Note: Holly's similarity algorithm surfaces comparators based on job class specifications and salary data. Its recommendations are designed to support your professional judgment, not replace it — you're always in control of which comparators make the final cut.
Components of a Salary Survey
Holly's salary survey pulls together the benchmark data connected to your class specs — min, mid, and max salary, so you can see where a role sits across a fuller range of the market. Before you export, it's worth reviewing the underlying comparators so the study reflects your professional judgment, not just the algorithm's first pass.
Tip: Need this data for many classifications at once? The Salary Survey Bulk Report compiles the market benchmarks from each spec's Market tab into a single Excel workbook, one tab per classification with a summary page. Validate your comparators here first; the report is only as good as the benchmarks it compiles.
How to Review and Validate Your Analysis Results
Step 1: Open the class spec and go to the Market tab
In the Market tab, you'll find a table of potential benchmarks under Configure Market Benchmarks.
If you see a blue Start Analysis button, click it to load the benchmarks for the first time.
If a table is already loaded, confirm the comparators you expect are included. If agencies were added after the original analysis ran, click Refresh (in the three-dot menu on the right) to pull those in.
Step 2: Confirm your list of results list has the desired agencies
Open the Market Analysis and review the full list of jurisdictions and job classes surfaced as comparators. At a glance, confirm the jurisdictions you expect are present and the role names look relevant to your study.
Review the comparator list for coverage — are the key jurisdictions you'd expect represented? See Adding and Managing Comparators for step-by-step instructions on adding and removing these comparator specs manually.
If you would like to add data from other jurisdictions, please see How to Add a Comparator Agency for information on how to do so.
Step 3: Use Holly's filter tools to narrow the benchmarks displayed
Holly's default is to surface as many relevant benchmarks as possible, with filters for agency, top matches, and more, so you can reduce what you're looking at without losing visibility into the full set.
Step 4: Drill into entries to validate each comparator
Holly makes it easy to investigate each source to verify information without leaving the platform. When you open a comparator's detail view, here's what each section tells you:
Details — Comments that have been made on the spec, pay grade.
Class Specification — The full job spec as uploaded to Holly: duties, scope, requirements.
Analysis — Holly's explanation of why this role was rated a strong match.
Sources — Where the spec and salary data came from, with direct links to original documents. If the data doesn't match its source, flag it for the Holly team: click the three-dot menu on the right and select the data issue option.
Step 5: Refine your comparator list
With full context in hand, you're ready to decide which comparators belong in your study. This is where your professional judgment shapes the final dataset.
If a comparator's data matches its source and the role is a genuine fit, keep it by toggling it on.
If a comparator is sourced accurately but doesn't fit your study's scope, toggle it off. Toggling off removes the comparator from the market median calculation and from your export.
Why Validation Matters and Questions to Consider
Why Validation Matters and Questions to Consider
When you run a Market Analysis on a class spec in Holly, the platform's similarity algorithm does the heavy lifting: scanning job class specifications across jurisdictions and surfacing the comparators most likely to match your target role.
At Holly, we believe in a "trust but verify" approach to ensure you have the means to confirm the best comparator benchmarks for a class spec. A strong study isn't just about what the algorithm finds — it's about what you confirm.
Validating the top comparators in a class spec's Market Analysis means reviewing each comparator with a critical eye:
Does this role actually reflect the work your classification performs? Is the scope of duties comparable?
Lead/supervisory responsibilities: Does the comparator have the same level of supervisory or lead duties?
Agency-wide vs. department-specific: Is the class broadly used across the org, or siloed to one department?
Prior match history: If the class was used in a previous study, use that as a reference point. If a previously-used match doesn't appear in Holly (it's below the default similarity threshold), manually add it and assess why. To manually add a comparator spec, see Adding and Managing Comparators.
These questions matter because a number is only as meaningful as the role it came from. A well-matched comparator strengthens your study; a misaligned one, even with accurate data, can undermine your conclusions.
Step 6: Export your results
Once you've toggled on the comparators you want, click the three-dot menu at the top right of the tab to export.
You can export as Excel, CSV, or Word (available in two formats). Each export includes:
A pay rate unit selector, so you can choose hourly, monthly, or annual figures depending on how your study needs to present pay.
A percentile option, so you can choose which salary percentile — including the 25th percentile (Q1) now available on benchmarks — is included as a column in the report.
For bulk salary reports covering multiple specs, a summary page that aggregates key data across all specs into a single overview.
You can also limit the export to only the comparators you've toggled on, or include all of them if you want to keep every option visible for internal reference.
The Result: A Study You Can Stand Behind
A validated Market Analysis isn't just cleaner data — it's a stronger foundation for every decision that follows. Whether you're presenting recommendations to department heads, preparing for labor negotiations, or building the case for a classification study, a well-validated benchmark gives you the evidence base to move forward with authority.