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Salary.com

What an over inflated site. I use it for filler words for job descriptions. Nothing more.

My employer simply laughed when they saw what Salary.com listed for "median" salaries.
 
is that at all what close to real world salaries?

i'm on the jobhunt right now (out of college)-- and have no idea what kind of starting salary i can expect. According to that thing for the jobs i'm interviewing for-- i should be expecting between 39 and 42k. Is that realistic? (Basic hardware engineer/tech jobs)
 
Originally posted by: Rallispec
is that at all what close to real world salaries?

i'm on the jobhunt right now (out of college)-- and have no idea what kind of starting salary i can expect. According to that thing for the jobs i'm interviewing for-- i should be expecting between 39 and 42k. Is that realistic? (Basic hardware engineer/tech jobs)
Click to expand...

I don't know.

Out of 4 job descriptions that all fit my duties relatively well, I should be making between $5,000 and $35,000 more than I currently am. 🙁
 
Originally posted by: Rallispec
is that at all what close to real world salaries?

i'm on the jobhunt right now (out of college)-- and have no idea what kind of starting salary i can expect. According to that thing for the jobs i'm interviewing for-- i should be expecting between 39 and 42k. Is that realistic? (Basic hardware engineer/tech jobs)
Click to expand...

Just out of college, yes that is realistic. Once you get a few years of realworld experience, you can start looking for the higher paying jobs. Experience is everything in the market today... degrees mean very little unfortunately.

<----- Just got done interviewing and got hired on as a level 3 Functional Analyst (Network/Hardware Maintenance Engineer). The only reason they didn't hire me on at a level 1 position was the experience I have in the industry. They told me that if I only had a degree, I would have started as level 1... (which is about 65-75% of the level 3 salary) 🙁

As for the salary.com site.... they listed EVERYTHING really high for my area (Alaska). A basic hardware tech makes $48-60k according to that site, which I can tell you is definitely no the case. Something in the $35-45k range is more accurate.

Joe
 
Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Originally posted by: Rallispec
is that at all what close to real world salaries?

i'm on the jobhunt right now (out of college)-- and have no idea what kind of starting salary i can expect. According to that thing for the jobs i'm interviewing for-- i should be expecting between 39 and 42k. Is that realistic? (Basic hardware engineer/tech jobs)
Click to expand...

I don't know.

Out of 4 job descriptions that all fit my duties relatively well, I should be making between $5,000 and $35,000 more than I currently am. 🙁
Click to expand...

What do you do?
 
From my experience, Salary.com just takes the most optimistic numbers from high cost of living areas and uses them across the board. It does not adjust accordingly to the specific market you are in.
 
The problem with salary.com is that it only uses national averages.
It makes adjustments to those averages based on how the local cost of living compares to the national average cost of living.
So it doesn't really account for geographic differences in demand for different kinds of workers.

According to salary.com, I'm a Software Engineer I.
The listed range is 45k - 57k.
I'm actually right in the middle of that at 51k.
So for me it's accurate. But I was lucky to get hired by a large corporation with a manufacturing plant here in Southern Oregon.
There is very little demand for software developers in this area.
So I have friends who I graduated with, who are doing the same job as I am, but working for small firms and only making 30k.
And I know people working in the bay area who are making 80k while salary.com says they should be making like 52-62.

EDIT: Basically, the differences between different locations on salary.com are not as large as the actual differences.

If you live in an area with very little tech industry, real salaries are lower than what salary.com says.
While if you live in a very high-tech area with high demand, real salaries are higher than what salary.com says.
 
Originally posted by: spidey07
Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Originally posted by: Rallispec
is that at all what close to real world salaries?

i'm on the jobhunt right now (out of college)-- and have no idea what kind of starting salary i can expect. According to that thing for the jobs i'm interviewing for-- i should be expecting between 39 and 42k. Is that realistic? (Basic hardware engineer/tech jobs)
Click to expand...

I don't know.

Out of 4 job descriptions that all fit my duties relatively well, I should be making between $5,000 and $35,000 more than I currently am. 🙁
Click to expand...

What do you do?
Click to expand...

Better question is what DON"T I do. 😉

System administrator for 3 different Client/Server applications, one of which is very customizable, so I'm responsible for updating and improving that.
Writing and validating Crystal Reports for these applications.
Tech support for approximately 25 people spread over 5 Chem/process dev labs.
Tech support for all software in these laboratories (HPLC Applications, instrument interface applications)
I work in the Pharmaceutical industry so FDA compliance and system validation is always a large part of my job.
SOP Writing and updating.
Application license tracking
Data backup and archival
Etc...

 
Originally posted by: Rallispec
is that at all what close to real world salaries?

i'm on the jobhunt right now (out of college)-- and have no idea what kind of starting salary i can expect. According to that thing for the jobs i'm interviewing for-- i should be expecting between 39 and 42k. Is that realistic? (Basic hardware engineer/tech jobs)
Click to expand...

Starting around here is 48-54k. Most people I knew got 52,500 range...that's like 4 people. Another kid got 55k but he'd worked there for 2 years as an intern. Xilinx starts their guys at 56,500. The lowest engineering offer I saw someone get was 48k.
 
Amish,
Our plant manufactures film for medical imaging. CT's, MRI's, Mammograms, etc.
It's considered a medical device.
So I share your pain in dealing with the FDA.
It takes just as long for us to test and validate our software as it does to write it.
 
Wow, you guys are saying basic tech's get $USD 40-60k/year? That's nuts... do you know anyone working that position making that kind of money?
 
Originally posted by: zCypher
Wow, you guys are saying basic tech's get $USD 40-60k/year? That's nuts... do you know anyone working that position making that kind of money?
Click to expand...

Seems about right for a PC technitian in Louisville, KY.
 
Originally posted by: zCypher
Wow, you guys are saying basic tech's get $USD 40-60k/year? That's nuts... do you know anyone working that position making that kind of money?
Click to expand...
Our PC support guys make around 30k-40k.
Jobs advertised in the paper pay 10-20 $/hour

 
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