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Job and Internship Salary Comparisons?
spydabyte writes "I'm a current undergraduate at the Georgia Institute of Technology and have been getting offers for internships next summer. I was wondering if there is a source of information on intern markets or how a market's competitive salaries are. How do you know if you're getting a decent offer or you deserve more when you're entering a (personally) new market? Is there a definite source? Do you have your favorite? I know that many factors matter, as in location, previous experience, etc., but I think there's more to find out besides asking for my friends' current offers. If not internships, how about full time or careers? Any ideas?"
glassdoor.com gives pretty transparent information. You do have to read between the lines (i.e. suckage at one campus/group is not necessarily a problem at another, poor statistics gamed by shills) but it is useful information. But networking with people is much much more useful.
http://www.glassdoor.com/ I don't know about internships.
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Cost of Living comparison sites are good. That'll give you an idea of the comparison between two jobs in different places...One may be offering 50% more, but that 50% more may actually be a net loss depending on the cost of living.
Demographic information can give you average salaries, but you MUST weigh that in terms of the cost of living. Don't take a job for the national average salary in a city where the cost of living is twice the national average. You can get lots of salary information on Google.
I'd say there is no definite source. You're going to have to weigh and consider what you need, and what the job is worth to you. Don't be afraid to take less for a job that has great experience/training opportunities, and don't be afraid to ask for more if the job looks like hell on earth.
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For fulltime jobs, check salary.com and glassdoor.com for good salary information. For salary.com, you can enter in a job title (e.g. software engineer II) and zip code; the salary range results are pretty accurate. When you move to take a fulltime job, be sure to check the cost-of-living adjustment calculator there too.
If you are looking for an internship, then I recommend you not be so concerned with money. The goal of an internship is get real-world experience and do a good enough job so the manager will remember you well enough to write a letter of recommendation when you need it later. You will have the rest of your life to worry about making money. I would also recommend you get as many summer internships before you graduate as possible with a mix of big-name and small companies (where presumably you'll have more responsibilities at the smaller companies).
I agree with the parent is saying. I was interning in Atlanta, GA area for the past 3 years, and you can expect around $15/hr. My recommendation is don't do any internship for free. CS/IT/SwE majors seem to get paid internships more than other majors, but some companies, *cough*siemens*cough* will try to get away with paying you nothing.
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
I'd still go with serving coffee at the big company. You'll probably make better contacts at the bigger company, and you'll certainly have a more recognizable name on the resume. It's not what you know but who you know and being able to name-drop.
Most of the jobs I've ever gotten (or gotten very far through the interview process with) have been either through knowing the right person, not by having the right skills or the right experience. This is one of the things I wish I had known 15 years ago.
Bureau of Labor Statistics has the information you seek. http://www.bls.gov/
When I was in school in Pittsburgh, software interns got about the same as the starting salary in the steel mills which is now about $12/hour, so things haven't changed.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
While you should stay away from slave labor called unpaid internships depending on your skill sets it may be a good proving ground when all else fails. Say you are a Liberal Arts Major trying for a Tech Job. a Free internship may prove that you know what you are doing and that Liberal Arts Degree shows your flexibility in many areas.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Georgia Tech's "Career Services" was very useful when I was there. In contrast, the co-op office was horrible. I'd definitely make an appointment with career services and talk to them about this.
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
the point of internships are to stuff your resume. You've already got one big name on your resume (GT), add another and you'll be golden. Besides... if you went through the professional practice office then the wages are negotiated by the school and can't be changed.
I don't know what field you're in, but LANL pays students pretty well to do lots of things.
My internship was around $15/hr, and my wife's was $16-17. My job was the "they actually hired you to work" kind, my wife's was the "sit around and read wikipedia" kind. That seemed fairly standard for our area (Ohio) for a CS degree, from what I've gathered from my friends. That was... three years ago.
Probably varies HUGELY by geography.
I interned at IBM 10 years ago (did they make you take the stupid IQ test at the end of your internship too?)
I remember going through the job fair line with my friend who was a ChemE 3.9 GPA, his resume got put on the "we'll call you" pile. I had a 3.2 GPA, but because I had an IBM internship, I was immediately asked to come in and interview the next day while the recruiters were still in town. Interview was more like a recruitment pitch talking about the neat things they were doing in the fab, specifically we chatted about SOI since my background was Mat Sci with emphasis on semiconductor physics and processing.
That 6-month internship was worth more than 4 years of college in terms of getting a career. I also turned down an offer from IBM, but having solid experience at a recognized company opened a lot of doors.
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You can in some circumstances get more than that. I went to the University of Waterloo in Canada from 2001-2006. My 6 internships paid roughly: 15,16,12,19,23,25 per hour (all in CAD, except the last which was in USD). The third was terrible and not really a technical position. Waterloo publishes a salary survey for its interns, so you can get an idea of what at least some interns are getting:
http://www.cecs.uwaterloo.ca/students/salary.php
In the last of the six I got my boss to tell me that I was still effectively a cheap contractor.
At my company, interns who are freshmen and sophomores are paid at 50% of the salary of the position that they are filling. Juniors are paid at 60% and seniors are paid at 75%. We hire interns to fill "real" engineering positions. For example, in my area, if we have an open simulation engineer req and we hire an (usually a senior) intern to fill it for the summer, that intern will actually do the job of a simulation engineer. And, if the intern is from our local university, the job will usually continue through the school year.
I started as an intern, kept interning through my senior year and continued as a full time employee after I graduated. For most of our engineers, that's almost the only way to get hired in this department - turnover is extraordinarily low. The last time somebody quit was maybe five years ago and she'd been here for ten years. We've had some internal promotions, but all the openings were filled with interns who then came back to work full time when they graduated.
As an aside (well, this whole post is almost an aside), that's a question for you to ask during your intervew: "What is the turnover rate here?" It might give you a little insight on how things are going in the company that you're considering working for.
Oh, as for my wife, when she interned in a social services job, she got paid nothing, which was typical for interns in her field of work.