And finally…new service lets nosy professionals link-in to wage data

The service, based on anonymous data submitted by LinkedIn members, including details about base pay and other compensation, such as bonuses and stock grants, provides members with pay information for a variety of jobs and break-downs like location, industry, education and experience.

It comes just two weeks after Glassdoor, a competing online job site, introduced a feature that promises to help workers determine their “personal market value” by comparing their current job title, salary and related information with data from other workers and current hiring trends.

Both new services are free and promise to go beyond more generic salary tools — offered by job sites like Indeed, PayScale.com and Salary.com — by combining sophisticated computer analysis with the most up-to-date information gleaned from workers, labour reports and other sources.

LinkedIn spokesman Dan Shapero said the company has been quietly inviting some members to contribute their compensation data in recent months.

The “LinkedIn Salary” feature is launching with data from 1 million professionals in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

LinkedIn may not have data for every job, Shapero acknowledged, but he predicted the service will improve as more people participate.