It Professionals : How do you answer 'the salary question'

[Bes]

This is business/work, you just tell them what you want if they ask

I recently got offered a new position and was asked what was I expecting salary wise, there wasn't even a range to go on, it really was pluck a figure out the air.

So I chose a number that was a healthy increase, but wasn't too high for my experience and too big a jump from what I was on now (even though it's a manager/consultant type job).

I said what I wanted, they offered more so I said thank you and took it

Now I know specifically what grade I'll be on in the company I now know that they are getting me 'cheap', but it's all good as still a very good salary imho and just gives me plenty of room to move up within the band

And not wanting to bang the drum but I'd agree that with 6 years exp you should be able to get something paying more.

I'm down in Fox land in the darkest depths of Devon where high paying IT jobs aren't exactly abundant, but even then I'd be expecting an experienced server support person to be getting at least 30k.

Where are you looking for jobs to not find any up North, I can think of a few companies off the top of my head who have large offices up there plus you've got plenty of big cities around there haven't you?

Don't read too much into requirements on job specs, they'll ask for everything but by no means will they get anyone with all that, especially not at those salaries! One of my previous jobs had a massive list of stuff they wanted people to know, not all of it relevant, that I didn't have.

Funny exactly the same happened to me, I was straight, asked for a figure that was a healthy increase on what I get now, and the company added 5K to it and offered me the job.

And 22K for 6 years? When I graduated 6 years ago I was working in Sheffield and got paid that - an IT professional with that experience should be >30K at least.

 

[HangTime]

Sounds like you will probably have got off lightly, you don't want to take a pay cut to take a job that is beyond your skills and experience (unless you are absolutely positive you can nail it and use the experience as a stepping stone to something paying more).

Key thing to bear in mind is that (as you've discovered) not all companies are the same, so while they want the moon on a stick for £22k there will be other companies expecting less for £25k. I used to work for a fairly small company and the amount of responsibility I had for ~£16k was quite scary, effectively 2 jobs rolled into one whereas my current employer pays considerably more and would hire two people instead of one to do the two jobs.

 

[JayMax]

It's just one interview for one job. Salary offered sounds exceptionally low, I don't think I'd want to work there. Remember - there's plenty more opportunities, don't get hung up on one single vacancy, look for the next one that pays an appropriate salary with appropriate benefits. It sounds like you're worth a decent wedge more than what you're looking at.
As far as the salary expectations go, I'll normally pitch mid to high (it's only an interview - you can always walk away, there's loads of other opportunities).
Although, in my current job I pitched middle as it was a good career move, and they gave me top whack in my pitch range, so it looks like I undersold myself. Come the first annual review if I'm not bumped up, I'll be looking to move on.

 

[Ev0]

Sound like jokers to be honest, after seeing the job ad it was very poor imho.

They didn't clearly say what it was they wanted, was very vague, to then go in asking for all that was just ridiculous. Plus in all honesty if that's what they wanted any sort of pre screening would have shown that you weren't right for each other.

One of those companies who ask for the moon on a stick but aren't willing to pay for it.

Best avoided, there's something out there that'll suit don't worry.

I was probably similar in that I've never been massively technical compared to other members of the teams I've worked in, but I've still done well.

In fact had a nice chat with my outgoing manager today who basically said I was way too good for the job I'm doing for him and out of the 7 or so new people hired to create the team I'm way above them. I won't lie, it was quite nice to hear this, and as such he's not surprised one bit I'm moving on to the opportunity I've been offered

Also said door is open to go back if need be, but he'd push for me for a better role.

Again happy to chat about anything over email, sounds similar to me a few years ago in many respects!

 

[NickXX]

So... update time.

Attended the interview and was a bit of a disaster tbh. I went in confident that i had the skills and experience they were looking for, and was worried by the salary that the job was going to be far less complex than they made out.

Turns out it wasn't. It was more complex. They wanted somebody who has not only supported this type of infrastructure, but somebody who has deployed and installed this type of stuff from scratch. And the scope of the setup / support work extended to everything in the data centre, switches, routers, VMs, O/S, SAN configuration, VLANS, VMs, linux, apache, IIS, THE LOT.

