IT Sales is a pretty mental place to be at the moment. If you look at what our top performer earned it's pretty sickening - especially when you consider he didn't really leave the house all year and TBH is fairly average at his job. Just got very lucky with a super low goal and some creative ways of approaching that goal.
One thing I have recently realised is that there is generally little value in being the 'referred to expert'. What is ideal is a managerial, legal or essential HR based role at a successful business worth £££££. Then, you're really flying.
Tax - Wheres the incentive to earn more
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I know someone, not necessarily academically the very best but certainly (and more importantly) very determined, that earns a huge amount of money, similar to what you mentioned, in IT sales. It does make me feel a little sick how hard I have worked for such relatively little compensation... but I'm leaving that game and off to a new role, which will hopefully see me with a much greater earning potential... eventually!
It's crazy. The top-earner guy I mentioned (who earned a LOT more than £250k) doesn't even seem to recognise that this level of earning is a bit mental.
We have one guy - his girlfriend is a nurse and works every hour god sends. He works basically 9-5 and makes in a few weeks than she does in a year.
Pretty sickening.
L
I was referring to the job application process. If grads are struggling, then why would a GCSE leaver jump into a job easily? Answer: it’s not easy at any stage of the cycle.
I was referring to the job application process. If grads are struggling, then why would a GCSE leaver jump into a job easily? Answer: it’s not easy at any stage of the cycle.
Because the GCSE lever will have 5 years (2 years A level, 3 years University) head start. So they'll be applying with 5 years of experience versus a graduate with usually very little (or a sandwich, and then in which case - the GCSE leaver has a 6 year head start).
Yes but I’m on about the first role(s) that gives them the 5 years exp in the first place. Even a lot of entry level roles ask for a degree. I do agree that they can potentially get a head start yeah but back to my original point, neither path gauranatees anything.
Also, a lot of the corporate culture seems to be around grads being the bees knees and getting a lot of opportunities just because they’re on a grad scheme.
This is why I said "even if it takes them a while to land a job". The point is they can apply for job after job after job after job for years (as in, literally years) and still get a job before a graduate.
I accept that for any one single job, if a grad is struggling to get it, a GCSE bod will struggle even more. So it's like, say for a job, the grad has a 5% chance of getting it and the GCSE person has a 2% chance. But the GCSE person will be applying for jobs for 5 years before the graduate does (maybe slightly less if you consider the milkround). They will have literally applied to thousands of jobs before the undergraduate graduates. Sooner or later they will luck out, get a job and then start compounding that experience. This may well be a crap job flipping burgers. But then they still have years ahead of them, so they move on to another position and gain more experience. And still the undergraduate is at uni.
They have so much time on their side that if they are driven, showing good enthusiam, and smart (they must be reasonably smart if going to uni was an option they could have taken) then they will land a job inside a few years.
Obviously there's a chance the graduate, when they eventually get a job may end up on a higher rung. But not necessarily, I didn't, and these people going into accountancy at 18 seem to have done quite well for themselves.
I accept that for any one single job, if a grad is struggling to get it, a GCSE bod will struggle even more. So it's like, say for a job, the grad has a 5% chance of getting it and the GCSE person has a 2% chance. But the GCSE person will be applying for jobs for 5 years before the graduate does (maybe slightly less if you consider the milkround). They will have literally applied to thousands of jobs before the undergraduate graduates. Sooner or later they will luck out, get a job and then start compounding that experience. This may well be a crap job flipping burgers. But then they still have years ahead of them, so they move on to another position and gain more experience. And still the undergraduate is at uni.
They have so much time on their side that if they are driven, showing good enthusiam, and smart (they must be reasonably smart if going to uni was an option they could have taken) then they will land a job inside a few years.
Obviously there's a chance the graduate, when they eventually get a job may end up on a higher rung. But not necessarily, I didn't, and these people going into accountancy at 18 seem to have done quite well for themselves.
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This echos with me.
If I had kids I would not recommend they go to uni unless they do something like medicine with a clear big earnings hike.
My degree wasn't worth it. I've mentioned this elsewhere. Probably my biggest life mistake as it dictated life probably forever.
It's not just the debt. Instead of coming out with 12k in the red (like me as my fees were 1k ish and housing 3k) you could come out 12k in the black after 3 years of working from home.
You could have bought a house cheaper, you could have seen more gains on that. Be 3 years into a career in IT let's say. Learnt skills in the workplace.
It's. It just the debt. It's the lost work that really bites.
