My Salary

[DedMeet]

Just a question to everyone out there, About earning a decent salary. I have been employed by the same company for 3 years now, My Annual salary is $26,000 CAD. I am a Telecom Technician who Installs and Administrates telecom equipment all over the Niagara Area in Ontario and all of the way out to Toronto approx 100Miles away. I do all of the wiring, programming, and setup of telephone systems. I am Nortel Certified and Avaya Certified along with VoIP Certified. I have no benefits at all, I get a van the company provides me with to drive around from call to call. I manage a 130+ School contract which always requires work along with a database of over 3000 Respective clients. And I take care of all of the local installs. Wondering what kind of salary I should be making or close to it. I feel im worth a lot more then 26K but how do you justify that to your boss. I have seen other telecom tech;s making upwards of 60K is this accurate? Any feedback would be great ..

-DedMeet

"Do What I Say, Not What I Do

 

[Loradan]

Salary is a touchy subject. If you want to know what you "could" make, do some searching on local job boards. If you find out that the average rate for someone with your qualifications is indeed 60k...then sit down with your boss and express your concern (calmly...getting mad will do you no good). At that point, one of three things will happen...you will get an immediate raise, you will be presented with an offer to increment your raise, or you will be told that it won't happen. You then need to make a personal decision of what you will do for each situation. If you're only making 26k and there are jobs out there for 60k, then it would all depend on whether your employer is willing to give you a raise(or other benefit to compensate) then I would begin looking for another job.

 

[IT4EVR]

I think we can all agree you are woefully underpaid for what you do, now you need to support your case.

Try salary.com. You should be able to get a salary for your occupation in your area. You can print it out and bring it to your meeting with the boss.

 

[IT4EVR]

I found this page on salary.com for Buffalo, NY for various telecommunications positions. Hopefully this will guide you in the right direction.

http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/...rrowcode=IT09&zipcode=&metrocode=28&x=49&y=10

 

[j4606]

Opinions may vary on the suject but I would apply for other jobs first before asking for a raise. If you think you are underpaid, then I suggest you start sending out resumes. A career counselor told me that even if your not looking for jobs you should always send out a resume every couple of months just to see how your resume will do in the event that something happens. IT is a fast paced industry it's always good to keep up with market and do a check every now and then. Many people fail to keep up with the lastest technologies and find themselves unable to reenter the job market. I send out my resume about 2 times a year. I'm happy with my job so i never acctually accept an interview, but it's always good to know I have options. If in the rare occurance my resume doesn't get a call back then I know I have rework my resume and skills. You should really prepare for the worse and hope for the best. Get another offer, ask your boss for a raise, if he says no then tell him you have another better paying offer. Also 26k seems like very little.

I don't know the answer but my good friend Google does.

 

[IT4EVR]

If the place you work at currently has respect for their employees, they will listen to your salary concerns and work something out.

I once was in a very similar position to you and I was promised a raise. However they would always put it off with some excuse.

So then I received an offer for another job within the company and that provided the leverage I needed. When I walked into the director's office announcing I had another offer, she scurried around and said she could get that raise signed right now. I smiled and said for her not to bother, that I had signed the offer sheet and would be leaving.

Each workplace is different. If you have a good relationship with your current manager, I think you can be direct and provide evidence to support your cause. Otherwise you will probably have to find another job.

 

[paterson]

Even when I first started in TCOM 5 years ago in BC, I was paid about $35,000/yr CAD just to do wiring and start learning about phone systems.

At your salary of $26,000, assuming that you work approx 40hrs/wk, you are making an hourly wage of $12.50. That is grossly underpaid for a technical position in Canada, let alone Ontario.

I sure hope you have a great relationship with your boss, otherwise I don't think you have much hope of getting a significant increase unless you find another job. It sure looks like this company is abusing your job market experience.


**************************************
My Biggest problem is that I almost always believe what I tell myself.

 

[jshurst]

I'm not in the telecom industry, but I can tell you this...The best way to get more money quickly is to change positions (mainly outside the company). There should be plenty of jobs out there that will pay you more money and give you some benefits.

I see the certifications but do you have a college degree as well? If not then I would think about getting one... and looking for a new job ;-)

 

[wmichael]

I echo 'jshurst.' My greatest raises have been due to changing companies. In some cases, you are hired as cheap, inexperienced labor to get your foot in the door. After 3 years, you have proven yourself as a valuable resource so may be getting better-than-average raises at your company while still being very underpaid.

Experience counts. Dust off the resume and start looking. It is turly best to look for a new job when you do not *need* one; you can be a little more selective when not desperate.

Good luck!

~wmichael

"small change can often be found under seat cushions

 

[ITGUY53]

i agree with jshurst and wmichael.

i use to do contract work and was getting paid about 20-22 USD per hour for my general IT work. they knew that i was inexperienced, and was looking for work, so they took advantage of that. i kept jumping from one company to another and my excuse was that i did contract work and i can see that my salary kept going up. now i earn 70,000USD where i'm sure that's well over 22USD per hour over seas where my salary is completely untaxed from STATE and FEDERAL. then again i work as system administrator where i deal with software more and hardly on hardware. i think you get paid more in the software side of the house of IT.

good luck.

 

[RhythmAddict112]

No matter what you decide to do in terms of staying, or going, I think we all agree sending some resumes out would be wise at this cross. See how many calls you get back, check out what they're offering at mininmum. You never know.
Good Luck

http://geekswithblogs.net/sanjayu/

 

[mot98]

Hi DedMeet,

You are definetely being underpaid. I live in Kitchener, just an hour or so away, and $26K is way below average for that type of job with 3 years experience.

Take a quick look at

http://www.monster.ca

at their salary wizard to get a comparison in your area.

Personally, after 3 years (Not sure what you were doing before) I would think you would be in the $45-55K range.

Once you can do a comparison, schedule a meeting with you boss and have a talk about your salary. Show him your research.



mot98

"Is it friday yet?"