What Salary Can I Ask For?

[j2trumpet]

I started designing websites nearly five years ago, have 15-20 freelance projects in my portfolio, graduated from California State University Sacramento in 2007 with a B.A. in Digital Media Communications, and live in Sacramento with a population of ~460K. I excel in (X)HTML and CSS, am proficient in the entire Adobe Creative Suite, am back in school learning Javascript and AJAX, and am learning PHP on my own. How large of a salary do you think would be appropriate to ask for during the interview process with a local web design firm? Thanks for the input.

[Mark_A]

In Britain (I am sure it is the same in the states) we have online job vacancy databases which you can search. They have a wealth of data about salaries for different roles, you can usually get a fair idea of what you can ask for by browsing them.

I have seen one of them (might have been monster) which actually lists salary expectations for a range of jobs.

[httpwebwitch]

Hi j2trumpet,

Wages are extremely variable geographically. What is normal in my city (Waterloo) is tripled if I drive an hour down the road to a larger metro (Toronto). Your best bet is to chat up some people in your town who already have similar jobs, and ask if they're willing to cough up their numbers.

There's a social taboo about discussing "what I earn", which is kind of silly but at times practical. If you can crack that, you'll get a good idea where your expectations should fit.

Last time I checked one of those salary expectation lists, the data was many years old and the numbers were far too low. Your mileage may vary.

[digitalv]

Find a "jobs" site where companies post jobs and disclose the salary and see what they're offering people with your skills.

[Jane_Doe]

Check out dice.com