New Graduate Salary

CaoimH_in wrote: »

Next question: how many hours a week, honestly?

LOL. When we find out well let ya know

My contract says 36 i think, but there are days where there's a lot of pressure for deadlines and your social life may take a hit. Generally for me, its 9 - 5.30, but as i said you will have alot of those days that require your time.

I finished my conversion course at UCD in Dec but the graduation isn't until Sept. I have a paid internship for 3 months but I'm looking about for a permanent graduate position.

Sound advice. It does feel like, whatever about the complicated skill-set, that if you can jump to 25k-30k after a difficult one year conversion it sounds like it can't last. After all it is only one year.

Keep upskilling seems to be the name of the game.

Looking for a grad position preferably in west. Just completed conversion course.
Most recent interview was with international company, had 3interviews and thought the position was mine but now I'm back to the drawing board again.
Any ideas

lilconventgirl wrote: »

Looking for a grad position preferably in west. Just completed conversion course.
Most recent interview was with international company, had 3interviews and thought the position was mine but no

w I'm back to the drawing board again.
Any ideas

Send me a pm.

Started on 32k in a dev role with a multi-national with strong Dublin presence a few weeks ago.

Elessar wrote: »

Have grads here found it difficult or easy to get jobs?

I had 3 job offers before 3 months before I did my finals. Each job offered >30k. I'm not sure if that's representative of most grads but for me it couldn't have been any easier.

The main thing is to just apply for lots of the jobs and treat each interview as if you really want the job. Even if you don't get the offers, the interview experience is great and will set you up nicely for the next one.

Digital Society wrote: »

You say 25-30k as if its a lot more than it is. A person in a corner shop with 0 skills could earn 20. So your saying 5 years in college doesnt deserve an extra 5k a year on top of a 0 skill job.

Programming is brutal difficult. People who are good at it have a passion for it but its still brutal difficult and takes a highly intelligent person to be good at it.

Also as a programmer you would be upskilling your whole career. Every couple of years there nearly a huge shift in skill requirements.

I know you're not saying this specifically but I don't think spending 4 years at university automatically means you can demand a salary of more than €25k. Like I said in my previous post, most fresh graduates don't know a whole lot and require a lot of hand holding. It's only when they have a few years experience can they start demanding a higher salary.

Digital Society wrote: »

You say 25-30k as if its a lot more than it is. A person in a corner shop with 0 skills could earn 20. So your saying 5 years in college doesnt deserve an extra 5k a year on top of a 0 skill job.

Programming is brutal difficult. People who are good at it have a passion for it but its still brutal difficult and takes a highly intelligent person to be good at it.

Also as a programmer you would be upskilling your whole career. Every couple of years there nearly a huge shift in skill requirements.

I code quite a bit and I find this statement ludicrous. Similar to how maths used to be treated at LC level, programming has a stigma attached to it that it certainly doesn't deserve. It looks significantly more complicated than it is and most definitely does not take "a highly intelligent" person to excel in the field. At the risk of sounding offensive "code monkeys" are a dime a dozen, and quite frankly I find it very surprising that someone who actually codes or intends to do so for a living thinks it's fair to apply the label "brutally difficult". If anything, the longer I code the more surprised I am at how basic it is and I really think it should be taught in schools to remove this stigma it has, namely how movies portray it and the fact that it's for extremely smart "nerds".

OP, I think 25-27k for a smaller company is one of the better approximations. 30-34k for the bigger corporations sounds right. I think you'll learn a good deal more starting small and not worrying about the money initially. As far as any company is concerned you're a liability for the first six months or so needing training and guidance. As you progress you can start commanding a bigger salary. The smaller more personal companies will beat the corporations in this regard 9 times out of 10.

awec wrote: »

With all those qualifications (phd especially) you also run the risk of being over qualified for the vast majority of open positions out there.

Never truer words said, I have been it happen. A company looking for a graduate would think the same, it may be better to look for a higher position and hope not to get such in limbo between too highly qualified and not enough experience.