In our current company, we have a specialized networking team who deal soley with the networking, another team that deals specifically with the hardware installation in the data centre, another team responsible for all the O/S builds and software installs and another team soley responsible for the VMware stuff etc..

Turns out they wanted somebody with all these skills for 16-22k !

Don't think i'll be getting this then. Thoroguhly depressed as i'm obviously not as advanced in my career as i thought i was.

Not being funny, but surely after several years in IT you should be reasonably comfortable with this sort of work. I'd imagine a lot of the 16 yr olds on this forum could probably handle a lot of this work.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but if you consider yourself to have a career in the IT field, you should probably try to develop skills in these areas, whether personally or through external courses.

 

[JayMax]

Not being funny, but surely after several years in IT you should be reasonably comfortable with this sort of work. I'd imagine a lot of the 16 yr olds on this forum could probably handle a lot of this work.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but if you consider yourself to have a career in the IT field, you should probably try to develop skills in these areas, whether personally or through external courses.

lol, all of the skillsets MrLOL mentioned for 22k!? Sorry, I disagree.
How many 16 year olds would you employ and trust to configure vlans, core infrastructure, SAN's?
I can't decide if serious or not?....

 

[Ev0]

In all honesty I wouldn't be massively comfortable with a good few of those things, yeah I'd know the principles but actual hands on would be a different matter. Totally depends on what you want to do in IT, although if the OP is looking at infrastructure support stuff then those are things that will crop up a lot.

Still maintain for that money they are wanting a bit much, but guess someone will go for it in this climate....

Plus I've been shown the job ad and it mentions no technology whatsoever, it's just waffle.

Dropped the chap a mail though as I'm seeing some similarities to my career in that at one point I was a bit of a generalist I'd call it but maybe didn't quite have the experience or confidence with certain things.

 

[SubScape]

Not being funny, but surely after several years in IT you should be reasonably comfortable with this sort of work. I'd imagine a lot of the 16 yr olds on this forum could probably handle a lot of this work.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but if you consider yourself to have a career in the IT field, you should probably try to develop skills in these areas, whether personally or through external courses.

How could a 16 year old possibly know how to do any of that? I'm intrigued to understand where you'd think a 16 year old would get those types of skills when they would still be in high school.

 

[Fr0dders]

Not being funny, but surely after several years in IT you should be reasonably comfortable with this sort of work. I'd imagine a lot of the 16 yr olds on this forum could probably handle a lot of this work.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but if you consider yourself to have a career in the IT field, you should probably try to develop skills in these areas, whether personally or through external courses.

As I mentioned already, I've spent 5 of those 6 years for the same company, a very large one in fact, which is why we have dedicated networking guys, a dedicated SAN team etc.. There is no 1 person in the whole company who knows everything. Which is what they were expecting.

And it depends what you mean with by "be reasonably comfortable"

On the subject of VLANS, if you mean understand what they are, how they work, why a company would have them and how IP adressing works etc.. then I am.

What i couldn't do was jump straight onto a cisco switch and configure a pair of them into a VLAN without help. Which is what they were asking. Asking for this ability in itself isn't that much of a problem. a CCNA would set you straight in this area.

But they were also wanting the same sort of skills with SAN work, and setting up Brocade switches. Whilst also wanting the ability to set up a failover cluster of AD servers from scratch, so to add to that CCNA, we now want an MCITP as well, and somebody with extensive Netapp SAN experience.

for 16 - 22k.

One of our SAN guys went to work for HP on 50k a year purely on this sort of SAN experience alone.

 

[D.P.]

Ther's no way for them to find out your previous salary, if you don't want them to (other than demanding previous pay packets)

Or they call up the previous manager for a private recommendation/reference and ask previous salary.

 

[Bes]

Not being funny, but surely after several years in IT you should be reasonably comfortable with this sort of work. I'd imagine a lot of the 16 yr olds on this forum could probably handle a lot of this work.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but if you consider yourself to have a career in the IT field, you should probably try to develop skills in these areas, whether personally or through external courses.

notsureifserious.jpg

 

[Basher]

Or they call up the previous manager for a private recommendation/reference and ask previous salary.

All the manager will do is refer them to HR who will just clarify that you worked there. They should not at any point reveal your previous salary, as it has got nothing to do with them.