Remember that at the end of the day you are providing a service that others are able to provide also, so the competition and supply and demand of the position dictate the market price for your salary. You can't expect to make more or less than around $5,000 of that average figure, for your level of experience and based on your previous salary. For instance, if you were getting paid $45,000/year in Seattle and the same position paid $65,000 in Los Angeles, you can expect that the most the employer will be willing to pay is $70,000, no matter how good you are. There will always be someone nearly as good as you who is willing to accept the average pay for the position. Don't let this discourage you: in fact, you should be researching average salaries more than ever because an employer will want to know what salary you expect and you do not want to be too far outside of that figure when giving them your estimate.
When an employer asks for your desired salary, give them a range of around $15,000-$20,000. If a job pays an average of $50,000 then you should tell them you expect $45,000-$60,000. You want to start lower than the average just to show that you are flexible, and then pivot the average of your range slightly higher than the average pay for the position. The average of $45K-$60K is $53,000--$3,000 higher than the median. The employer will most likely not pay you the bottom figure in your range just to show that they care more about you, and they will want to pay somewhere in the middle.
How do you find average salaries for an area? You could try simplyhired.com and click on "salaries," although I have found this to be wildly inaccurate and gives you a very rough estimate of what you can expect. You can also try a cost of living comparison (if you already have a job), such as CNN's http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/. These are also inaccurate because housing is such a big factor and the sad reality is that game developers usually live in the nicest cities in the USA but they do not own homes in those cities. Another website that is more accurate, because it relies on actual user data and experience level, is Payscale.com. It takes a while to fill out their report, though, especially if you are looking for quick estimates and in different cities.
Want to know a little secret that I discovered recently, that is the best of the best for figuring out a fair salary for your position? Glassdoor.com
Glass door is users inputting their own anonymous data about how much money they are making in their current position. You can search by studios and all of the big names have good data: Blizzard, Naughty Dog, Rockstar, etc. I highly recommend this website and encourage those in the industry to share their information with others. This is the best defense that we as employees have over HR departments exploiting us and trying to charge too little for our valuable work as game developers. I'm sure that studio owners and publishers hate this, as they would want to keep more profit for themselves, but there is such an unfair advantage right now of how much publishers are profiting from the hard working developers--who are doing the real work in making video games.
Even if you are shy it is worth it to practice negotiating your salary. You will probably have less room to do this if you are just starting out, as I didn't negotiate my first couple of jobs because I was so eager to start working and didn't want the opportunity to pass me up. I don't know if I would change that if I could go back in time, so you may want to do the same. But, if you are getting more experience, then studios are expecting you to negotiate and you will feel more valuable as a person for being able to charge what you feel you are worth.
Good luck getting the most pay for your hard work!
-Ken
http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/salary-negotiation-tips-tricks/
No comments:
Post a Comment