Elvis_Presley wrote: »

What kind of salary do people expect someone with my background could get?

BEng in Civil Eng (NUI Galway), MSc in High Performance Computing (University of Edinburgh) and PhD in Computational Science (University of Glasgow). Strong mathematical background, have contributed to open source projects (C++), several publications and done some consulting.

Depends what sort of job you do, and whether it uses your skills. Can't really answer in the abstract.
Could be 40k, but who knows, could be 100k if an employer really needs someone with your skills for a specialised role. Probably worth your while trying to find a specific type of role that could leverage your math background; programming in financial applications maybe, or data analysis, etc; expect to spend a little while converting, learning the practical skills of a slightly different role.


Don't mind people talking about being 'overqualified'.
You don't want to work for anyone who thinks in such terms anyway.

awec wrote: »

Disagree with this a lot.

Why would you want to work in a job where you are over qualified?

The reason employers don't like over qualified people is because they don't tend to stick around for too long when they realise they are doing a job that is beneath their skills and abilities. And if someone is happy to sit and do a job that is obviously beneath them then there are questions to be asked about why that is the case.

It is far from an ideal situation for either the employer or the employee.

Lets break a couple of different issues out:


1) Working as a junior engineer, when you have huge relevant experience as a senior engineer.

Obviously, this is an undesirable situation for the employee. Mainly because they probably aren't getting paid enough.
Maybe they also aren't going to be hugely challenged by the job.


2) Deciding you want to change career track, so that, even though you might be well qualified at track A, you decide to do a new role on track B instead. Because you want to, for whatever reason.


Like, situation 1 can be a real problem for the employee, clearly.

But, is it really so bad for the employer? If the experienced employee wants to work the more junior job, so what? They'll probably find ways to make it go faster, or to add value in some unanticipated ways. Maybe they'll automate the simpler parts of the job. If the organisation is smart, it'll increase their salary and responsibilities over time, to grow the position to fit the candidate.


Regarding situation 2 - whats the problem? If someone was doing academic stuff, and decided to switch to software engineering, possibility starting off at a more junior level, I think it'd be pretty stupid of an employer to worry about them being 'overqualified'.

Yes, they might quickly 'grow out of the job'. Again, grow the job with them. No problem.


Your organisation can't do that? What normally happens in your organisation, then, when people, over time, become overqualified for their jobs? Do they leave and get better jobs elsewhere?

Well, hence my comment, who wants to work for an organisation like that? If it is going to haemorrhage key staff and knowledge capital any time the staff grow?


There's a 3rd issue, I've sometimes noticed. Some people out there are intellectual insecure, and get a bit worried when people with more qualifications come along. (someone with a degree if they don't have a degree, someone with a PhD if they don't have a PhD). They try and invent reasons why the person with more qualifications is actually substandard in some way. Sometimes they mention 'over-qualification'.
This is kind of a pity - you don't need a degree or PhD to be awesome at your job; and you don't need to make up reasons why someone that has those qualifications isn't good.

Not saying anyone here is like that, but I suspect it kind of adds to the general idea of 'over-qualification' as a thing.



Anyway - from my perspective, 'over-qualification' is often a mirage. Its not a real problem. Take the better candidate. If the candidate either 1) outgrows the role quickly (because they were better than the average candidate for the role would be) or 2) slowly (because they learn over time) then grow the role with them.


Don't make people worried about being 'over-qualified'. Most people hiring for a job will be glad to see a more qualified candidate coming; if they aren't, then its probably not an organisation that's conducive to growth anyway.

professore wrote: »

BS. A great programmer might never have gone to college. On the other hand someone with a Ph.D in software engineering could be rubbish. It's all about natural talent, aptitude and hard work.

Works both ways. Someone could be an amazing programmer but have 0 interpersonal skills and struggle with working in a team etc. They could still potentially be "useless" until they get used to a place.

But i do see your point as programming is one of the few jobs you can practice and learn at home before entering a college or even ever entering a college.