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I think what Jeepchic says about starting salaries is true and will probably be the norm for some time to come. And not just in the Baltimore area. If you are currently working in one area and have a lot of contacts in that area you are probably better off staying at your current job or looking in that area where, hopefully, you have a good reputation. Now is not a good time for anyone to try to relocate to a new area and get a new job, unless they are already unemployed. There are exceptions, to be sure, but they will be special cases.
I can't answer your questions with regards to Baltimore/moving, but I can bring some prospective to the issue regarding pay/experience. Due to this recession the employment market is an employer’s market. It has certainly become widespread practice over the past couple of years for employers to lower the starting pay of jobs offered, regardless of experience/degree. Case in point. I am a litigation paralegal with over 15 years of experience. I live in a nice size major city. According to Salary.com, a paralegal with my experience should be 45k in a regular-size metro. However, many advertisements for paralegals with this type of experience list $12.00 to $15.00 per hour as starting salary, which is ridic. I seriously laugh when I see a law firm advertising for a paralegal with over 7 years of specialized experience, degreed AND credentialed and staring pay is $13.00.
I've experienced, and/or seen, some of that lowballing of pay rates all over the place lately, in my own work life and that of friends. And it sucks. Something needs to fix this economy, and fast. You're absolutely right; the wages are ridiculous.
I'm hoping my agency or even a good headhunter may be able to do better for me. Originally I was looking to both live and work near DC, but once my friend from college announced that she and her husband were leaving that area, I re-evaluated on the basis of the even higher rents there. Pay rates are higher, of course, but I wonder if they're high enough? That's what scared me, and my main incentive to live there was to be near her and her husband. With them leaving, other friends chimed in, reminding me that at least the living would be cheaper in or around Baltimore than it would closer to DC.
I'd actually sent some resumes out for jobs in both DC and Baltimore over the past year, but of course it's kind of an employer's market, as you've mentioned. So I finally decided that if I was going to move, it would most be via an agency job which would then get me in place to either go permanent with that or at least be in place to do my own looking around. I'm actually planning to go back to school (online, at UMUC) in about a year for a degree in what I hope will be a better-paying field with better prospects, since I've decided I'm getting bored enough with what I've been doing that it's time for a career change. I plan to follow that up with a master's to make myself even more valuable to employers in my new field at a time when I hope the job market is better than it is now. So I want to get all the particulars of everything else sewn up with plenty of time to prepare before I take on school again. But that puts me kind of in game of "beat the clock" now.
I wish I could afford to drive from the Baltimore area to DC for work like I know some people do, but with the gas mileage my vehicle gets (and no option of buying a second car soon) it isn't really something I like the idea of doing, because whatever I saved on rent would largely be eaten up by fuel costs. I may find myself making that drive to some extent anyway, as I currently wear multiple hats within my agency and my 2nd contract for them is in IT as a technician for some specialized computer equipment often found in law offices. (You're a paralegal, so I'm sure you're familiar with Equitrac costing terminals on copiers and printers? For the past year I've installed and configured those, when I'm not working as an admin assistant. They need another couple of techs to cover the DC-Baltimore territory, so I'm on tap to be transferred with that, but it isn't full-time and therefore I can't make it my long-term gig.)
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Originally Posted by Cruzincat
I think what Jeepchic says about starting salaries is true and will probably be the norm for some time to come. And not just in the Baltimore area. If you are currently working in one area and have a lot of contacts in that area you are probably better off staying at your current job or looking in that area where, hopefully, you have a good reputation. Now is not a good time for anyone to try to relocate to a new area and get a new job, unless they are already unemployed. There are exceptions, to be sure, but they will be special cases.
