Hot Jobs Commanding Higher Pay
Each year, C2HR’s Annual Compensation Surveys reveal the industry’s “hot” jobs – those positions that achieved base salary increases well above a company’s salary adjustment budget.
Competitive pressures for call center employees, coupled with a tight labor market and the ability for remote work, continued to fuel pay raises for employees skilled in customer service. For the third year in a row, customer care positions garnered among the largest pay raises at connectivity providers.
Base salary for proficient reps rose 9% in 2023, while lead reps accrued 8% gains and expert reps achieved 6% increases. The gains at higher job levels also reflect the important role these employees play in their organizations as they are the most experienced at not only serving their customers, but also retaining them – a critical skill in this hotly competitive market. (See Figure 3)
Software engineering has also regularly made the hot jobs list at connectivity providers. The 2023 survey revealed the largest base increase – 13% – for associate software engineer, while those higher up the career ladder also garnered raises: software engineer, 9%; principal software engineer, 6%; and senior software engineer, 6%.
Demand for Content Curation Continues
Content continues to be king in the quest for viewers. As such, content developers rewarded those positions responsible for managing, cataloging and tracking the wealth of shows, previews, shorts, clips and ads available to viewers.
Librarians secured a 19% increase in base pay – the largest raise in C2HR’s 2023 Compensation Surveys. Senior positions in the same job family – director of library and digital assets and senior librarian – scored 8% raises, nearly twice the national average. (See Figure 4)
Similarly, for the second year running, jobs in market and audience research also captured big base salary gains. Employees in these positions analyze viewership data to spot trends and better target content to viewers. Manager of research garnered a 13% increase; senior research analyst, 11%; and senior director of research, 9%.
“As our industry evolves, we need people who can consistently organize, classify and store our content, media assets and data — our library — to enable efficient distribution,” said Rebecca Zambrana, V.P., Human Resources, INSP.
“Equally essential are those in market and audience research who analyze the data from myriad sources and distribution platforms to equip us to make future decisions regarding programming, distribution and our overall business practices,” Zambrana continued.
Production management and media relations positions jobs also landed on the 2023 hot jobs list. Raises for production assistant rose 9%; production manager 7%; and manager, production, 7%. Similarly, in media relations, pay for publicists averaged 9% more; senior director, media relations 8%; and senior manager, media relations, 8% gains. (See Figure 4)
“It’s hard to get good production managers when everyone is making so much content,” said Hali Croner, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Croner Company, the research and compensation consulting firm that conducted the surveys for C2HR. “The short supply of experienced production talent drove up their compensation,” Croner added.
Anticipating New Positions
C2HR’s Compensation Surveys are unique in that they include the majority of the industry – 51 participants, 156,318 incumbents and 1,376 job titles. In addition, compensation experts from participating companies meet each January to plan and hone the surveys’ position titles and questions to ensure the survey positions remain relevant and stay ahead of marketplace changes.
As a result of this planning, the Content Developers Survey added four new job families in 2023:
It also changed the recruiting job family to talent acquisition/ recruiting.
The Connectivity Providers Survey also added four new positions in 2023:
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Human resources coordinator
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Associate data scientist
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Network operations center/IP technician 1
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Director of web development
The surveys’ comprehensive analysis, which covers the bulk of positions in content and connectivity, is valuable to survey participants.
“As our company expanded beyond local media and into national broadcasting, we needed to integrate different businesses that we either purchased or grew,” explained Jenny Striebich, Lead Compensation Analyst with E.W. Scripps Co. “Many of the jobs were new to us. This survey has been particularly helpful in figuring out how to price those jobs and how to pay people competitively in this market.”
