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Starting wage for skilled worker
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Okay, so I am going into a job interview this morning at a local screen printer and embroiderer in Boston. I have owned and operated my own manual silk screen press for about three years now. I am qualified, and experienced in this subject. They will be training me on an M&R Gauntlet automatic system. "Pay is based off of experience". Because I am familiar with the screen printing industry and they "would be willing to train the right person who has manual screen printing experience", and not have to train me on all the other aspects of the business(clean up, dealing with chemicals, cleaning and prepping screen, prepping emulsion, exposing images, ext.). what should I ask for a starting wage?
what was your starting wage for the career you have been training in for years?
any insight helps, thanks all.
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I hate when interviewers ask what you expect to make. It's such a loaded question but from what I've been reading, the best way to answer that question is to respectfully just throw the ball back in their court. I consider my job a technically advanced and demanding one. I make $36/hr with a guarantee of 75 hours pay per month. Although it's highly unlikely I'll make more than 100 hrs.
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I hate it when an Employe asks what you think your wage should be. Do you want me to tell you what I think it should be? Or what you want me to say...
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Have you tried looking up any information on glassdoor? I found even their free resources to be extremely useful during my time interviewing for jobs.
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Sounds like they'll pay you what they want to pay you. I'd shoot for $12-15
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Maybe you could ask what they'd pay someone who had to get trained and then I'd say since you're skilled with it, add 3-5 dollars per hour on top of that? I think that would be reasonable.
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I don't know anything about the industry or how long it takes to develop this skill set. So I will reply with $25 an hour because that's a decent livable wage.
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What are starting wages for entry level vs experienced?
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If you're shooting to make this your full time job, consider this:
$15/hr plus some once in a while overtime pay is roughly 30k a year.
I find that a lot of entry level skilled labor jobs start at that rate.
A job interview is your only time to brag about yourself and to tell them why they need to hire you and why you're worth what you want to get paid. That being said, if you feel you are a professional and are on par with industry standards, than you should have no problem asking for a professional beginning wage.
Bottom line, Ask for 16/hr, settle on $15/hr for the first 90 days, after your 90 day review, at least a bump of a $1.50/hr should be expected, and if I exceed your expectations we can discuss further details.
Employers like confident people, and like employees who know what they are talking about.
and keep in mind, sometimes its not you are worth, its what you negotiate.
Take it from me, as I am a self employed freelancer, and I negotiate rates every job I take. But I know my industry, I know how the rates work, how overtime works, and I am confident in my skill level to demand the rates that I ask for.
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I trained approximately 4 years for my job and got around 26/hr + 1.5 times overtime for my starting wage.
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