Landing your first gig

Archanex

Hey guys,

I'm fresh out of school and looking for my first gig. I had some questions for all of you who are more experienced..

I've heard from some people that you should take what you can get out of school, but on the other hand, I've heard that if you accept a low salary starting out, that it can negatively impact the rest of your career. What are your thoughts on this subject?

Also, my school has given me a ballpark range of what to expect salary wise coming out of school, but if I wanted to move somewhere where the cost of living was higher (San Fran.) should I ask for more money? If so, how does one calculate how much more to ask for? Thanks

JDinges

Accepting a low salary out of school shouldn't negatively effect the rest of your career, unless of course your skill level truely reflects that salary range. Take a salary that you will feel comfortable living on, don't accept anything that won't allow you to pay the basic neccesity bills (rent, food, gas, electricity, etc). As your skill set increases so will your salary worth.

Research the cost of living of a city, find others who live in the area and ask for general living costs. It's not difficult.

Mark Dygert

It depends on so much, experience, location, the size of the studio, how well they are doing, their philosophy about pay. JDinges has a great idea you need to figure out what you need to live on, in any given area and make that your min.

Make it comfortable and don't kill yourself by budgeting it as if your going to sleep on a buddies couch and eat his left overs, 4-6 weeks of that and you really want out. Banking on a raise coming in is only going to be a disappointment.

The only meaningful raises I've ever gotten are when I switch jobs/titles and renegotiate my pay. The token raises you get while staying in one position are nice but often not enough to really effect your standard of living. Be honest when you're negotiating pay and leave yourself some wiggle room. For that first job and maybe the second you're not a rock star (yet) they hold more cards then you do, but as your skill increases so will the demand for you. Learning when to leverage that can be tricky but its something you'll need to learn how to do.

Archanex

hey I found this sweet link to help in figuring this sort of thing out. Just thought I'd share in case anyone else is in a similar situation

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofliving/costofliving.html?step=form&x=37&y=10