Unemployed VT CS graduate getting lowball job position offers around here? (Fairfax: high school, college)

[PK12]

Originally Posted by VRE332

What value does the OP have besides the piece of paper from a University?

Did you care to read the first post of this thread?

[darkblue]

Originally Posted by Cmusic29

Many people, even in this area (believe it or not), would love to be making 22 dollars/hour. I know I would, I don't quite make that much. So to me, it is just like "suck it up and go for it' I suppose.

Are you sure???

[PK12]

OP,

I would keep looking for a better offer if I were you - seems like you're definitely being lowballed here.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by Caladium

Sad but true, while you can get a few good tips in a forum like this, there are also people who want to give advice so they'll feel important even though they don't work in your field, don't have a clue what they're talking about, and don't care if their advice hurts you. I don't know why people like to do this, but they do. You also might hear from people who do work in your field, but what you don't know is their careers are dismal failures and they are the last person you should be listening to.

Your career is important--so get advice from people you know in person and from people who are succeeding. [/b]

I stand by my remarks. If presented with a $50,000 offer with limited growth potential or $40,000 with rapid growth potential I'd ALWAYS pick the latter over the former. Do you want to receive one promotion and one pay increase over five years at the first job that will boost your salary to $60,000, or do you want the potential to receive two or three promotions and commensurate salary bumps that would be above $60,000 over five years? The choice is yours to make, but, quite honestly, I have little respect for candidates who are more concerned with starting salary over career potential. I want my job candidates to want MY job. I don't want them to be looking to score as much as they can upfront and then move on.

P.S. "Success" is relative. I don't personally view someone as being "successful" just because they have a high salary. I view someone as being "successful" for a variety of criteria.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by darkblue

Are you sure???

^ NoVA, where people laugh at the prospect of earning "just" $22/hr. fresh out of college. It really says something about how out-of-whack the cost-of-living is there when people don't want to work for an hourly wage that 95% of the country would be willing to work for.

[PK12]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

I stand by my remarks. If presented with a $50,000 offer with limited growth potential or $40,000 with rapid growth potential I'd ALWAYS pick the latter over the former. Do you want to receive one promotion and one pay increase over five years at the first job that will boost your salary to $60,000, or do you want the potential to receive two or three promotions and commensurate salary bumps that would be above $60,000 over five years? The choice is yours to make, but, quite honestly, I have little respect for candidates who are more concerned with starting salary over career potential. I want my job candidates to want MY job. I don't want them to be looking to score as much as they can upfront and then move on.

P.S. "Success" is relative. I don't personally view someone as being "successful" just because they have a high salary. I view someone as being "successful" for a variety of criteria

^ NoVA, where people laugh at the prospect of earning "just" $22/hr. fresh out of college. It really says something about how out-of-whack the cost-of-living is there when people don't want to work for an hourly wage that 95% of the country would be willing to work for.

Yes, exactly – this is NoVA, where the cost of living is significantly higher than in most of the US.

In which case expecting someone ‘to advance their careers’ downgrading from a previous job of over $60K to as low as $35K is absolutely outrageous.There are definitely better options available for OP, it's just a matter of time before he finds them.




Enough of the VP/Partner corporate talk

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by VRE332

What value does the OP have besides the piece of paper from a University?

^ A lot of my fellow 20-somethings think a piece of paper "deserves" a higher starting salary simply because they have hefty student loan bills to repay. Sorry, but while college tuition bills have been mushrooming these days that doesn't mean employers should also have to upwardly adjust their starting salaries to match your student loan bills. I've worked with some "fresh out of college" peers before in corporate settings who were absolutely clueless. Many times your degree is JUST a "ticket" into an interview for a position that you'll need to learn fresh from the ground up. That was certainly the case with my first post-college job, which was so specialized NOTHING relevant had been covered in college. I started at $40,000 and didn't expect much more because my employer would have to spend a few years of intensive training to truly have me become an asset for them. Why should I demand a $60,000 salary PLUS intensive training to learn the job from the bottom-up?

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by PK12

Yes, exactly – this is NoVA, where the cost of living is significantly higher than in most of the US.

In which case expecting someone ‘to advance their careers’ downgrading from a previous job of over $60K to as low as $35K is absolutely outrageous.There are definitely better options available for OP, it's just a matter of time before he finds them.




Enough of the VP/Partner corporate talk

He says his "lowball" offers have ranged from $35,000-$50,000. I'm presuming there are also some positions, then, that are paying ~$50,000. Why are you all focusing on the $35,000 position(s)? The Great Recession hit hard. A LOT of people went from making $79,000 salaries to making $52,000 salaries seemingly overnight and had to adjust their lifestyles accordingly. Being ~25 and having to take a salary cut from $60,000 to $50,000 and take a couple more years to get back up and above $60,000 isn't the end of the world. I think the fact that NoVA didn't really experience the Great Recession in any meaningful way has insulated many of you from how hard it really slammed much of the country, where upper-middle-class-lifestyle-sustaining positions evaporated and were replaced by lower-middle-class-lifestyle-sustaining positions.

[Mnseca]

Originally Posted by Cmusic29

Many people, even in this area (believe it or not), would love to be making 22 dollars/hour. I know I would, I don't quite make that much. So to me, it is just like "suck it up and go for it' I suppose.

That's not helpful. I wouldn't work for 22 dollars an hour no matter how many people would love to make that, and neither should the OP Just because other people are making less doesn't mean he should - I doubt those people have CS degrees.

[Opacy]

Originally Posted by Mnseca

That's not helpful. I wouldn't work for 22 dollars an hour no matter how many people would love to make that, and neither should the OP Just because other people are making less doesn't mean he should - I doubt those people have CS degrees.

Seriously, the jealousy from some of the people in this thread is palpable. Lots of people hating on a guy for doing better than they did at that age.

As Emigrations mentioned earlier back, I'm kind of surprised you're doing networking/system administration/security work when you have a CS degree. Certainly nothing wrong with that, but I'd think software development/engineering would be more lucrative, since for whatever reason a lot of companies don't seem to value their infrastructure guys as much as they should.

The market still looks pretty strong for developers, ESPECIALLY those with security clearances. As a CS major, what are you comfortable working in? Java's always a good choice, but C# is popular with government tech contractors as well. Even something modest like writing a few scripts in say, Python or Ruby or Powershell or Bash is a good starting point. VT's a good comp sci school - I'd suggest testing the waters a bit, if you were interested.