While most people associate the hi-tech sector with programming and engineering jobs, companies also require many non-technical roles for positions like marketing, management and sales. And with Israeli start-ups raising capital in record amounts, salaries for those positions have been rising quickly.
“Companies are raising funds at the fastest rates ever, but the day after a company gets to celebrate closing a round, the HR people have to start thinking about how to hire a lot of good talent quickly and make sure they can retain them, so the salaries and benefits they offer are getting more competitive,” said Rafi Mendelsohn, VP for marketing at Compete.
Compete’s platform provides real-time data about employee salaries and benefits for more than 200 companies in Israel. The company’s system links directly into a firm’s employee databases to get detailed information, including details of perks – like how much maternity leave a worker gets or monthly food budgets – so that all clients have deep market data for human resource decisions. “It allows hiring managers to stay aware of what other companies are paying for similar roles and check that their own employees are fairly compensated,” Mendelsohn said.
Israeli start-ups have raised more than $11 billion in investment capital since the start of the year, and are on pace to raise more than twice as much as a year ago.
However, the tech sector has as many as 13,000 open positions it could not fill, and 60% of Israeli hi-tech firms say they have trouble recruiting for R&D positions, according to a recent report by the Israel Innovation Authority and Start-Up Nation Central. That has made companies extremely competitive for good workers.
Compete’s data show that salaries for certain positions have risen as much as 30% in the past six months. The average salary of an experienced marketing manager with 5+ years of experience rose 31% in the past six months to NIS 34,000, and that of an experienced (5+ years) non-technical customer success manager has gone up 30% to NIS 26,000. A project manager’s salary has gone up 28% to NIS 32,000.
Other salaries that have gone up in the past six months for people with 5+ years of experience include legal counsel (up 19% to NIS 31,000), VP sales (up 18% to NIS 45,000) and office manager (up 13% to NIS 15,000).
FOR EMPLOYEES with less experience, the average salary for a product manager has jumped 35% to NIS 23,000, a bookkeeper’s wage rose 13% to NIS 13,000, and even for data entry, salaries have increased 32% to NIS 10,000.
Meanwhile, technical jobs are rising at similar rates, with the salary of an experienced data analyst rising 40% to NIS 27,000, and that of a security researcher rising 21% to NIS 42,300.
However, salaries have not increased evenly across the board, and compensation for other positions has gone up less dramatically, or not at all.
“It is important to note that not all roles are created equal, and it is important to use the right information,” Mendelsohn said. “Employees speaking with their friends who are getting big pay raises may wrongly believe that the situation is for all roles and all levels, but this is not true.”
Mendelsohn notes that companies used to hire for many of these positions outside of Israel, closer to where their markets are.
“But as a result of coronavirus, where a person is located has become less of an issue, so more of those roles are being filled within Israel,” he said.
Compete, which was founded less than a year ago, changed its name from Piplwize last week, when it raised $2.5 million in a funding round led by the Aleph venture capital fund. The company’s model is different from that of other data companies, where salary information is self-reported by workers. Compete currently operates only in Israel, but plans to expand to the US market in the coming months.