Author: Aubrey Bach

Aubrey Bach is the Marketing Manager at PayScale.com and writes for PayScale about salary, higher education and career strategy. She is a recovering Diet Coke addict who grew up on the mean streets of Orange County, California, but since coming to Seattle in 2007 has embraced everything the city has to offer (except, of course, the weather).

Abs vs. Outcomes: UW’s Cheerleading Infographic Shows That Colleges Aren’t Marketing Themselves Correctly

The recent controversy caused by a tip sheet for prospective cheerleaders at the University of Washington doesn’t just show bad taste, it’s more evidence that colleges aren’t focusing on what really matters in appealing to students: whether or not they’ll get a job after graduation. On Tuesday, April 26, 2016, the University...

Guess Which Company Doesn’t Want to Reveal Its Gender Pay Data?

There is a big movement for tech companies to publicly share data about the gender and racial diversity of their employees. However, while some companies are using this moment of crisis to show commitment to developing a more diverse, more productive workforce, others are less than eager to disclose numbers. In fact,...

The Perception Gap: Women Half As Likely to Believe Women and Men Have Equal Opportunities in the Workplace

By now, everybody has heard about the gender pay gap. Women in the workforce don’t earn as much as men, whether you’re comparing overall earnings or comparing men and women working in the same jobs. But despite the data, debates still rage on in the media about whether gender inequity in the...

Show Your Coworkers How You Feel With PayScale Valentines

Valentine’s Day is a lot of pressure, whether you’re in a relationship or not. Flowers, candy, expensive dinners … it gets overwhelming, fast. So if you’ve wandered into the office today and realized that you don’t have any tokens of the (strictly platonic unless sanctioned by HR) love you feel for your...

Dear Kate Winslet, We Need to Talk (About Pay)

Normally, I’m the first in line to join the Kate Winslet Fangirl Club. Between her undeniable acting talent, and her frank discussions about subjects like body image and the way Hollywood treats women as they age, she really seems like a cool, confident, smart lady. But in a recent interview with the...

Apply the Bechdel Test at Your Next Meeting to Evaluate Gender Diversity at Work

China’s President Xi Jinping recent visit to Seattle was big news for what it signified about the city’s rising prominence as a global tech hotspot. But a quick survey of photographs of the Chinese dignitary hob-knobbing with executives in the Emerald City reveals that while more companies are talking about their lack...

What Sets the Top Engineering Schools Apart? Not Just STEM.

At first glance, the list of top colleges in PayScale’s 2016 College Salary Report looks like a love letter to STEM degrees. Not only do science, technology, engineering, and math subjects dominate the list of highest-paid majors by any degree level, there is an undeniable correlation between how high a college or...

Bruising or Beneficial: In the Amazon Debate, What Really Counts Is What You Want (From Your Employer)

Ever since The New York Times published its scathing, 5,000-word takedown of work culture at Amazon, the topic of work-life balance has been the talk of the town. The commentary won’t stop, whether it’s from Amazon’s most rabid defenders or passionate opponents. Even famously silent CEO Jeff Bezos has issued a response....

UCI Introduces a New Program to Make It Easier for Humanities PhDs to Get Hired

Earning a PhD in philosophy from a prestigious university is a noble endeavor, but when it can take upwards of a decade and over $100,000 in tuition to earn that degree, and studies show that job prospects drop the longer students take to complete their degrees, does it still make sense in...

Take a Lesson From Peter Pan to Fight Career FOMO

Starting your career is no easy task. We all know that college degrees no longer guarantee jobs and that the days of linear career paths and lifetime relationships with employers are just misty-colored memories (almost as dated as that reference I just made). But before you can worry about getting hired, you...

The Best #DistractinglySexy Tweets

After Nobel Prize winner Sir Tim Hunt made headlines with a long, public and shockingly sexist diatribe about why he thought women were more of a distraction than a benefit in labs, hundreds of female scientists have taken to Twitter to call him out on his comments. These female STEM workers are...

Understanding Your Benefits

Negotiating your benefits package when you are offered a job is key to your overall salary negotiation strategy – but it’s tough to negotiate benefits when you don’t know your 401k from your PTO. But have no fear, because PayScale is here to help you translate HR-speak into English and make sure...

Supercharge Your Job Hunt with Data

The hunt for your first job out of college is an emotional rollercoaster. You might feel a mixture of excitement to be graduating (not to mention earning a paycheck!), confusion about exactly what you want to do with your life, stress about the sudden onslaught of crucial life decisions you have to...

