Hi,

I agree with The_Geek money is not everything. I worked for a national company being sent all over the east of England, the pay was not great but if you worked your jobs in the right order, not the way they wanted me to do them it was not so bad. But things got bad after a new area manager was put in place. Someone straight out uni with the degrees but no practical knowledge or common sense.

I now work for a small company, 5 of us in total for less money and never been happier.

Regards

Toasty

I believe you have hit the nail on the head, zeb. very well put.

All of this is also true in the US, Zeb.

I blame Barney the dinosaur.

Wished I was more demanding when I started out in IT as I was paid sh@t wages for years

Sorry fellas, posted to this just before I left the states and lost track of it

Blue (and Mike), in answer to your question, No I don't think they should get paid an arm and a leg, that said, the wages for entry level staff are not totally astronomical either

the primary issue as I see it, is not pay, pay is similar across the board for entry jobs, its more the working environment that this generation expects, its very different to the environment our parents expected, and that was different to what their parents expected

For instance, the internet is 'expected' these days, access to powerful technology is 'expected' global roaming communications is 'expected'
These folks have had this at home, and at school, so why would they expect anything less at work? it would be like taking a step backwards
by the same token, being raised with technology means you come to rely on it a certain amount, be that a good thing or bad thing is debatable, but when the calculator became ubiquitous people became less and less inclined to bother with complex math, even school exams provided for the use of a graphical calculator

the same can be said for wikipedia, google, and blogs now, people expect access to them as its a resource they depend on, now of course depending on the role and responsibility there may be no need for this, but most graduates entering the work force are entering it in an information worker capacity, these folks are not doing manual labour building cars, we have robots for that, they are using there brains to accomplish things, be it writing code, supporting systems, selling stuff, research and development, management or what not, this generation are information workers, and expect different things out of the door

and whilst there is a side to society that think the world owes them a favour, think they should get something for nothing and have somewhat blinkered expectations, I don't think this is the general consensus among the generation as a whole, we just do things differently these days, and expect to be able to do it the way we feel is easiest for us

Zeb, also agree with what you say about initiative and such, although I don't really see that across the board either

When I was at uni we were activley told by the tutors on a regular basis that entry level work was below our standards and we should be expecting 18 - 25k for our first job. This was back in 1999 in final year.

I think its not just young IT workers who are disullusioned because of pay etc, but everyone is. It isn't their fault if they believe they should be getting a certain wage and aren't. Its the adverts from training providers, what they are fed at uni and college and by people who don't particularly know what they are on about, but the IT newb isn't to know that.

What is needed is a basic guide of salary and wage expectations that is regularly updated and is readily available and known to people.

I agree with you on the part about what is told at uni - perhaps an "entry-level" graduate job would pay £25k now - I know plenty that do - but I think its the blanket generalisation that is sold that is wrong. Not every graduate will walk into a graduate job - over a lifetime it is "alledged" that graduates earn x amount more than non-graduates but I think it is wrong to set the sights of graduates on everyone being able to access such a job.

I hate the society we live in now. I may have similar thoughts to what my parents had but I don't believe in this crazy society of debt and credit - I've been working since I was 14 on newspaper rounds, shop floors, bars, hotels, now IT and every step if I wanted something I would wait until I could afford it, I would save for it - I wanted a Playstation 1 when they first came out, I couldn't afford it so I spent the next 3/4 months saving my butt off to get it - and I achieved my goal - I knew the value of money, something I feel the general population of school/uni-leavers don't.

The reason for that outburst - credit gets what you want now, it creates people who aren't patient and as such have no patience in the rest of life - I would like to earn maybe £30/40k one day, but I either need to find a job that does that (IT contracting maybe) or I just bide my time, work hard, get experience, gain some certs and grow slowly and hopefully will reach there.

I think disillusionment comes from not getting what you want now and not having the patience for tomorrow - everything else you can buy on credit nowadays, a decent and well-paid job you can't!

Well without wishing to be pedantic mental arithmetic is a lot different from advanced math !

Every exam I ever took did not allow for calculators with memory for obvious reasons. The graphics feature does not really make stuff much easier, students still have to show working and know the equation of a straight line etc.

I think there is a very real dumbing down of society including in IT and that this is not a good thing !

It might just be here in the US... but the young'uns I'm seeing want the pay AND the environment. But they primarily want the pay... RIGHT NOW... as soon as they get out of college.

That's already available... just go look for an entry-level job. Often, salary ranges for job postings aren't listed... but you can usually find enough of them to give you a good idea of what to expect.

Yeah but there should be some sort of standard so people aren't mislead into thinking they are going to get fantastic wages.

Someone can go to one IT firm and get a job in support for 15k and someone else can go to the firm next door and get 18k for the same position.

Surlet it would be better to have a salry range in a grading system so people expectations aren't higher than they should be.

That isn't likely to ever happen. How would you police it? The free market ensures that such differences are balanced *somewhere*.

Harry.

But dude, that standard is different from location to location... and can change very quickly. Are you volunteering to collect and maintain those "standard rates"? If you think it's possible, I'd encourage you to provide that service. However, I don't think it is.

The certification magazines here in the US collect salary surveys every year... and I've not yet seen one that is accurate, or even realistic. If anything, it reinforces the illusion of getting a high-paying job for entry-level folks simply by collecting a bunch of certifications.

As far as setting standard rates for companies... you can't mandate that a company MUST pay someone x amount for a particular job. Perhaps the 15K job doesn't require as much knowledge as the 18K job. Or perhaps the 15K job doesn't require as much on-call as the 18K job does. Or perhaps the 15K job is in a better environment than the 18K job. Or perhaps the 15K job provides additional benefits (insurance, bonuses, more vacation, company car) that the 18K job does not. See what I mean?

It's elegantly simple, mate... if I advertise a position for 15K, and another company advertises a position for 18K, I'd better have a reason for paying that salary. Otherwise, everyone will apply for the 18K job, right? But if I get a qualified person for 15K, then THAT is the going rate for that job at my company. If I *can't* get a qualified person for that rate, I have to decide to hire an unqualified person at that rate (not a smart move, IMO), or increase what I'm willing to pay so that qualified people WILL apply. And that rate might be different in my area of the city/country/world than in another, and it's based on two factors: the cost of living in the area, and what OTHER employers in the immediate area are willing to offer for a similar position.

There are companies that offer this service. However, there are many things that go into a salary service.

- Industry
- Reputation
- Years of experience
- Stress factor
- Skills

For example, the company paying more might be coming out of bankruptcy or in a shady industry (i.e. gambling) and is having a hard time attracting staff. The issue is that the younger generation think everything should be handed to them because it has been all their life. Why would they expect a change now?

I know when I was a kid and wanted to get active, I’d call up friends and play (Basketball; hockey; soccer / football; etc…). That doesn’t happen anymore. The call to friends and getting together takes too much time!


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Sunn