Accepting a low salary to start your career

jon1981 · 21-06-2018 01:34PM

Aren't there routes into positions like AO, EO...etc. when you have qualifications which should lift your salary greatly?

14ned · 21-06-2018 01:46PM

mloc123 wrote: »

It is. It is literally minimum wage... (9.55x40)X52 = 19864

Oh it's better than that. Jobseekers pays for two adults in the same household €17,128. So my sister and husband were about a grand a year better off for working.

The OP has a degree in an area that is currently in very high demand, any company offering such a low amount it taking the piss.

Jobs are sticky, especially at the very bottom and at the very top ends, and especially so the further away from a city you get. My sister is currently interviewing for a civil service role which pays 48k. If she gets it, and she has a very good chance given all her qualifications and many years of direct work experience in that field, her household income will leap from 18k a year to 57k a year, just like that.

Niall

14ned · 21-06-2018 01:53PM

awec wrote: »

This actually makes no sense whatsoever. It is not "overpaid" to be paid more than minimum wage for skilled work that's in demand. I would expect decent interns to be getting more than minimum wage for their time.

Your attitude here seems to be "just be happy you're getting anything at all cause sure you got nothing when you were a student". Why on earth would he do this when he could be earning a lot more?

This building contacts thing is a load of bollocks really. It is absolutely not worth working for a terrible income for six months to get a few names. He can build up contacts outside of work. Look after yourself first and foremost, maximise your income. If there really is a bubble do you want to be looking back in years time thinking when everyone else was raking in the cash you were sitting earning 20k a year? Doubtful. You'd be some fool.

I can only speak from my experience doing this for twenty years, but contacts and relationship building are everything. Bubbles come and bubbles go. Tide rises and sinks. What matters, above all else, is that when a downturn lands and nobody can find work, that you can.

Does that mean you take lower income temporarily if the role builds contacts, experience and relationships? Absolutely. It's the same thing as investing training and upskilling and portfolio building in yourself. You take a lower income now, for better/more stable income later.

In another post you said you owe nothing to employers. I couldn't agree more - employers sole purpose is to exploit you, and you owe them absolutely nothing. However the people who work alongside you are very different. You look after them, they often will look after you. That means not leaving them in the lurch. Good karma comes with its own rewards.

That's my advice, anyway.

Niall

amcalester · 21-06-2018 02:00PM

14ned wrote: »

I can only speak from my experience doing this for twenty years, but contacts and relationship building are everything. Bubbles come and bubbles go. Tide rises and sinks. What matters, above all else, is that when a downturn lands and nobody can find work, that you can.

Does that mean you take lower income temporarily if the role builds contacts, experience and relationships? Absolutely. It's the same thing as investing training and upskilling and portfolio building in yourself. You take a lower income now, for better/more stable income later.

In another post you said you owe nothing to employers. I couldn't agree more - employers sole purpose is to exploit you, and you owe them absolutely nothing. However the people who work alongside you are very different. You look after them, they often will look after you. That means not leaving them in the lurch. Good karma comes with its own rewards.

That's my advice, anyway.

Niall

You seem to be advocating pitching yourself as someone who is cheap to hire rather than someone who knows their value and does great work.

If I was hiring I know who I would want.

Bob the Builder · 21-06-2018 02:08PM

I moved from the West of Ireland to Dublin 4 years ago to start in a job as a software dev on €14,400. It sucked and I had to work really hard, harder than anyone else and hold down a job in a bar just to pay the bills.

Fast forward 3 years and I made five times that salary last year.

It sucks. And it will suck for the foreseeable future. Seeing your mates work in big companies earning twice what you're earning while you're slaving away. But think ahead, in 1000 days from now, will I be glad I spent my time here? Will I have learnt much? Could I have learnt more elsewhere?

Unless you have kids or other commitments, your early career should be focused on learning and building as much as you possibly can. And then, when you've learnt all you can, you'll be more confident and capable of taking bigger risks that will progress your career - and your pay packet.

Best of luck!

py · 21-06-2018 02:14PM

The 1st job will be the hardest one to get, should be plain sailing after that if you're any good.

Tar.Aldarion · 21-06-2018 02:24PM

When I first started out a place was offering €20k and I told the recruitment agency I wouldn't be accepting the job. They were flabbergasted that I had the audacity and I was informed that I would be lucky to get that much and that is what you get anywhere, nowhere else would give me more, that is the going rate. Shortly afterwards I got a job with total comp of €35k.

It depends on whether you think you can do better and what the market is like. From what I know it is good.

Tar.Aldarion · 21-06-2018 02:27PM

Calculon1982 wrote: »

To be honest it's always been beyond my control in the civil service. You can't ask for a pay raise to reflect qualifications.

