"what are your salary expectations" answers ?

Fr0dders

Fr0dders

Fr0dders

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Joined
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Location
West Yorks
I applied for a job a few weeks ago, and got a callback last week. Discussed my CV and it all seemed to be going well. I had experience working in the public sector they were looking for, i had legitimate good reasons for leaving, and had experience of most of the stuff they wanted, and a desire to learn the few bits and pieces i didnt (for example ive never used office or supported office communication server, but hey how bad can it be, its another office product right?)

He seemed very good, and then we got onto the old chesnut of your salary expectations.

I explained that i didnt really do jobs for money, i do them because i enjoy them and this isnt my primary concern. I explained my current salary but this was quite a bit lower than the salary the new job was offering. Thats partly because i currently work monday to friday 9 to 5 with no weekends or bank holidays which is quite rare in IT support and we get a bonus on top of that as well.

But ive not heard anything since so ive obviously blown it, and he said he'd get back to me by the end of the week, somehow doubt he hand in mind 5pm on friday.

So whats the correct way to answer that question ? :o
 
The correct answer is the current market rate for that job + 5%.

The question isn't "How much money do you want", it's "how well do you know this job and its value in the marketplace". Or more simply, "Have you cared enough about this career to research it?".
 
The job title was "Senior Support Analyst" also known as a mix between 2nd / 3rd line.

But when companies start blurring the lines between support, there becomes no market average :(
 
Well, gosh. My answer would be: My salary expectations are in line with the job advert.
If I applied for a job at McDonalds for £6 an hour, that's what my salary expectations are.

Dear prospective employer, how much are you paying and what is your expectation of the work you'll get out of me for that?
 
Just to warn you that OCS, fully implemented is one hell of a beast, it does full sip voip stuff as well as IM / presence / video / liveneeting etc. It also can require fairly solid knowledge of SIP trunks / routing. It also replaces unified comms for Exchange, and has a seperate group chat system. If they've done a full rollout it's a little more than a "next, next, finish" job. You'll also need a fair bit of AD knowledge.

It's far more complicated than MOSS and the other Office server products.

I managed most of our rollout of it (the full works) and the majority of the project was just learning time!
 
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Was it working in the public sector? if so it would have been easy to find out the fixed pay bands before hand (for your interest as well as knowing how much they value you)
 
[TW]Fox;15894453 said:
What band was it? 6?
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this is for another private company with a contract in the public sector. So no public sector pay grades. Advertised salary was 30k - 35k

Moredhel said:
Just to warn you that OCS, fully implemented is one hell of a beast, it does full sip voip stuff as well as IM / presence / video / liveneeting etc. It also can require fairly solid knowledge of SIP trunks / routing. It also replaces unified comms for Exchange, and has a seperate group chat system. If they've done a full rollout it's a little more than a "next, next, finish" job. You'll also need a fair bit of AD knowledge.

It's far more complicated than MOSS and the other Office server products.

I managed most of our rollout of it (the full works) and the majority of the project was just learning time!
Click to expand...

AD and exchange im very experienced with, almost a speciality. I'll learn the new packages the same way ive learnt everything else in I.T. nobody can know everything.


My salary is only currently 20k, but then this job at 30k included being on call on evennings on weekends, and my place is mon/fri 9-5 and the crap pay reflects this. But these quick phone chats require people to make snap judgements, and i think the snap judgement he's made was that i would be out of my depth :(

still next time i'll know just to act dumb, and say that i was expecting what was the advertised salary for the job ? but i get worried that they've placed the salary too high, to catch out people that are moneygrabbing. Hate this part of jobs :(
 
markweatherill said:
Well, gosh. My answer would be: My salary expectations are in line with the job advert.
If I applied for a job at McDonalds for £6 an hour, that's what my salary expectations are.

Dear prospective employer, how much are you paying and what is your expectation of the work you'll get out of me for that?
Click to expand...

Pretty much this.

Although whenever I have went for a job and the salary says negotiable and no other info I find out the average for the job whack on between 10-25% depending on the pay rate and if I get it hay presto! If not it comes down to the market average.

Though saying that I have been in my current role for around three and a half years so with things as they are not sure how much luck I would have with that tactic these days :D
 
this is it. ive reached the limit at my place. We get crap pay because we work mon to fri and 9-5

Theres nobody on a more technical level at my place. The only promotion available to me is into man management. Ive already been promoted twice. The promotion into mangement means doing holiday and sick forms, call auditing, One to ones, attending management meetings etc.. basically as far away from the technical part of IT as possible. Into management, but for an IT company, and this is totally not where i want to be. I did explain this in the quick phone interview so he could understand where i was comming from. But as i said, they have to make snap judgements :(

that was your reaction, so he's obviously come to the same conclusion. But i dont like lieing :(
 
not got much choice now ive been overlooked lol :D

I think a little lieing about my current salary is in order. And next time just ask for whats in the advert.
 
I wouldn't worry, the person could be off sick, you just never know until you get a letter/phone call stating you didn't get it!

Good luck :)
 
MrLOL said:
AD and exchange im very experienced with, almost a speciality. I'll learn the new packages the same way ive learnt everything else in I.T. nobody can know everything.
Click to expand...


Ahh cool, you'll be fine then. Just didn't want you to go in thinking it was a case of clicking a few buttons and that's that. :)

It's a complicated system, but great fun as well if you're into your software. :)
 
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