Remaining where I am isn't an option, for reasons of climate (weather and economic) and the fact that I can't really afford to do what I want to educationally here because I'd be stuck paying out-of-state tuition and I can't really afford that, either. Trying to make a major career change at my age means I really can't just take one class at a time, because it would be years before I got that other degree. At some point age will begin to affect my chances of being hired. I'm not there yet, but someday I will be, and I want to be firmly into my new career before that happens. None of the schools in Ohio offer what I want to study as an online degree program or even as a night/weekend one. Kind of hard to take classes in the middle of the day when one works 8 - 5. *sigh* Not only that, but the job market here sucks as badly or worse than it does anyplace else. That's why I'm working for a temp agency right now. I figure I can't have any worse job luck in another city than I can here.
I could probably save money if I moved to one of the smaller cities in MD away from the DC-Baltimore corridor, but I'm honestly far more of a big-city person, and I think I'd be bored in anyplace smaller than Cincinnati or Cleveland, unless it was basically a near satellite of a large city (as in, no more than 40 minutes away). Columbus, which is bigger than either, was a treat to live in, except when I got downsized at work and opted to take a job in Cleveland because that was the first decent offer I got. I probably should've held out for something better, LOL.
Last edited by OutsideIn; 01-13-2012 at 10:05 PM..
I'm assuming those are the billing terminals used on faxes/copiers to track costs in order for law firms to bill clients?
You say you would not be able to drive the distance (and believe me, I know the pain. When I got my first agency job after being laid off it was a 50-mile one way drive to the law firm in my 12-year old Jeep Wrangler fun times). When you research different areas in the county I'd say look at public transportation. I don't live in Baltimore (or near), but I know when I visited, there was the Marc Train system. It's still a long commute, but at least you can get some stuff done (or rest) while traveling to DC if you were to land a job there - but stilll get the perks of living in a lower cost town.
However you mention the possible IT work so I guess that may cut into a Baltimore/DC train commute.
I'm doing the same thing (going back to school online - Penn State World Campus) for my undergrad in a marketable field, because while I have the years of experience, I only have an Associates and that's not going to get me anywhere anymore in this economy. Experience used to be enough.
I'm assuming those are the billing terminals used on faxes/copiers to track costs in order for law firms to bill clients?
Yes, exactly. Those are the machines I work on.
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You say you would not be able to drive the distance (and believe me, I know the pain. When I got my first agency job after being laid off it was a 50-mile one way drive to the law firm in my 12-year old Jeep Wrangler fun times).
Heh. 11-year-old Grand Cherokee here, recently purchased. Fun to drive, but I dread the gas pump. OTOH, I go camping and stuff, so I kind of need that type of vehicle to haul my things around. Gave my little Mercury to my ex-husband, who always liked it and needed a car. (Funny small world -- he's studying to be a paralegal.)
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When you research different areas in the county I'd say look at public transportation. I don't live in Baltimore (or near), but I know when I visited, there was the Marc Train system. It's still a long commute, but at least you can get some stuff done (or rest) while traveling to DC if you were to land a job there - but stilll get the perks of living in a lower cost town.
Public transportation is definitely something I like the idea of. I've used it in other cities to varying extents, and yes, it's something that figures into my equation here if I can make it work. Besides, then my Jeep will last longer!
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However you mention the possible IT work so I guess that may cut into a Baltimore/DC train commute.
I'm only going to do the Equitrac gig until I find something that pays well and is full-time. I've only been able to continue doing it while on my current office assignment because I have flex hours in the office. Million-to-one chance of having that again.
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I'm doing the same thing (going back to school online - Penn State World Campus) for my undergrad in a marketable field, because while I have the years of experience, I only have an Associates and that's not going to get me anywhere anymore in this economy. Experience used to be enough.
Sounds like you and I are in the same boat, because that's my situation too. I have an Associate's (had nearly enough credit hours for two of them in different fields when I graduated 25 years ago), plus some additional university courses on top of that, but I had to go to work full time and worked two jobs for a while, so I didn't finish my Bachelor's due to time and money constraints. Now I want to get a BA in communications with a minor in IT/web design, followed by a Master's in Management with a concentration in public relations. I've already figured out that I'm unlikely to be able to afford to retire at any kind of standard age if ever -- and I'd probably be bored if I did -- so what I'd like to do is position myself to be, say, in charge of the entire web presence and electronic PR for a company and enjoy my work. With luck I'd be able to do my job remotely at least some of the time, which might open the way to do some traveling, even though it would mean having to log in and work from wherever I am. With so much taking place online these days, and the ability to do remote conferencing for meetings and such, I think it's entirely possible that I might achieve this.