Basically you start at the bottom and have to accept the yearly increment amount which is circa 1k on average.

Don't accept that that is your fate and try and get ahead in your job. My sister is with the civil service just two years and has skipped from CO past EO to HEO, which is pretty much doubling her wage. The jobs are there for people who want to get them and tbh you sound way ahead of the competition with your background.

mloc123 · 21-06-2018 02:35PM

jon1981 wrote: »

You're in the wrong one :pac:

With alot of US listed tech companies it's not unusual to be compensated with Stock (RSUs) over yearly base pay increases.

Yeah. Where I am we get a "cost of living" increase of 3-5% a year along with increased RSU and Bonus %. I would think that is pretty standard among US companies.

mloc123 · 21-06-2018 02:37PM

Berserker wrote: »

I'd also doubt the quality of the work or the value that they place on software development. It's a start for the OP, so he or she can get some experience under their belt and move to a better role in a few years.

Ah people talk nonsense. I was a principal software engineer until recently and I wasn't getting that much. The architects I worked with were getting €95K or so.

YMMV, I am two steps below prinical eng and my base is higher.

awec · 21-06-2018 02:44PM

14ned wrote: »

I can only speak from my experience doing this for twenty years, but contacts and relationship building are everything. Bubbles come and bubbles go. Tide rises and sinks. What matters, above all else, is that when a downturn lands and nobody can find work, that you can.

Does that mean you take lower income temporarily if the role builds contacts, experience and relationships? Absolutely. It's the same thing as investing training and upskilling and portfolio building in yourself. You take a lower income now, for better/more stable income later.

In another post you said you owe nothing to employers. I couldn't agree more - employers sole purpose is to exploit you, and you owe them absolutely nothing. However the people who work alongside you are very different. You look after them, they often will look after you. That means not leaving them in the lurch. Good karma comes with its own rewards.

That's my advice, anyway.

Niall

This isn't "lower income". This is minimum wage. This is selling yourself miles short of what you should be getting. Not just a little bit short, a lot short. You're just screwing yourself over really.

Building contacts and relationships is totally independent of your earnings.

seachto7 · 21-06-2018 02:44PM

I started off on €22K in 2002, went up and down over the years in freelance roles, and took a pay cut recently in a different job to €33K for a variety of reasons. If I played my cards right, I could be in a €40K job in Dublin.
Doubt I'll ever see 6 figures!!!
€20K sounds really low for this day and age, and if you have to move to Dublin, forget it...

14ned · 21-06-2018 03:08PM

amcalester wrote: »

You seem to be advocating pitching yourself as someone who is cheap to hire rather than someone who knows their value and does great work.

If I was hiring I know who I would want.

A typical fresh graduate is close to worthless. Any value they generate is lost by loss of value in those having to manage and check their work. You pay more than zero for them initially because three months in they may be adding more value than they detract, and if they are not by six months in then you get rid of them. But even still, it's a risk, a substantial number of fresh graduates don't have the chops to make it, for whatever reason, and for them you'll lose money. So starting pay correspondingly drops for everybody, to cover those they lose money on.

I appreciate that these sentiments are not popular to hear in this specific forum. But ask any small business owner, they'll have done the cost benefit, they'll be of a similar opinion to me on this. Multinationals are a different kettle of fish, for them junior salaries are rounding errors, they can afford a scattergun approach of hiring lots of juniors and firing those who don't make it. Small business owners don't have that spare cash flow. Each hire is a risk, so you risk adjust the salary offered.

And ultimately, OP has only received one job offer. So in my opinion, the decision is moot in any case.

Niall

14ned · 21-06-2018 03:13PM

awec wrote: »

This isn't "lower income". This is minimum wage. This is selling yourself miles short of what you should be getting. Not just a little bit short, a lot short. You're just screwing yourself over really.

Building contacts and relationships is totally independent of your earnings.

I agree building contacts and relationships is totally independent of your earnings.

But really our disagreement is about whether work which pays at the same level as Jobseekers is worth doing. Economically speaking, Jobseekers is the more rational choice because you can use that time to improve yourself much more quickly, or indeed do cash in hand jobs which aren't taxed. But strategically speaking, working - if that work opens doors for you later which couldn't be opened by staying on Jobseekers - is the better option.

Not all jobs will open doors for you later of course. But until you try working there for a bit, you can't tell beforehand. So try it and see. If it doesn't work out, or you have gained all you can from that job, move on.

Niall

daheff · 21-06-2018 03:20PM

Calculon1982 wrote: »

To be honest it's always been beyond my control in the civil service. You can't ask for a pay raise to reflect qualifications.

