Salary Offers
What to know about salary offers if you’re an I.T. (Information Technology) professional
If you’re making $110K or less base salary and you’re offered 20K – 25K more base salary – ask a lot of questions
I.T. non management positions offers are usually 8% – 12% over your current base salary, 10% is pretty standard for salaries 110K and under.
What you should know if offered a big jump in salary
Every year someone calls me and complains that they accepted a job because they were offered 20K – 25K more than they were making. After 6 months, when the project was completed, they were laid off.
They’re mad that the manager made a fool of them and they should have been hired as a contractor.
Of course everyone wants to believe they’re worth 20K more and is flattered when someone offers a big increase.
But in I.T. managers aren’t looking to buy you.
They’re looking to offer a nice increase (10%), long term growth opportunities with a financially stable company. a good manager to work with and learn from, and a good team to work on.
They feel if they offer a big increase, you will leave as soon as someone else offers you more. They’re not looking to hire someone who will be gone in a year or less.
These are not good reasons for thinking you should get a 20K increase in salary
“I’ve been with my current employer for 7 years. If I changed jobs more, I would be making more”.
Although this may be true, a job offer will still be based on your current salary. Managers will like that you’re not a job hopper.
“I’m moving to a higher COL (cost of living) city”. This will be taken into consideration but most likely, whatever you’re offered, won’t make up for the difference in COL so you should really want to live there.
For example:
If you’re moving to CA, COL is high and salaries are the same as low COL cities.
So you must really want to live in CA to move here, because it’s going to cost you more.
Never lie about how much you’re making. Offer will be withdrawn or you will be fired when your manager finds out.
You could be asked for a pay stub.