>> There are no guarantees in life - that's the way it is.  But like I've 
>> said before, Andy, DON'T decide for a prospective employer what you're 
>> worth - THAT'S THEIR JOB, NOT YOURS.
>
> ...unless they say "so how much are you expecting us to pay you?" ;-)

Actually here in Germany it's quite different to the UK, no job advert ever 
says what salary they are going to pay, not even a range.  You have to tell 
them what you are expecting.

Also watch out because when they are interviewing you they will likely ask 
what your current salary is.  Make sure you have a figure in your head for 
when they ask you this question.  DO NOT tell them your real salary because 
it is way lower than someone like you deserves.  By answering this question 
with 25K instead of 15K you will have just earnt yourself an extra 10K per 
year for the rest of your life.  No matter how much you hate lying, you'd be 
really really stupid to tell them the truth, because they are only going to 
pay you the minimum they think they need to.

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> Right, so... why are they going to hire me again??

Because nobody better applied.

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scott wrote:
>> Right, so... why are they going to hire me again??
> 
> Because nobody better applied.

That's a *highly* improbably hypothesis.

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> LOL! I suppose I could explain that it's a Turing-complete scene 
> description language for photorealistic image and animation construction / 
> scripting... that could sound impressive. ;-)

Actually, I only found out about POV when I was applying for a job that 
mentioned it.  I forget the name of the company, but they did realtime and 
pre-rendered work for car companies etc.  Of course I looked up everything 
that was mentioned on the job advert, and well here I am :-)

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scott wrote:

> Actually here in Germany it's quite different to the UK, no job advert 
> ever says what salary they are going to pay, not even a range.  You have 
> to tell them what you are expecting.

OK, that sounds pretty scary.

If you say a number that's too high, they'll do "damn, we're not paying 
that!" and not hire you. And if you say a number that's too low, they'll 
be all like "haha, this guy doesn't have a clue!"

> Also watch out because when they are interviewing you they will likely 
> ask what your current salary is.  Make sure you have a figure in your 
> head for when they ask you this question.  DO NOT tell them your real 
> salary because it is way lower than someone like you deserves.  By 
> answering this question with 25K instead of 15K you will have just earnt 
> yourself an extra 10K per year for the rest of your life.  No matter how 
> much you hate lying, you'd be really really stupid to tell them the 
> truth, because they are only going to pay you the minimum they think 
> they need to.

Uh-huh. And they're not going to check this and find out I'm blatently 
lying?

Besides, do I really want to work for somebody where I have to lie to 
get what I desurve?

OOC... I run a small computer network, and I write technical documents. 
What do you estimate I *should* be being paid for that?

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>>> What, severely exaggerating the truth throughout?
>>
>> Yes. Bluntly, yes.
>
> Isn't that illegal?

No.

> Er, no... They hire you, find out you're lying, and press criminal charges 
> for fraud. o_O

There is no way that will happen unless you actually said something 
seriously false, like you had a degree from somewhere you don't.  And even 
then they're likely not going to bother with any charges because they won't 
be bothered, they'll just sack you.  There is no way on this Earth they are 
going to start arguing with you about whether "built a comprehensive 
database backup script" is lying or not because it's only 20 lines long.

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> If you say a number that's too high, they'll do "damn, we're not paying 
> that!" and not hire you. And if you say a number that's too low, they'll 
> be all like "haha, this guy doesn't have a clue!"

Depends how important finances are to the company compared with getting the 
right person.  There is a wide range where they will take note of you.  For 
a job we recently advertised we were expecting to have to pay around 70K 
euro, but the people we did interview were asking for around 50-60K euro, 
which was a bonus!

> Uh-huh. And they're not going to check this and find out I'm blatently 
> lying?

No, how on Earth do you imagine that they could find out your salary?

> Besides, do I really want to work for somebody where I have to lie to get 
> what I desurve?

If they sense that they could offer you 20K and you'd accept, they will. If 
you say your current salary is 25K then there is no way they would offer you 
20K.  It's up to you.

> OOC... I run a small computer network, and I write technical documents. 
> What do you estimate I *should* be being paid for that?

With a computer science degree and 6 years experience, I'd say around 25K 
was about right, maybe even more if you've really gotten into improving the 
network infrastructure etc rather than just being a support person following 
orders.

