professionals available in the market.
    • Demand shows the number of open job offers for that role.

    If supply is higher than demand, competition for jobs is strong, and salaries may stagnate or even decrease. If demand is higher than supply, companies need to compete to attract candidates, which generally leads to better salaries and benefits for professionals.

    In addition, this section often contains a Gender Gap analysis. It displays the percentage of male and female professionals in the role and may show salary differences between genders. This helps organizations and professionals understand diversity dynamics and whether there are disparities in compensation.

    Step 5: Benefits Information

    [IMG1]https://talentup.io/apidocumentation/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-11-21-a-las-13.51.29.png[IMG2]

    Salaries are not the only factor in compensation. TalentUp also provides information about benefits commonly offered by employers. These are divided into several categories:

    • Most common benefits: These include professional development budgets, health insurance, and access to cutting-edge technology. These are frequently offered across companies in the role you are researching.
    • Side benefits to attract and retain talent: Examples include work-life balance initiatives, flexible working hours, the ability to work remotely, and being recognized as an equal opportunity employer. These benefits are increasingly important for candidates and play a big role in employer attractiveness.
    • Statutory benefits: These are benefits required by law, such as social security contributions, minimum wage compliance, paid time off, sick leave, and pension contributions. While these are mandatory, their value can still be included in the analysis to show the full picture of what employees receive.

    This section ensures users do not focus solely on base salaries but consider the broader package that contributes to employee satisfaction.

    Step 6: Participants (Benchmarking Companies)

    Another feature on the results page is the list of participants. These are companies included in the benchmark for the selected role. Sometimes these are organizations that actively share data, and other times they are companies identified as relevant players in the market for that role.

    For instance, the screenshot lists companies like Google as participants. This gives you an idea of which employers are driving the salary levels for the role in the selected location.

    Step 7: Feedback and Evaluation

    At the bottom right of the page, there is a section where users can rate the page or share feedback. This feature allows TalentUp to improve the quality of its data and the usability of the platform based on user input.

    Why Market Salary Search Is Valuable

    The Market Salary Search feature is not limited to showing a single salary figure. Instead, it offers a comprehensive overview of:

    • The base salary and total compensation package.
    • Salary progression across levels of experience.
    • Market conditions such as supply and demand.
    • Gender representation and possible pay gaps.
    • Benefits, both common and statutory, that complement salaries.
    • The companies involved in shaping the salary benchmarks.

    For professionals, this information is critical to prepare for salary negotiations, assess career prospects, and choose the right employers. For companies, it provides valuable benchmarking to ensure they remain competitive in attracting and retaining talent.

  • 3.1. Getting Started — Step-by-Step User Guide

    To begin using TalentUp, simply head over to TalentUp.io. If you’re a new user, you’ll need to sign up with your email and create a password. If you already have an account, just log in with your existing credentials.

    Once inside, you can choose the plan that best suits your needs—monthly subscriptions are available for full flexibility. Alternatively, you can start with a free search to explore the platform’s capabilities before committing to a paid plan.

    How to Perform a Salary Search
     TalentUp’s Salary Finder is the core tool for exploring salary benchmarks. Follow these steps to conduct a search:

    1. Navigate to the “Salary Finder” section from the main dashboard.
    2. In the search bar, enter a job title, such as “UX Designer”. Then, select a city or location, like “Barcelona”.

      Alternatively, you can also search by job description—just copy and paste the full job description into the search bar, and TalentUp will analyze the content and return the most relevant benchmark results based on the role’s responsibilities, skills, and level. This is especially useful when you’re working with unique or hybrid roles that don’t fit standard job titles.
    3. Use optional filters to narrow your results by industry, company size, or funding stage, depending on your search goals.

      If you’re on a Premium plan, you’ll also have access to the Peer Group feature. This functionality allows you to create a custom comparison group by selecting at least 5 companies of your choice. This minimum is required to preserve data anonymity and confidentiality. Once your peer group is set, the platform will generate a salary benchmark based exclusively on data from those selected companies.
    4. Review the results, which include:
      • Percentile distribution: See how salaries vary across percentiles (P25, P50, P75, P90) to understand the full market range.

        A percentile represents the position of a specific salary value relative to the rest of the data in the market. For example:

        – P25 (25th percentile): The lower end of the market. 25% of companies pay below this amount, while 75% pay above it.

        – P50 (50th percentile): The median of the market. This is the most commonly used benchmark, where half the companies pay more and half pay less.

        – P75 (75th percentile): Represents the upper range. Only 25% of companies pay more than this value.

        – P90 or P99: These percentiles reflect the top of the market, where compensation is significantly higher—often due to seniority, company size, or high competition for talent.

        Using these percentiles helps HR teams understand not just the average, but the full distribution and competitiveness of salaries for each role and location. It also supports more nuanced decisions—such as offering at P50 for general market alignment or P75+ for critical roles or top talent.
      • Experience-based ranges: Check how salaries evolve with seniority.
      • Bonuses and benefits (available in Advanced+ plans): Gain insight into extras like annual bonuses, stock options, or remote work perks.

    This allows you to make well-informed decisions when planning compensation packages, reviewing market competitiveness, or preparing job offers.

    Exporting a Salary Report
     Once you’ve completed your salary analysis, you can export your findings in a presentable format to share with other teams or leadership.

