talentup-documentation

Category: 1. Introduction

Description for introduction

  • 1.3. TalentUp’s Level Code Framework

    In any growing organization, having a standardized job level framework is essential for consistent decisions around compensation, promotions, workforce planning, and talent development. TalentUp’s Level Code Framework—combined with functional level definitions—provides HR professionals with a structured model to categorize roles based on scope, autonomy, and responsibility.

    This guide explains how the framework works and expands on role progression across individual contributors, managers, leads, directors, heads, and executives, helping HR teams apply it effectively in job evaluation, salary benchmarking, and organizational design.

    Part 1: TalentUp Grading Level Codes Explained

    TalentUp classifies job levels into five major groups. Each group contains specific levels based on the complexity of responsibilities and degree of autonomy.

    Support Roles (S1–S3)

    These roles focus on operational and administrative support across the business.

    • S1 – Entry-Level Support: Performs routine tasks under close supervision. Follows procedures with little room for discretion.
    • S2 – Intermediate Support: Handles a wider range of tasks with moderate independence. Makes decisions within clear guidelines.
    • S3 – Advanced Support: Has specialized knowledge. Solves complex issues with minimal supervision.

    Professional Roles (P1–P5)

    Includes most individual contributor roles across areas like engineering, marketing, finance, HR, etc.

    • P1 – Entry-Level Professional: Requires close guidance from senior colleagues. Works on well-defined tasks.
    • P2 – Intermediate Professional: Handles moderately complex assignments. Applies known concepts with some autonomy.
    • P3 – Advanced Professional: Leads complex projects. Provides expert input and may mentor others.
    • P4 – Functional Leader: Leads initiatives within a business area. High autonomy and strategic responsibility.
    • P5 – Top-Tier Expert: Recognized authority within the company. Influences cross-departmental or global strategy.

    Manager Roles (M1–M4)

    Managerial levels reflect growing scope of leadership, from team management to organization-wide oversight.

    • M1 – Manager: Leads a small team or department. Accountable for team performance and resource management.
    • M2 – Senior Manager: Oversees departments or large teams. Manages operations and strategic alignment.
    • M3 – Director-Level Manager: Responsible for multiple departments. Sets direction for large functions.
    • M4 – Senior Director: Strategic oversight at the company level. Aligns cross-functional goals and business priorities.

    Executive Roles (E1–E3)

    Reserved for senior company leaders with full decision-making authority.

    • E1 – Senior Executive (e.g., CFO, COO): Oversees major functions. Makes high-impact decisions.
    • E2 – Group Executive (e.g., Group COO, President): Influences entire regions or business groups.
    • E3 – Chief Executive Officer: Leads the entire company. Sets vision and strategic direction.

    Part 2: TalentUp Blended Grading Role Levels

    Alongside the TalentUp code system, HR professionals benefit from a more detailed understanding of how job levels operate within specific paths. This section provides a breakdown by role type and seniority level.

    Individual Contributor Path

    • Junior: Works on scoped, routine tasks. Requires oversight and mentoring. Eager to learn and grow.
    • Mid: Owns individual tasks with moderate supervision. Applies core concepts effectively.
    • Senior: Leads full projects. Brings broad knowledge and works with minimal oversight. Often mentors junior staff.
    • Lead: Expert in a specific field and recognized internally as a key resource. Solves complex business problems.
    • Principal: Provides strategic guidance across multiple teams. Recognized externally as a subject matter expert.

    Manager Path

    • Mid-Level Manager: Leads a team through projects and deadlines. Delegates and ensures performance outcomes.
    • Senior Manager: Leads multiple teams or functions. Aligns departmental initiatives with company goals.
    • Lead Manager: Oversees a department’s execution of strategy. Mentors mid and senior managers. Represents the function at senior leadership levels.

    Lead (Functional Expertise)

    • Mid: Strong professional capable of executing complex tasks independently. Recognized for reliability and problem-solving.
    • Senior: Drives project success and mentors others. Highly independent and accountable.

    Director Path

    • Mid-Level Director: Leads a business unit. Influences organizational decisions with domain expertise.
    • Senior Director: Oversees several departments. Translates strategic vision into actionable plans. Plays a central role in organizational success.

    Head-Level Roles

    • Mid-Level Head: Leads a business function with strategic and operational responsibilities. Guides team development and ensures department success. Reports to Directors.
    • Senior Head: Sets functional strategy and leads cross-functional coordination. Ensures alignment with company-wide objectives.

    Suite-Level Executive Roles

    • Mid-Level Suite: Serves as a key leader responsible for company-wide outcomes. Works with the board, external stakeholders, and senior leadership to shape corporate strategy and long-term vision.

