Hi Security Professionals:
Please note that there are a number of reasons why we don't post ranges
that include a minimum and maximum. And this is true for
consulting/staffing agency postings as well as direct-hire, corporate
postings.
As Shawn noted, most people would ask (and do ask) for the top salary.
Please note that each position in a large corporate enterprise goes
through a compensation process that identifies the level or band, etc. of
the position. That range is usually very wide. Why?
One reason is that this gives the hiring manager flexibility in hiring as
well as a benchmark for his current employees (fun HR stuff called salary
compression). They also market price to determine regional salaries by
industry or services provided. We might not like it, but HR is very
influential and ultimately determines the range based on criterion that we
don't always see. We as recruiters are constantly fighting the battle
along with IT (our direct customer) to make sure that our IT compensation
is fair and highly competitive.
Also, salaries are very subjective when you think about it. A security
analyst or engineer who supports a distributed Fortune 500 enterprise is
going to be worth more than the same professional supporting a small
company - even if the architecture/firewall/IDS used is the same.
Remember, it is very often the depth and breadth of the organization
itself that defines its technical needs. (i.e. variables like numbers of
servers, WAN, business units supported and mission critical applications,
etc.) We recruiters see this all the time when recruiting OS Systems
Engineers. Everyone thinks that because they are an MCSE, they merit 80K
without large enterprise experience, or hands-on experience in that size
environment with the specific technology requested.
As a corporate tech recruiter in South Florida, the salaries are about 25%
lower than the DC, CA, WA, and NY metropolitan areas. However, we do not
have state income tax here and cost of real estate balances this out. I
personally moved from CT and took a 25% cut from my NYC salary (when I was
in an infrastructure management position). But it evens out in the long
run. It's the sticker shock that gets you!
Also - market/economic conditions make this a buyers market. However, and
this is a BIG however - recruiters are not out to nickle and dime
professionals because of this. We know that if you don't offer a salary
that the candidate is worth, come Q1 2003 our hires will be walking out
the door. And guess who has to replace that person?
My two cents: I believe the best way to apply for a position is to
include current and requested salary and attach a resume as a Word or .rtf
document. I also believe that the market will not open up until 1Q
2003. Keep that in mind when you're requesting a salary that's over 10%
of your current salary. If you are not working, I would ask for the same
salary as your last.
Oh, and by the way, I don't know burger-flippers who make 65K to 110K - do
you? Let's all realize that the dot.com craziness is over and come back
to reality.
Hope this helps and good luck to all of you.
