What should a young professional be asking for in terms of salary range?

Are you still in touch with old coworkers with jobs similar to what you’re looking for? Perhaps a call to them requesting a suggested salary would help. Don’t ask them how much they make. Ask them to suggest what you should request.

This is always a tough question, because you don’t want to overprice yourself, and not get a job, nor do you want to underprice yourself and be paid significantly less than your worth. This is more of a problem for women than men, and accounts in part for gender pay gaps. The first thing you need to do is work out a budget and determine how much you need to earn in order to meet your expenses. Be sure to include student loans, housing, transportation, clothing, food, etc. Factor in living costs for the city you will be located in. $700 a month may get you a nice apartment in Nashville, but won’t touch much in Los Angeles. Be realistic but not over indulgent.

Also, be cognizant of the marketability of your degrees based upon the universities you attended. Certain schools will command significantly higher salaries in certain fields and markets. Work with your college recruiter to determine what your worth is.

You can hedge this question. The question: What is your desired salary? can be answered: a fair, market competitive salary based upon my degree and work experience. Once an offer is made, it can be negotiable. Make sure you ask about relocation reimbursement.

You can search for a salary guide by region online that can be useful in your area, since it varies widely. Many people in today’s economy are finding that in order to be chosen out of the hundreds of applicants for the same job, they need to lower their expectations.

Go to salary.com, look up equivalent job titles, get a range, and shoot for the middle. When you negotiate, you can then fall back on the fact that you did the research and have a general idea of what those positions pay.

@AlfredaPrufrock
I definitely will not be relocating, but looking at my expenses and using my university’s prestigious name is great advice and I’ll put it that the range is negotiable…I’ll also call up my old internship mentor…she won’t mind telling me what she makes or what I should make…thanks

@Yarnlady
@figbash

I didn’t even know those things existed, thanks

It sounds like you’d probably be in the $50,000 range, assuming you’d be working at something specific to your education and experience.

You should check out the “salaries” tab on indeed.com, sort of the Google for job searches.

@mirifique
wow, thanks, i found quite a few jobs on there too

I think you will get what you expect you will get, if you feel you’d be happy with 50K, you will probably get that. If you believe you are worth 75K, you probably will get that. I know it sounds meticulously simplistic and stupid, but it really does come down to you.

Things are also weird right now, and what would have been the right answer a year ago might not be the right answer now. Freelancers in my profession are currently settling for 1/2 to 2/3 of what they were commanding a little while back. Work is hard to come by, and companies are disinclined to be liberal with salaries, especially when so many other things are tied to salaries, including future percentage increases.

Will prospective employers say things like “We know this position is worth $60k, but we can offer only $45k at present.”? I don’t know, but if I were in your place I would be listening for clues like that and might even be prepared to ask if they’d agree to a future adjustment in excess of the normal raises in your career track. Some job is better than no job.

On the other hand, we do hear that health care is one of the few fields that are still prospering.

@Garebo I don’t know if I really agree with you. I believe firms and organizations need to be profitable, and to do so, they will determine what the most competitive salary is for a given position, and right now, given the current economic climate, that means whichever salary will help keep the firm the most competitive, i.e., the lowest possible amount to attract and retain the specific type and quality of employee they are looking for.