pay rates for first job

First fulltime job. 8K 6 day. $9.50 per hour.19,760 per year in northern Michigan.

No overtime. Ok benefits.

 

hold out for 20k, but it's easy for some places to offer more vacation or personal days than more money. just keep that in mind. maybe ask for an extra week vacation if the pay sucks.

 

My first job was at a 20K (or so) in a town of 90,000. Made about 22K my first year, if I recall correctly. It was enough to live on in a town of that size (of course, I also had no college loans to pay back).

A guy we hired a few years later, presumably at a similar salary, had to live like a pauper, mostly because he charged his entire college education on MasterCard.

 

I made $8 and hour first fulltime gig. [blue]It was at a HUGE 1,200 circulation weekly. [/blue]

 

by the way do most small town newspapers pay for overtime, or do you just get paid your salary and that's it.

this gig i mentioned earlier is full time, but we all know newspaper full time is 50 hours not 40... so should i expect from this job and others in the future to get overtime or what?

 

I get overtime when I work extra desk shifts.

14-hour writing days are par for the course, with 8 hours worth of pay. Basically, if you're in the office, you get OT. If not, you're on your own.

 

Overtime, HA! Likely they are going to pull the same crap with you that a certain shop did with me right out of college, you are the SE, you are salary. Now, mind you that I was being paid $8/hour to work over 50 hours a week. Also, was told that I could either get paid for the miles I drove or the time that it took to get there, not both. In my opinion, if I drive an hour to cover the local high school, and then go right to work covering the game, I should get paid for my time. It wasn't like I was having fun driving across BFE to watch a basketball game.
HOWEVER, and I do say however, you need to jump at the job and work on the clips to get the better job. Don't hold out, there are lots of guys just like you coming out of school. Get in, get clips, and get on with your life.
Also, find a nice nurse that will take care of you, there is nothing better.

 

Doc, why don't you help the guy out and explain to him how to negotiate a better salary?

 

I'm sure I told this before, I'm sure.
At the aforementioned 8k paper, we were salary, but were made to punch in and out. Years later, after I left, someone had filed a grievance with the labor board about OT. Company had to cut OT checks.

It was a small, family-owned paper. they had two dailies and a bunch of weeklies and shoppers.

 

My first gig did for a while, but then started tightening the purse strings and stopped. Basically, what we would do is just make up the extra hours somewhere down the line -- take an extra week or so in the summer.

It's kind of the same at my current gig. I work pretty much seven days a week during football and basketball seasons. I don't claim overtime, and they don't wonder why they never see me from May to July. It's highly illegal, I'm sure. But it works for me.

 

I too feel like a jerk now. I just entered the field and am working at a suburban weekly making 24 and pulling another 10-15 freelancing. I will second the cost of living thing- although less than 20 will be hard to pull off anywhere.

 

So my buddy, who got 28k at his first gig out of college about a month after he graduated, isn't in the norm? Or even close?