University is a con for most people.
I've only just paid back my little loan. And that's because of a couple of decent pay rises in the last 3 years (27k - 44k) in 3 years.
They might as well make it a tax. Because for most people that's what it is.
I doubt I'll earn much more than this ever. Not significantly anyway.
That's insane!
There's absolutely no way I'd get to 100k without changing career!
Really is amazing how early steps in life really do dictate your whole life
I honestly think part of the problem is people are far too early to jump into small organisations/dead-end roles. The only reason I vouch for University is because it saved me from sticking it out at small companies - and I ended up on a grad scheme - where I made it to additional rate payer in 7 years. You've also got to be willing to leave home/your comfort zone. Far too many of my school mates stayed within 1mile of their families when it offered them nothing progression wise.
Sounds amazing. What industry / region is that?
We have all sorts of people join 35+, 40+ who then go on to be really successful.
It's only too late if you think it is.
I dunno, those can be rather generic operations roles*. The way to get £££ (as a salaryman) IMO is to be close to the money (ideally a revenue generator or close to) or an important part of the core business. In software firms that tend to mean sales, pre-sales, account management and consulting positions pay rather well as they bring in revenue - along with developer, product management and BA type roles which are part of the core business activity.
A manager type in an operations/support role - the person running some team in finance or HR etc.. is much more replaceable whereas some Dev manager with years of experience with the company's product could be much harder to replace, ditto to some senior developers who might well be worth paying more as individual contributors. You might pay a HR manager or finance manager running a small team say 70k but Brian the senior developer who has been with the company for 15 years and doesn't run any team might be earning 160k.
*I guess if you're in a more strategic role then that could change things - there was a solicitor who was heavily involved in a few takeovers at the firm I worked at and he was no doubt very well paid.
Was it a particularly good year or something? Like you supply stuff relevant to working from home etc.. so he might be disappointed in future years? Are these sales that can be achieved individually, so this guy has, by himself, closed a load of deals?
At the previous tech firm, I worked at sales was basically a team effort and quite a long process - typically involved a pre-sales team and a main salesperson + they often had to fly out product managers, consultants etc.. as part of the pitch. Could certainly be very lucrative for the main sales guy given the size of the deals, pre-sales didn't exactly do too badly either.
He got lucky with his commission plan. The business vastly underestimated the success of a new product line basically.
Thing is, by himself he's closed almost nothing. But the way his plan was set out meant he could (basically) tag himself on other peoples deals and cash in. Really poor management from whoever set up that plan.
Ah, I guess they might not necessarily make that mistake going forwards!
We had a bit of a disaster with a sales team at once place I worked after they blew a bunch of money chasing a deal we were never going to land - a bunch of them were let go by the CEO overnight inc the MD running it, so another MD in the London office basically took over sales. Looking back it was perhaps quite a shrewd move on his part, I do wonder how much he was able to make from any deals in the pipeline given most of the salespeople culled and no longer eligible for any fat commissions.
Yeah, I spoke to him yesterday about his commission plan for this year and it's safe to say he's realised last year was a bit abnormal
On the positive side, he has just bought a lovely 5 bed house in Italy with the proceeds.
Remember a few years ago I was on a weird sales plan (I’m tech pre-sales) where as well as my products, I also got commission on a bunch of other things that were nothing to do with me.
That was a nice year
Knowing what I know now I wish I’d got into IT sales earlier.
I think sales sometimes gets a bad rap by people who don’t really know what’s involved in the roles and just assume it’s used car salesman like (well, not saying it all isn’t like that…
).
That was a nice year
Knowing what I know now I wish I’d got into IT sales earlier.
I think sales sometimes gets a bad rap by people who don’t really know what’s involved in the roles and just assume it’s used car salesman like (well, not saying it all isn’t like that…
).
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Yeah where I went wrong was taking a dead-end role that was walking distance from my dad's house. To be fair it would have been hard to identify it as a dead-end role before joining, the firm wasn't that small but it turned out I was using a lot of niche/proprietary software with little in the way of transferrable skills. When I changed to a different role with more transferrable skills it opened way more doors outside the company, I spent 4 years in my first role but only 9 months in the second before moving on.
If I had my time again I would have just cast the net wide, I didn't really have any ties so could have moved anywhere after uni.
Soldato
Dump it in a pension. It’s the easiest way to reduce the tax burden.
Pretty common to be pushing that level of pay (and more) in tech as well. Stress isn’t the level you would expect with finance but they do work you.