Jun 14, 2010

Employers are Lowballing New Hires

Posted by Wendy Weber

A recent article by Ruth Mantell for the Wall Street Journal entitled Employers Are Lowballing New Hires sums up something that we as recruiters have seen over the past year.

It begins, “The job market may be recovering, but some salary offers are still a few years behind.”

With a high level of unemployment over the past few years, competition for existing jobs has been fierce.  “An offer that might have been $100,000 a few years ago is now coming in at $85,000 or $89,000.”  The article encourages those who receive a low offer to compare that offer to what they can get elsewhere in the current market, rather than what they could have received before the recession began.  The longer a worker remains jobless, the harder it is to impress companies.

In my opinion, while  it can be distressing for job seekers to settle for a salary that they feel is not comensurate with their expectations, if the job offers  the opportunity to grow professionally  it may be more valuable to get back into the game, and acquire new experience, than to “hold out” for a salary that is more palatable.

To read the article in its entirety, click here.

In