High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
(OP)
I've worked for the same company for 4+ years since graduating with my BSME. Through various internal shifts I ended up getting some significant raises very early in my career and now make 90k in a lower cost of living area. Seems like a good problem to have I realize, but I'm not terribly satisfied in my job and have been looking around. I recently interviewed for a really interesting sounding position and it was going well until the interviewer kind of deflated upon hearing my current salary. This isn't the only time this has happened either. I feel like I'm marketable enough, but people get turned off by a 27 year old with not a lot of experience and a way above market salary. How can I approach convincing interviewers that I understand my salary is inflated without inadvertently selling myself short?





RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
I think even if you say you're willing to take a cut employers assume you're going to be at least somewhat disgruntled about it and it's a mark against you in the hiring process.
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
However, rather than apologizing for a strong achievement, demonstrate and explain why you are worth that much to your current employer, and why you might be worth that much to a new employer. Are you a Growth Mindset type of person? What accomplishments can you detail that justifies your worth to your present company?
In fact, those details ought to be in your resume; if you can assign quantitative benefits achieved for your company, so much the better.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
If you go in too low, it will never be fixed. Cheap companies are cheap right up until they can't be.
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
Since you mentioned being in a low cost of living area, are you rural enough that your previous employer may have been a bit of a unicorn regarding their offered salaries? There's many rural areas in the US where I'd love to live but unless I found a unicorn (which sucks for job security) I'd be taking a 20-30% salary cut.
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
Research is the only way to tell which side of the fence you are on.
--Scott
www.aerornd.com
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
I figure I don't have much to lose on the recent interview I mentioned so I think I'm going to write the interviewer an email emphasizing that I understand my current salary is pretty high for what I'm doing.
The main reason I'm looking is job satisfaction and personal development concerns. While my company compensates me generously, I get very little in the way of true development opportunities (not the same thing as shuffling job title around) and have had essentially no engineering mentoring. Much of my time is spent dealing with bureaucracy or going to meetings and I feel like there is no path for me to develop into a better engineer.
Thanks for all the responses so far.
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
At best, people will rationalize and understand that the level of salary you earn is something you have built BEFORE and "brought" with you. In this case fine but to me this rationalization is utopia.
In a culture of scarcity with severity "low to moderate", you could end up in a situation where people will perceive you as if you are ANYWAY privileged. This could become poisonous to your work and even introduce bias in your relationship that would be hard to overcome (this may include your co-workers / peers and even whom you report to..). If that is the case, people could behave in nasty ways...e.g. they could ask you to get up to speed in less than 2 weeks of time. They could put too high expectations on you and/or no good work will be good enough, also next time they downsize their office... remember you are not the cheapest employee (relatively speaking).
Well it may sound exaggerating...but there is even worse: it could leave you (and rightly so) with a devastating feeling of having been treated in a unfair manner.
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
IME you cant hire a decent BSME grad today for <$70-75k, so $90k is only accounting for a pretty standard annual increase (~3.5-5%) and not an annual bonus. Not knocking the OP but it sounds pretty typical to me, definitely not a fast-riser so I wouldn't settle for any less than that even in a cheap cost of living area.
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
Or keep cashing in and find an engineering related hobby for personal development. What do the locals get up to in their spare time?
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
Get my drift? Go for the lower wage satisfaction only when and if you are prepared for ALL the rest that a lower income will bring you.
.
(Me,,,wrong? ...aw, just fine-tuning my sarcasm!)
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
My takeaway from all this is that what I'm making might not be as disproportionate as I think.
As for my most recent interview that prompted this thread we went back and forth after I explained I was willing to lower my salary. However, they will max out at 65k for the role with some nebulous bonus potential which is in my opinion pretty low, even for the local market. I'm not really sure how they plan to find anyone decent at that rate considering its a field role requiring lots of travel and responsibility.
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
Space exploration is ongoing and will soon tap into unlimited resources..
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
Perhaps if you were to rephrase that from a desire for "job satisfaction" to a desire for "to challenge yourself" in a new position.
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
Since you are leaving your current job, you do need to convey at least the impression that two years from now, you aren't going to leaving the job you're interviewing for. While companies aren't necessarily loyal to their employees, they still seemingly demand loyalty in the other direction.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
What's the job stability like in your current position? If it's good, I'd stay put, and find classes or courses to increase your engineering worth, unless you find a position where you know you'll be working on something personally satisfying to you. The job is a means to an end, not the end, generally.
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
I have been on interviews and had CEOs of $1B companies tell me that they couldn't pay me what I was asking, and then gone to work for a small private company for more money than that.
Interviewing sucks, but you need to think of it as a job. Research and go in with a plan.
Keep a detailed list of everyone that you talk to by phone and in person. I wish that I had.
Over the years I interviewed with many companies that couldn't afford full time/full pay engineering help, but they would have made good consulting clients.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: High Salary Early Career Job Search Woes
.
(Me,,,wrong? ...aw, just fine-tuning my sarcasm!)