mhags: If I got a bachelor degree, and paid 20,000-30,000 for it, then I would go by the industry standard (average), which is well above 30,000 for sure In what exactly? A bachelor of arts means nothing in the computing industry. Mind you, a bachelor of arts means nothing anywhere these days......lol. But I think you get my meaning. A degree in a field unrelated to the position you're applying for isn't going to get you a higher salary. In fact, you'll lose out on the position simply because someone else with a degree/diploma/certifications in that field who has experience will get the job. If it's a Bachelor degree in computing sciences then yes, you could expect a starting salary in line with the standard. Sorry had to rant a little, but I graduated 2 years ago, so I know how it works. I didn’t start out high, but I proved myself by working hard, and was rewarded in a timely manner, so I could be included in that average. No worries and no offense. However, real world vs. "standards" posted on the web differ as a rule of thumb. Usually widely depending on where in the industry you're being employed and what kind of qualifications you have. You proved youself and were rewarded. That's how it works. Congratulations on a job well done! I did notice however you didn't make any mention of your salary.....starting or present. Not that it's necessary but, did you start at $35k/yr, $40k/yr....more/less? Approximate numbers are good enough. I'm curious myself as to what type of degree/diploma you have and approximately what it got you for a starting wage/salary. It's been a few years since I was green so I'm out of touch with base salaries. roberts1614: Curt, what would you think would be the magical number of years of experience to expect a higher pay? 2-3? Most decent positions state flatly in the announcement, "2 years experience or better". That's not to say they won't hire a greenhorn right out of school....but that person won't make as much as someone with similar qualifications and experience. For obvious reasons. As to what cert's........well, that depends a lot on what you want to do. If you wish to be a network administrator, something like your MCSE is a good way to go. If you want to be a network technician, Network+ is a good idea. If you want to be a hardware tech....A+. Most all of my vendor cert's I got on-the-job as required by the company I was working for. If you already have a BS in Network Communications Management and want to get into networking, then you likely don't need any cert's........just a job. Once you have a couple of years of experience, if you feel you're not being paid enough, or not happy where you are, then you can pretty much count on having a real good chance at any networking position you find interesting. Really, all a cert or diploma or degree means is you have a "minimum level of knowledge" in a certain field. If you have the aforementioned BS, then cert's like Network+ are meaningless (and likely a waste of your time) as you already know everything the Network+ course contains........and hopefully a whole lot more! If you want a real good idea what a certain type of position is paying......read career postings and look at the salaries associated with the types of positions you're interested in. That will give you a better idea than a "standard average salary" web site. Those I've noticed tend to be rather.....generous. Likely in an effort to entice more people to opt for schooling in that direction. As a rule of thumb, the higher your education, the higher your starting salary. The more experience, the higher the salary. High education + experience = excellent pay and benefits.....etc etc

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This whole discussion no offense to anyone involved is pretty absurd. #1. There is no mention geographically where this job is located. You have to pay someone for a position not just based on skills, experience, but also cost of living for the geographic location. For example, I just accepted a position in a location other than where I was even though it paid a bit less partly because cost of living was substantionally less. Adjusted for cost of living, it turned out to be a sizeable raise. Point being you better pay your people WAY more in LA than you do in Kansas City. #2. People talk about paper tigers in certs all the time, but few people talk about paper tigers in experience. For example, compare the following candidates: Candidate 1: MCSE 2000, MCSA 2000: Messaging 5 years of IT experience Skills: Windows 2000/2003, Active Directory, Exchange 2000/2003 College degree: Master's in completely unrelated to IT at a state university Candidate 2: MCSE NT4 15 years of IT experience Skills: Windows NT4/2000, Active Directory, Novell, Linux Associates Degree in computer science at community college Who would you hire or pay more? Candidate 1 was me at the time I got hired at my last job; Candidate 2 came in as a direct peer on my team. Candidate 2 quickly established a reputation of being a complete idiot, repeatedly causing service disruptions, had a very poor understanding of Active Directory, virtually no knowledge of Linux nor Novell. He gained no additional certs within the last year. It got to the point he was given barely any projects that had potential to cause service interruptions because he was so inept, and management was moving to fire him before I left for greener pastures. I on the other hand quickly established myself as knowledgeable and a go to guy to resolve issues and improve operations. I improved the servers in the environment's scoring on CIS benchmarks from 56 to 98. I introduced security auditing, centralized patch management, and I built a completely isolated Exchange environment all virtualized for testing within days singlehandedly. I gained gained MCSA 2003 Messaging within a year. On paper he looked like the better candidate, but most of what he claimed as experience was total bullcrap, and even if he was more knowledgeable say in NT4, who cares when the environment was mostly 2000 being migrated to 2003? 15 years of experience means absolutely nothing. He obviously learned very little in those 15 years, whereas my years of experience I got 1000x more skills and knowledge. "Most MCSE's these days (the paper kind) are lucky to make $10.00/hour working on a helpdesk without experience." I know MCP's making six figures. Certs don't mean you know what you're doing anymore than a college degree or what purported experience you have. The most important qualities for a new hire to possess is the motivation to learn, and the ability to learn things and apply it. Next comes relevant skills to the job. My reasoning is quite simple: No one knows everything, and "everything" changes rapidly as new technologies come about. Good people have the skills you need right now. Great people have the skills you need now and will continue to do so. #3. Where you go to school is as meaningless as if you even went to school at all. I don't have a college degree in anything remotely related to IT. (Master's in Secondary Education). #4. Conduct a technical interview to see what he knows and doesn't know, particularly skills related to things specifically in your network. Hope this helps! Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org