Yeah, I know -- ambitious. What are you going for, school- and career-wise?
The marc train is a great way to commute from Baltimore to DC, and I suspect it is the main way most people living here get there. It is often a recipe for higher pay and lower cost of housing.
Or you could live in PG county, where housing can be as cheap as Baltimore but the overall cost of living reflects proximity to DC. Just avoid living inside that beltway, which has been on the recieving end of a displaced underclass.
I have been living in the city for almost 4 months. I thought rental rates were out of step with incomes too....until I realized that Baltimore is in a special position, geographically.
I live in Mt. Washington and work in Woodlawn. I know in my apartment community there are studios and 1 bedrooms for under 1000, and this is a nice, safe, generally diverse area. That said I live in a 2 bedroom and pay over 1000, but that's me. I can afford to live in Fed Hill or Fells Pt, but I don't because I don't know the city that way yet and I'm cheap.
I have been living in the city for almost 4 months. I thought rental rates were out of step with incomes too....until I realized that Baltimore is in a special position, geographically.
I live in Mt. Washington and work in Woodlawn. I know in my apartment community there are studios and 1 bedrooms for under 1000, and this is a nice, safe, generally diverse area. That said I live in a 2 bedroom and pay over 1000, but that's me. I can afford to live in Fed Hill or Fells Pt, but I don't because I don't know the city that way yet and I'm cheap.
Good luck.
Thanks for the input from your own experience as a recent arrival. I'm glad to know it isn't just me who was having a moment.
One thing that makes a move to metro Baltimore somewhat easier for me than a move to many other places might be (and is therefore a large factor in my choice to do so) is the fact that since the single 1BR sublet I'd originally lined up fell through, some of my friends in the area who have space have offered me the opportunity to crash in their spare bedrooms or couch-surf while I get my feet under me and find a place. So to a large extent, all I need is a decent job and the prospect of better, though I'll have to really hit the ground running. I'd have had this with my friend and her husband in Rockville as well, were it not for his job transfer and their move.
So right now my tentative plan is to line up whatever employment situation I can arrange -- be it some combination of my part-time IT gig and another part-time job, or something full-time through the same agency or another, as I'm on file with at least three of them which are nationwide -- and take my friends up on the offer of temporary space.
Once there, I'll probably look into a shared sublet situation for starters, unless a really awesome affordable private apartment magically materializes right away. If I have to live with roommates for a couple of months, I can probably deal with it, and that will also give me time to line up my long-term employment situation, which may in turn affect where I choose to live in terms of both geography and finances. At that point, I will hopefully get a place where I can live by myself and have the privacy I desire. My furnishings can remain in my current apartment here until then, as I have someone I know well who will be taking over my lease and is fine with having my stuff remain until I have a place to move it to. I'm in a 2BR duplex apartment right now, and if I can find something similar that's affordable, I'll be thrilled. If not, I'll be happy with a 1BR.
Definitely look in the cockeysville, parkville, even pikesville area. Its a good area outside of city crime that has some decent 1 bedroom 1 bath for under $1000.
The cities you named are low COL areas for a reason, few jobs and those that exist are low pay. For all its problems, Baltimore City and county are part of the DC Metro area and benefit from that in wages and jobs. Of course the COL is higher, too, because of that.
I don't know if it's still happening but up until a couple years ago there were stories and features everywhere you turned about how young DC professionals were moving to Baltimore because you could buy more with less. This did cause prices to rise.
Even down here in SoMD rents average around $1200/month for an apartment, which there really aren't too many of. Rents for houses range from the $1200 up to $3000/month.
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