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Salary.com (SLRY) is getting a run for its money thanks to PayScale, a compensation data site that compiles extensive research on millions of people and aggregates that content for research and development purposes.

PayScale Founder Joe Giordano said, “Salary.com’s database is based on traditional salary surveys run by consultants. When you go to their site, you get a drop-down menu that might say ‘Programmer 1, 2, or 3.’ It’s very frustrating for a consumer to understand which category they’re in. Then they get the perception that they’re bucketed into a small number of groups in an analysis that’s not at all detailed.”

PayScale isn’t interested in grouping employees by their level of skill. Instead, they ask questions about ancillary benefits that are hard to track, like commute time, benefits, number of years in position, company size, flexible work schedules, and dress code along with salary to gain a richer understanding of someone’s career.

This data can be mined by not only employees who want see what they’re worth, but also companies, who utilize PayScale’s research center to analyze their competitors or restructure their own internal compensation plans.

“We are the go-to source for job market data, whether it be for research analysis or news stories,” Giordano said. “We are really building up momentum and getting great word-of-mouth referrals.”

PayScale has also made a lot of aggressive moves internationally, mostly because Giordano said it’s difficult for companies outside of the U.S. to get valid compensation data without organizations such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We’re focusing on compiling our data for English-speaking countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and in countries where English is strong, like Singapore and India,” Giordano said.

He said they have strong partnerships in Great Britain, most notably with Monster UK. But Giordano said PayScale’s biggest fans are job boards, who like to give their users the option of researching salary info. They currently have partnerships with AOL Jobs, Jobster, SimplyHired, and Indeed.

There are more big names to come, but for now, Giordano is mum on that topic.

Giordano said that in the future, users can look to PayScale to as a career management tool, in which they will be able to plot their entire career path, from graduation to retirement, utilizing a feature called Gigzig that maps job pathing information from Payscale’s large network of profiles.