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You know hero, I like reading your posts....a lot. You know what you're talking about and always make sense and I've managed to learn from you. You brought up little details in this string I never even thought to mention although I should have. Especially since I moved for the position I'm now in. Do me a favor if you don't mind, click on my alias above and email me. I'd like an opportunity to talk outside of this forum with you.

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Thanks Hero and everyone else for the posts, they are really insightful. I did mention in my first post however, that the job was located in central FL (very high cost of living these days!) He graduated with a 3.97 GPA from Devry University in Orlando, FL with a BS in Network Communications Management and is currently pursuing his MBA, with a concentration in Project management or IT security (can't remember which one.) Thanks again everyone. I think that this post is real insightful for a lot of people.

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The CoL for central FL is not common knowledge for all involved in the conversation. The point therefore had to be made. I kept seeing average salaries listed, and it wasn't mentioned whether or not this job was in a higher than avg CoL area. So be sure to offer him whatever the fair average for the job is plus the increase in CoL in that area over the average. "He graduated with a 3.97 GPA from Devry University in Orlando, FL with a BS in Network Communications Management and is currently pursuing his MBA, with a concentration in Project management or IT security (can't remember which one.)" Has any attempt been made to: A. Find out what actual skills this guy has? Has a technical interview been done? B. Have you determined how determined this guy is, how hard he will work to learn new things to support your environment better? Before I left my last job, I helped to interview someone to replace me. MCSE 2000, had 13 years of IT experience, and a college degree. When I asked him name a core service that Active Directory depends upon, he couldn't name one, claiming he didn't understand the question. When I asked him what name resolution does AD use, he said WINS. Needless to say, he wasn't hired. You have to evaluate him with those things in mind. If you can't eval him based on that, time to hire a company to find you a good candidate. Otherwise, you have no idea how good they are, and what to pay them. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org

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haha i took networking for 4 years, and now im a fiberglasser/network admin(not main part of my job) been working for the same company for 7 years, past 2 yrs ive built there web/email server, i manage 5 other computers, and starting one remotly in another city. i dont get paid as a techie, its just somthing i do, but great exp.

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If you are interested in hiring him (or at least finding out what he really knows) give him a written test or have a list of questions and ask in an interview format and judge for yourself BUT, ask real world type questions and not something that he is just going to regurgitate the answer straight out of a book. We give one (one that should be relatively easy) but, very few pass even though they are MCSE & supposedly have several years exp. Unfortunately you are going to have to do something like this to really find the deal before wasting time and money. If you aren't comfortable evaluating it, have a service or consultant do it. H3ll you could do worse than ask for a few questions from here. I am in Atlanta where salaries are somewhere in the median so people are asking for/expecting 80K and getting it but, when you look at their history, none stay anywhere very long. Just long enough to get paid and leave before they screw up too bad and get exposed. Our test has a mix of things like things from naming the OSI model to name the FSMO rules to stuff like give them a subnet and have them calculate how many legit IP's can be created all the way down to 'list the steps to adding a NW printer'. Funny thing is, the stuff like adding a printer to a domain or 'what are the steps to audit a nw share' are the ones they always miss b/c you'll find that they seldom actually have hands on exp which is by far (in my opinion anyway) the most important as ANYONE can memorize a test and puke the answers back out. Anyway, hope it helps. BTW, one last thing, we have two Devry Campuses here in Atlanta and the graduates generally speaking have absolutely no clue as to how to manage a NW.

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"BTW, one last thing, we have two Devry Campuses here in Atlanta and the graduates generally speaking have absolutely no clue as to how to manage a NW." Not slamming Sanchez for saying this, but keep in mind that's "generally speaking". Don't think this guy doesn't know what he's doing (or does for that matter) because he went there. Conduct a fair technical interview. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org

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Hero, I hated using that term (generally) but, the just seem to be pretty far behind here. Hopefully, that is here thing as from what I understand, they are paying about 70K for 4 years at Devry....

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