    1. Click the “Export” button at the top-right of the results screen.
    2. Choose your preferred file format: PDF (ideal for presentations) or Excel (great for further analysis).
    3. Click Download and save the file locally. You can now share it internally, use it in board meetings, or attach it to hiring plans.

    Uploading Employee Data
     TalentUp also allows you to benchmark your internal team by uploading your organization’s compensation data.

    1. Go to the “Manage Employees” section in the sidebar.
    2. Download the Excel template provided by the platform.
    3. Fill in the template with employee details:
      • Name
      • Job title
      • Location
      • Current salary
      • Seniority level
    4. Re-upload the completed file to the platform.
    5. TalentUp will process the data and provide real-time benchmarking results, allowing you to:
      • Detect pay gaps or outliers
      • Compare internal salaries to market standards
      • Segment teams by department or location
      • Begin creating structured salary bands

    This feature is especially useful for pay audits, salary reviews, and internal equity checks.

  • 1.1. Introduction to TalentUp

    What is TalentUp?

    TalentUp is a comprehensive compensation intelligence platform designed to help organizations of all sizes—from startups to multinational corporations—understand, design, and manage fair, competitive, and globally scalable salary strategies. With access to real-time salary data across 650+ job roles in over 200 locations, TalentUp empowers HR teams to make informed, data-driven decisions on compensation benchmarking, market positioning, internal alignment, and talent acquisition.

     Thanks to predictive models, global coverage, and automated tools, TalentUp goes beyond traditional benchmarking—offering actionable insights that are easy to interpret, integrate, and adapt into existing HR structures. Whether you’re creating salary bands, negotiating offers, or conducting internal equity reviews, TalentUp becomes an indispensable part of any modern compensation strategy.

    Key Objectives of TalentUp

    Promote salary transparency
     TalentUp aims to demystify pay by giving organizations access to detailed, real-world compensation data. With full visibility into market trends and salary ranges, companies can foster transparency in hiring and internal discussions—building a workplace culture rooted in fairness and trust.

    Attract and retain top talent
     By providing data-backed insights into what competitors are offering, TalentUp enables organizations to remain attractive to top-tier candidates. It helps HR teams align offers with candidate expectations and ensures current employees are compensated competitively, reducing turnover and enhancing employer brand.

    Enhance equity and fairness in pay
     TalentUp plays a critical role in identifying internal disparities and gender pay gaps. With validated, normalized market benchmarks, companies can ensure their compensation structures are equitable—both internally and compared to the wider industry.

    Support global hiring strategies
     For companies expanding across borders or hiring remotely, TalentUp offers localized salary data for hundreds of cities and regions worldwide. This ensures compensation remains aligned with local standards, cost of living, and job market realities—supporting compliance and fair pay practices globally.

    Who Uses TalentUp?

    HR Managers and Recruiters
     TalentUp helps HR professionals design attractive and market-aligned compensation packages that support hiring efforts and strengthen employer positioning.

    Compensation and Benefits Specialists
     These users rely on TalentUp to conduct salary reviews, design compensation frameworks, evaluate internal equity, and align pay across departments and geographies.

    Executive Leadership
     Business leaders use TalentUp to guide strategic decisions around workforce planning, budgeting, and organizational growth, ensuring that compensation decisions are both competitive and sustainable.

    Compensation Consultants
     External advisors and consultants leverage TalentUp to provide data-driven recommendations to their clients, streamline benchmarking processes, and back up proposals with verified market intelligence.

    What Makes TalentUp Unique?

    A constantly updated database with 20,000+ new salaries per day
     TalentUp gathers over 20,000 new salaries daily from a diverse mix of job portals, employees, and companies. This ensures the data stays current and relevant in a fast-changing labor market, giving users access to the freshest compensation trends.

    Normalized and validated data from over 300 sources
     To ensure reliability, TalentUp cleans, deduplicates, and normalizes all collected data from more than 300 trusted sources. It validates job titles, salary structures, and job responsibilities, delivering accurate, standardized benchmarks for meaningful comparisons.

    Predictive salary models that enable future planning
     Using advanced algorithms and regression models, TalentUp can forecast salaries even when data is missing. This predictive functionality is essential for planning salaries in new markets, building future budgets, or modeling long-term growth scenarios.

    Benchmarking by role, geography, seniority, and company size
     Users can slice and filter compensation data based on position, level, location, and company size. This layered benchmarking allows for precision when comparing roles and tailoring pay strategies to specific organizational needs.

    Advanced tools for internal salary analysis and competitor review
     TalentUp includes features for uploading internal salary data and comparing it against the market, helping organizations spot gaps, address inequalities, and fine-tune internal compensation strategies. It also enables users to monitor competitors’ compensation trends in key roles and regions.

    Support for multiple job grading systems
     The platform is compatible with seven different job grading frameworks—including KornFerry, Mercer, WTW, and Radford—making it highly adaptable for companies with existing structures. TalentUp helps map positions across frameworks, ensuring consistency and clarity.

    Smart city-level prediction when data is insufficient
     Even when market data is limited for a niche location or role, TalentUp leverages data from similar cities or industries to produce accurate salary estimates. This ensures that users can maintain confidence in their benchmarks, even in less-populated regions.

    Flexible access through a monthly subscription
     TalentUp is designed to be accessible. With a monthly subscription model, organizations can use the platform on their own terms—whether for continuous salary management or temporary benchmarking needs. There’s no long-term commitment, making it ideal for businesses of all sizes and budgets.