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scott wrote:
>> If you say a number that's too high, they'll do "damn, we're not 
>> paying that!" and not hire you. And if you say a number that's too 
>> low, they'll be all like "haha, this guy doesn't have a clue!"
> 
> Depends how important finances are to the company compared with getting 
> the right person.  There is a wide range where they will take note of 
> you.

Heh, well, almost everybody *claims* they want the most brilliant 
people. I think some of them are more serious about it than others 
though. ;-)

>> Uh-huh. And they're not going to check this and find out I'm blatently 
>> lying?
> 
> No, how on Earth do you imagine that they could find out your salary?

They call my employer and ask them? It's not rocket science.

>> Besides, do I really want to work for somebody where I have to lie to 
>> get what I desurve?
> 
> If they sense that they could offer you 20K and you'd accept, they will. 
> If you say your current salary is 25K then there is no way they would 
> offer you 20K.  It's up to you.

Heh. But if I was getting paid 25K to sit here posting monad tutorials 
on povray.off-topic, why would I be looking for another job? ;-)

Since the pay is one of my major motivations for wanting to leave, I 
think I'm going to have trouble explaining that one. (Altough I guess 
the incompetent management and the empty order book and the stream of 
people leaving the company would be another reason...)

>> OOC... I run a small computer network, and I write technical 
>> documents. What do you estimate I *should* be being paid for that?
> 
> With a computer science degree and 6 years experience, I'd say around 
> 25K was about right, maybe even more if you've really gotten into 
> improving the network infrastructure etc rather than just being a 
> support person following orders.

If I had the cheque book, and people would *listen* to what I'm saying, 
I could do that... But hey, that's why I'm moving!

Benny seems to think I should be earning 30K - 40K. (Working for 
somebody else, that is.) Personally I think that's a little ambitious 
for somebody of my limited skill. As I understand it, technical people 
don't merit such high salaries, only salesmen and managers.

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>> Because nobody better applied.
>
> That's a *highly* improbably hypothesis.

You need to learn to come across more positive, almost every comment you've 
made in this thread has been negative.  People give helpful suggestions and 
almost every time you just throw it back to them with some trivial made-up 
excuse why it won't work.  No wonder you can't find another job if that 
attitude comes across in your CV/letter/interview.

You seem to be under this delusion that for every job advertised there will 
be hundreds of people applying with the perfect match of experience and 
qualifications.  Get real, that hardly ever happens even in large companies.

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> Heh, well, almost everybody *claims* they want the most brilliant people. 
> I think some of them are more serious about it than others though. ;-)

Of course, some will have a budget much bigger than others, you never know.

>> No, how on Earth do you imagine that they could find out your salary?
>
> They call my employer and ask them? It's not rocket science.

There is no way your employer would give out such information to anyone 
outside the company.  Even to internal employees they would never give out 
such information, unless authorised to do so by someone quite senior.

> Since the pay is one of my major motivations for wanting to leave, I think 
> I'm going to have trouble explaining that one.

DO NOT tell them your motivation for moving is the pay.  There is no way 
they will employ someone who is just moving to get a higher salary, because 
in 2 years time they will be off to another company for more money.  You 
explain that your motivation for moving is because you have no opportunities 
for progressing your career in the company and the work is very repetitive 
blah blah blah.

> Benny seems to think I should be earning 30K - 40K. (Working for somebody 
> else, that is.) Personally I think that's a little ambitious for somebody 
> of my limited skill.

Not at all, if you had spent 2 years working at your company, then maybe 
moved up and taken some more responsibility for the networking etc (or moved 
to a different company with a more responsible job) you could easily be 
earning that much or more.  The problem you have is that you've spent 6 
years doing essentially the same job with no propspect of career 
progression, so you can't really expect your salary to rise to that much for 
just doing the same thing.

> As I understand it, technical people don't merit such high salaries, only 
> salesmen and managers.

Rubbish, that job I told you about that we thought we needed to pay 70K 
euro, that was for an Engineer with 7 years experience.  I have no idea how 
much we actually offered him, but I know he was earning 56K euro in his 
current job, which we all thought was a bit low given what he was doing.

Google "average graduate salary" and hit the first link, it's 24K euro. 
Even with only 3% pay rises and no promotion you should be on almost 30K 
after six years.

I think you just started out on an exceptionally under paid job, and because 
you've stuck at it for so long you're kind of out of touch with what other 
technical people with 6 years experience are being paid.

BTW just being a manager doesn't mean you're not technical, my manager does 
essentially the same job as me, he just has a lot more experience and does 
more stuff like budget and reporting with senior people.

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