    How HR Teams Can Use This Framework

    TalentUp’s level system and functional definitions can be used in many areas of HR:

    • Job Mapping: Standardize job levels across departments, countries, or business units.
    • Compensation Benchmarking: Align job levels with TalentUp’s salary data for accurate benchmarking.
    • Career Framework Design: Provide employees with clear progression paths and development goals.
    • Performance Calibration: Evaluate performance expectations consistently across levels.
    • Internal Equity Audits: Identify pay disparities and misalignments.
    • Succession Planning: Build leadership pipelines using consistent criteria for advancement.

  • 1.2. Methodology and Data Science

    TalentUp’s platform is built on a rigorous, transparent, and scalable methodology that ensures the salary intelligence it delivers is accurate, consistent, and actionable. The combination of high-volume data collection, intelligent normalization, machine learning models, and human validation results in one of the most robust compensation benchmarking systems available.

    Where Does the Data Come From?

    TalentUp collects compensation data from a diverse mix of reliable sources, ensuring a comprehensive and representative view of the job market:

    • 72% Job Boards
       The majority of TalentUp’s data comes from public job portals such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster, InfoJobs, Adzuna, and hundreds of others. These listings are scraped daily to capture job descriptions, salary offers, location, benefits, and company metadata—creating a rich pool of real-time market information.
    • 17% Employee-Submitted Profiles on TalentUp.io
       Employees can submit their compensation details through the TalentUp platform. These submissions are carefully validated by comparing them against similar job roles, companies, and locations, ensuring the data is accurate and relevant.
    • 11% HR Datasets from Client Companies
       TalentUp clients can upload anonymized internal compensation data via Excel templates or integrations with HR platforms like Personio and BambooHR. This data undergoes thorough review and is only included if it was updated in the current year, enhancing both accuracy and freshness.

    4-Step Data Process

    To ensure data integrity and usability, TalentUp follows a four-step methodology: Collection, Normalization, Deduplication, and Validation.

    1. Collection

    TalentUp collects over 20,000 new salaries per day from 300+ sources across 70+ countries and 600+ job roles. This large-scale intake provides the foundation for both volume and geographic diversity. In addition to salaries, other data points include bonuses, job descriptions, responsibilities, company information, and benefits.

    2. Normalization

    Once collected, all data is standardized to allow meaningful comparison across different geographies and company types. This includes:

    • Currency Conversion: Salaries from international sources are automatically converted based on daily exchange rates to ensure consistency.
    • Job Title Translation: TalentUp’s taxonomy includes over 32,000 mapped roles in multiple languages, ensuring job titles are interpreted uniformly.
    • Benefit Standardization: Common benefits (e.g., health insurance, remote work, stock options) are interpreted and normalized, even when described differently across sources.

    This process ensures that a “Software Engineer” in São Paulo can be fairly compared with the same role in Berlin or Toronto, regardless of how the data was originally submitted.

    3. Deduplication

    To maintain the integrity of the dataset, duplicate listings and repeated job offers are filtered out using natural language processing (NLP) algorithms. These algorithms detect semantic duplicates and similarities in job descriptions and employer metadata. This step ensures every data point is unique, reducing noise and inflating values.

    4. Validation

    TalentUp applies both automated and manual validation processes to guarantee reliability:

    • Benchmark Comparison: If there are sudden changes in benchmark values (e.g., a 20% salary increase in a city-role combo), the system flags the anomaly for further review.
    • Sample Size Threshold: A minimum of 30 samples per position and location is required to build a benchmark. This ensures statistical reliability in the data.
    • Manual Cross-Check: If the data significantly deviates from historical benchmarks or industry standards, TalentUp’s team performs a manual review and cross-verification with partner sources.

    All benchmarks are refreshed every 1–2 months, keeping the platform current and dependable.

    Predictive Modeling

    When data is sparse for a specific role, city, or level of seniority, TalentUp uses predictive analytics to fill the gaps—ensuring continuity in insights without compromising reliability.

    • Linear Regression Models
       TalentUp applies linear regression models to estimate salary trends based on seniority and experience. These models are fine-tuned to reflect realistic compensation growth over time, ensuring that predicted values align with expected career progression.
    • Correlation Across Similar Markets
       If direct data is unavailable for a given city, TalentUp predicts salary benchmarks by leveraging correlations with similar locations, industries, or company sizes. This allows for salary forecasting even in less saturated data regions.
    • Data Completion
       Predictive modeling allows TalentUp to offer comprehensive salary ranges—from base pay to bonuses—even when only partial data is available. This enhances the usability of the platform and ensures a consistent experience across all roles and locations.

    SummaryTalentUp’s methodology balances big data scale with data science precision and human validation. Every data point is vetted through a transparent and structured process, making TalentUp a trusted source for HR and compensation professionals worldwide. Whether you’re benchmarking current employees, analyzing the market, or planning for the future, you can count on the platform’s methodology to deliver insights you can act on with confidence.

  • 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.