Salary Expectations?

I'm currently in the process of job hunting and have seen this question come up numerous times, especially on the likes of irishjobs.ie. I have no idea what I should say though and would like to know if there is any rule of thumb for the expected salary?

I should probably say that I'm a recent graduate so I'm not expecting a high salary straight off the bat. As far as I'm aware (and this is open to correction), €18,000ish is full time minimum wage. But since I am currently looking in Dublin, it seems like I would be hard pushed to have a comfortable life on this, so I usually answer between €20,000 and €25,000.

My main concern is that if I say something too high, I might automatically rule myself out of the running and if I say something too low, I'll be selling myself short.

It's usually on these type of adverts that no salary is listed, which is why I'd like to know if a rule of thumb does exist.

Denerick

It really depends on the type of job it is. If its a good company and its a plausible entry level post, 25k is reasonable (In the Dublin area, that is) The labour market is very tight but employee's still have some power - there are still jobs out there, and it wouldn't make sense for them to pay you a measly 18k a year only for you to leave once you've improved your CV after 6 months. Employers know that the lower they pay, the greater likelihood of them having high staff turnover becomes. So its in their interests to pay a reasonable starting salary, to stop you looking around.

That said, the type of job is the be all and end all. If you're getting onto a professional or semi professional ladder then I would say 25k on the form. They wouldn't be surprised by that figure, and if worst came to worse and they offered you 20k, I'm sure you'd still take it!

Manach

Over on the Development Forum, there is a fairly recent thread giving current graduate salary expectations, if that is any help to OP : link.