Basically you start at the bottom and have to accept the yearly increment amount which is circa 1k on average.

Are you still in the same role/ level as when you started in the civil service?

really you should have been promoted a couple of times and (i'd be)expecting to hit a salary level around 40-45k by now

OP - have you calculated your hourly rate of pay?

Based on 40 hours its 9.62
Based on 37.5 hours its 10.25

really are you telling me you couldnt get that working full time in a shop? not to mind in a flying employees market? I think you need to keep looking for a new job.

AlmightyCushion · 21-06-2018 03:29PM

daheff wrote: »

Are you still in the same role/ level as when you started in the civil service?

really you should have been promoted a couple of times and (i'd be)expecting to hit a salary level around 40-45k by now

OP - have you calculated your hourly rate of pay?

Based on 40 hours its 9.62
Based on 37.5 hours its 10.25

really are you telling me you couldnt get that working full time in a shop? not to mind in a flying employees market? I think you need to keep looking for a new job.

Working in a shop won't give them any experience that would help get a dev job though. I'd definitely take a dev job over working in a shop for the same money. At least you can use the experience you're getting to get a better paying job or get a pay increase not too long after starting.

Royale with Cheese · 21-06-2018 03:38PM

To be honest any talk of rationalising this with getting experience/contacts, or talking about just how useless junior developers are is pretty irrelevant for me. €20k is an extremely low starting salary, I would not sell myself that short. The real question is could you do better than that, and unless you barely managed to get a degree then I would be shocked if the answer was no. And this isn't rural Ireland, the guy says it's just outside Dublin AND he's living in Dublin. He has the whole city to find something.

21-06-2018 03:46PM

daheff wrote: »

Are you still in the same role/ level as when you started in the civil service?

really you should have been promoted a couple of times and (i'd be)expecting to hit a salary level around 40-45k by now

..........

There's plenty degree qualified folk working as clerical officers etc ......... just because they have a degree it doesn't mean they need one for their role or that their qualification of benefit to the job.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 21-06-2018 03:50PM

14ned wrote: »

Unlike almost everybody here who will be replying based on city pay levels, I'd consider that a fine offer for outside of Dublin. They're offering €400/week initial, rising to €500/week after six months if you work out. In somewhere like Mallow where I live, you'd be happy out on that as you can rent a full house with garden for a month with just a week of work. You'd be much better off than most with jobs in Mallow (if you lived in Mallow).

However, you live in Dublin, so that pay level is not sustainable long term. So I'd do a year there in good faith, but then start looking for something else. After two years experience it gets far easier to land a junior role, especially if you've spent those two years building out an impressive portfolio. So, use the commute time to do exactly that, invest in yourself for two years out from now. Upskill relentlessly.

And until then, enjoy earning your first wage! Trust me you'll never get those first six months back again. Earning and work becomes much more jaded and cynical later on. But those first six months, your ignorance is such bliss, and finally having actual money to hand instead of constant poverty is amazing.

It was a long time ago when I graduated, but back in the 1990s my first developer role paid £10,000, so £200/week, of which about £160/week remained after taxes. It was enough to have fun in life on, and far more earnings than most of my peer group - I was "rich" relative to them. Far more important was the experience, and especially contacts, gained. Within three years, using said contacts, I landed a temporary contract paying three grand a week, which cleared my student debts within a few months. That was running up into the tech bubble by then, so all sorts of craziness was happening like that. We're currently in the later stages of another tech bubble, so look to do the same thing: get on ladder, get up ladder as fast as possible, hope to clear all your debts before the bubble pops once again.

Niall

£3k a week in 93. Fair play.

14ned · 21-06-2018 03:58PM

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

£3k a week in 93. Fair play.

Actually $3k/week. Company who made GPS sensors for guidance systems needed to deliver a working solution by a contract date, and their existing system couldn't do it, it was way over its CPU budget. Contacts I had made in the industry thought of me, so I was recommended to them at the tender age of 21, I worked 80 hour weeks for three months, delivered a working solution with 15% CPU headroom. Walked away with about thirty grand, if I remember. Bought a brand new top end computer, paid off all my student debts, had a week long very messy party after

Point is, contacts made that happen for me. The same thing - choice contracts landing before me - has happened many times since. That's what I've built a contracting career out of. Good karma can pay well.

Niall

eurokev · 21-06-2018 04:01PM

Can I just ask a question to all you software guys if ye wouldn't mind asking.

I'm finishing up an apprenticeship in electrical instrumentation at the min. It's very in demand, I'll be looking at around 60k plus all the benefits when I get a full time job. I also have a degree in the area however but this doesn't really matter, the degree will get me away from the tools when I want to do that. 60k is what you would earn with just a craft cert in Cork if you're good or lucky.