Yes You Can! Negotiating Your First Job Offer

Most college seniors and recent grads are shocked to find out that they can indeed negotiate their first job offer. Early salary negotiations aren’t just nice to have, they’re vital when it comes to your long-term financial well-being, your overall career path, and the way your employer looks at you from day...

‘Silicon Valley’ Illustrates Why Salary Transparency Is So Important

HBO’s hit comedy, Silicon Valley, always features pitch-perfect parodies of the tech industry, but this week’s episode, The Lady, focused on a topic near and dear to PayScale’s heart: salary transparency. This most recent episode not only entertains, but illustrates what happens when employees don’t know why their employer pays the way...

7 Career Lessons From the Fast and Furious Movies

The seventh installation in The Fast and The Furious film franchise, Furious 7, debuts on April 3. While fans may say they love the action-packed series for the cars, the daredevil driving or the eye candy, PayScale is here to remind you that you can learn some important career lessons the adventures...

John Travolta Reminds Us Why It’s Important to Remember People’s Names

The 2014 Academy Awards ceremony was not only a celebration of artistic triumph and beautiful clothes, but thanks to John Travolta, it also reminded us how important it is to memorize peoples’ names. Find out why it’s important and learn some easy ways to make sure you don’t pull a Travolta at...

Use PayScale’s Best Jobs for You Tool to Find Your Dream Job

Choosing a job is never an easy task, whether you’re a fresh-faced student deciding on a field of study or an experienced professional thinking about your next big career move. PayScale’s new Best Jobs for You tool is here to make that decision a lot easier. This new tool allows you to...

5 Career Lessons You Can Learn From Miley Cyrus

In her hotly debated performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, Miley Cyrus completed her transformation from wholesome child star into future train wreck before our very eyes. But her disturbing and controversial dance number can teach us more than what not to do with a foam finger. Here are five...

Which Cities Are Flying High In the Q2 2013 PayScale Index?

If you live in San Francisco, Baltimore, Chicago or Phoenix, then here’s another reason to love your hometown: these cities topped the list of biggest wage increases in the Q2 2013 PayScale Index. That means that these four cities have seen the biggest jumps in pay over the last twelve months. What’s...

The PayScale Index is Cautiously Optimistic About Wages in Q2 2013

After some minor dips in Q1 marred a nice run of rapid wage growth, it is with a cautious sigh of relief that we announce that the Q2 2013 PayScale Index comes bearing better news – for the most part. Last quarter’s drops seem to be a one-time occurrence, and wages in...

Why Studying the Humanities Isn’t a Death Sentence for Your Career

If you’ve noticed more sad poets than normal lately, it might be because of a spate of headlines announcing the death of the humanities in higher education. While PayScale applauds college students who make the smart fiscal choice to study STEM subjects and earn the bigger paychecks that they often provide, we...

Best College ROIs by Major

PayScale just released the newest feature of our College ROI Report, a breakdown of which colleges provide the best ROI for specific families of majors. Now you can see which schools provide the best return on investment specifically for students who major in English and the Humanities, Business, Engineering, Computer Science and...

Engineering Schools Top PayScale’s 2013 College ROI Report… Again

PayScale just released our 2013 College ROI Report, which measures the cost of attending over 1,000 colleges to median alumni salaries. Once again, Engineering Schools and Research Universities dominate the list of schools who offer the biggest return on investment for your hard-earned tuition dollars. For the second year in a row,...

PayScale Presents CEO Pay in Perspective

When you picture the lifestyle afforded to the CEO of a multinational company, you probably think expensive sports cars, corporate jets, and multimillion-dollar paychecks. No one said it was easy to run an empire, but the many perks awarded to various CEOs certainly help ease the stress.PayScale recently released our “CEO Pay...

The South Lake Union Release: #MakeItHappen, Extra Paycheck Sweepstakes, PayScale Index Values Now on RC pages, and External Data for 1,000+ More Schools

On December 20, the Consumer Team proudly launched our latest release, South Lake Union. Even though we were working with a shorter-than-usual time schedule (the release was originally scheduled for Christmas Day), we were able to successfully launch several new features and enhancements to the site. First, we now show data from...

2012-2013 College Salary Report, College Selector Tool and a New Search

The Consumer Team has been hard at work with the latest site release. Not only did we release the latest (and greatest) version of the Consumer website, but we also published our 2012-2013 College Salary Report and the brand-new College Selector. The College Salary Report has been one of our most...