#6 salary

[Jay Banks <banks () darwin bu edu>]

Abstract: regarding "the salary question," two pieces of advice.  (1)
Try to get the prospective employer to name the salary (range) first,
then tailor your salary "requirement" to overlap their numbers (the
high end of their range, if they give a range).  (2) In any case, you
NEED a total gross annual income of about 50 times your monthly rent,
so don't even consider jobs that pay less.

In YSN #1318, joer () rad hfh edu (Joe Roebuck) asks "how to deal with
the salary question."  Probably the best advice I have gotten on this
was (surprisingly) from a headhunter.  Basically, the advice is that
YOU should ask the question first, and try to get THEM to name a
number.  ("What's the salary for this position?" is certainly a
question they should be able to answer if there's actually a
position!)  If this works, and their number is at all reasonable (see
below for what I consider reasonable), then you can name a range with
a minimum at or near their number (or near the top of their range if
they give one), and a maximum a judicious distance above their
(maximum) number.  For instance, if they say "$35-40K," you say
"$38-45K," and make it clear that the 38 is a bare-bones minimum.

If you have to give a number without a clue, there is only one way to
arrive at it, and that is to base it on what you need to live.  Find
out what your monthly rent will have to be in order to live
comfortably (and comfortably close to work).  Then multiply by 50, and
don't even consider (and TELL THEM you can't even consider) an annual
salary substantially lower than that.  (If you have a second income --
spouse, POSSLQ, or other source -- then of course it's your COMBINED
gross income that has to be 50 times your monthly rent.  But in that
case your monthly rent will probably be higher too.)  For a teaching
position, you should probably look for the ACADEMIC YEAR salary to be
90% or so of your annual requirement -- it's better to be conservative
and assume you won't average more than 1 month of summer salary per
year, than to assume you WILL get summer salary and find out otherwise
when you're already in debt.

This advice may sound suicidal in a tight job market, but you DO have
to make a living, after all.  If you end up having "too much month
left at the end of your money" every month, and/or accumulating
thousands of dollars in credit-card debt at 18+% interest (or even
14), then you don't have a good job.  The exception is a job that is
"perfect" in other ways (the work you'll be doing, the people you'll
be working with), AND that you can clearly make into a stepping-stone
to something better, in a short period of time.  (I'd say one year
tops.)  That's what I just accepted, because I had no other offers and
time was running out, and I STILL successfully held out for a MUCH
higher salary than they were talking at the start.  The bottom line
(literally) is, if they really want you, they'll do their best to get
you the money it takes to get you.  So you have to give them the
HIGHEST plausible figure for what it will take to get you.  The
corollary of this is that you have to be willing to "just say no" if
they can't meet a figure you can live with.  And the corollary of
that, particularly in a tight market, is that you have to start
looking LONG before you "have to" have a new job.  (At least a year.)
If you're currently in academia, you will generally know a year or
more in advance of when your appointment expires; and you HAVE to
start applying in October for the following September, so the long
lead time is enforced by the system.  (But in this case, you should
probably be making contacts -- "cold calls" to people you're
interested in working with, or stuffing your CV in their hands at
conferences, whatever it takes -- six months to a year earlier than
that.)  If you're not in academia, you may not know so far in advance
that you'll want to move, so you should probably ALWAYS have your eyes
open and your contacts current.

One final note on faculty positions.  If you've never had one before,
you don't know about this (I didn't and suffered because of my
ignorance), but a beginning faculty member should get a "startup
package."  You need to think about this SERIOUSLY (e.g., figure out
what you need, and FIND OUT WHAT IT COSTS), so that you will be able
to give them a realistic, detailed list of what you need when they
ask.  (If they don't ask, you should!  If they've never heard of such
a thing, shake their hands and walk away.  Seriously.  You don't want
to work there.  This applies to research universities, of course, not
four-year colleges.  But if they are going to judge you based on your
research, they HAVE to give you what you need to get your research
going.)  The dollar amounts obviously vary widely, but my guess is
that 50-100% of your AY salary is not unreasonable for a theorist
(more if you need fancy computers that they don't have, or don't have
enough of to give you the access you need), and more to a lot more
(I've heard of multi-100K deals) for an experimentalist.  And a
commitment of space to put your stuff (and your students and postdocs)
in.  Again, don't be afraid to ask for a large amount if you need it.
It shows them that you're serious about your research, and their
response will show you whether THEY are serious about wanting you.

Sorry to go on so long, but what else is new?

jay

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