Are all you guys moving between permanent jobs in the software industry?
Personally I would find it very very hard to leave a permanent job with an established company tbh.
I also agree that 20k is an absolute joke. I'd see automation guys in my line, fresh out of college and next to useless for a couple of months pulling in over 40k.

21-06-2018 04:06PM

eurokev wrote: »

...............
I'm finishing up an apprenticeship in electrical instrumentation at the min. It's very in demand, I'll be looking at around 60k plus all the benefits when I get a full time job. I also have a degree in the area however but this doesn't really matter, the degree will get me away from the tools when I want to do that. 60k is what you would earn with just a craft cert in Cork if you're good or lucky...........

What prompted someone with a degree in the electrical instrumentation area to go and do an apprenticeship do you mind me asking?

I know a few lads with instrumentation degrees that got instrument tech jobs after graduating. The level 7 or level 8 degree got them the jobs. Buoyant times of course. You mention the degree will get you away from the tools but it should have been enough to get you to them too surely?

draiochtanois · 21-06-2018 04:07PM

This post has been deleted.

eurokev · 21-06-2018 04:12PM

14ned wrote:

Actually $3k/week. Company who made GPS sensors for guidance systems needed to deliver a working solution by a contract date, and their existing system couldn't do it, it was way over its CPU budget. Contacts I had made in the industry thought of me, so I was recommended to them at the tender age of 21, I worked 80 hour weeks for three months, delivered a working solution with 15% CPU headroom. Walked away with about thirty grand, if I remember. Bought a brand new top end computer, paid off all my student debts, had a week long very messy party after

Augeo wrote:

I know a few lads with instrumentation degrees that got instrument tech jobs after graduating. The level 7 or level 8 degree got them the jobs. Buoyant times of course. You mention the degree will get you away from the tools but it should have been enough to get you to them too surely?

Augeo wrote:

What prompted someone with a degree in the electrical instrumentation area to go and do an apprenticeship do you mind me asking?

I've only just got the degree too, after 6 years of night study. Those out there who hire in that sort of field love to get guys with on the ground experience with the degrees.

pwisp · 21-06-2018 04:22PM

Im working in online advertising about 1.5yrs, started off at 23k, then 26k, currently at 30k and starting a new job soon at 41k

20k seems very, very low for anyone in Computer Science. Like many posters above me have said, start looking for a better role somewhere else, you will surely find one.

A friend of mine in Computer Science did an 11 month internship for 22k so I would assume 20k is shocking for entry level Computer Science roles

21-06-2018 04:26PM

eurokev wrote: »

I've only just got the degree too, after 6 years of night study. Those out there who hire in that sort of field love to get guys with on the ground experience with the degrees.

Yeah, after 2,3 or 4 years working it won't make any difference though

Well it will if they are looking for someone with 3 years engineering experience and you've one year of that and two years loopchecking

Well done and best of luck anyway.

Berserker · 21-06-2018 04:27PM

eurokev wrote: »

Are all you guys moving between permanent jobs in the software industry?

I worked in permanent roles until a few months ago. Stayed at my previous roles for 4, 3, 3 & 2 years, respectively.

draiochtanois wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I wouldn't have an issue with someone moving after a short period of time. A lady in my last place of work left after three days for a better paid job. However, software development in Ireland is a small world and I've lost count of the number of times I've bumped into ex-colleagues over the years. Negative feedback from an ex-colleague could easily cost you a new job.

J Mysterio · 21-06-2018 04:45PM

You have to consider that this is the guy's first job out of college. May be living at home also. It's low wages, no doubt about it, but he's already started the job and is enjoying it. Congrats to the OP for graduating and starting his first job.

So, based on that. I would reccomend spending some time there now (6 months +), learn the job, and then start firing out CV's once you have some experience. You can be a bit more targeted in terms of what position you want and in what company, as you are earning.

You will have something to talk about at the next interview. You can also look for a higher/ more appropriate wage at that point. I would probably tell them I was earning more in negotiations though.

mloc123 · 21-06-2018 04:59PM

All this talk of gaining experience and contacts while working for minimum wage sounds a lot like the stories of unpaid internships in design and journalism which pay in "exposure"

um7y1h83ge06nx · 21-06-2018 05:49PM

I'm amazed at how some people here think 20k for a grad role isn't totally under paid and exploitive.

You're worth what the market says you're worth really and that's a lot more than 20k in pretty much every part of the country.

With the talk about burning bridges - any company that offers 20k for a grad development position are either living from month to month financially and/or are cowboys. I wouldn't be too sure how useful their influence would be.

Accepting a low salary to start your career

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