<p>My son had a lot tougher time just getting internships than getting his actual job after college. For the internships, he’d do 2 or 3 interviews, some by phone, some on campus, traveled to a few…and then wouldn’t get hired. It was discouraging, but strangely enough, the 2 internships he got were some with the easiest interview process. For his job, there was an on campus interview, an interview to travel to (they paid), and then he immediately got the job offer, 8 months before graduation. Still there and loves it.</p>
<p>It was surprising to me how much more difficult getting an internship was than getting the job. But this company only recruits from his school, so that probably made a big difference.</p>
<p>I live in the Washington, DC area. There is an abundance of nonprofits here, but most don’t pay worth a damn.</p>
<p>I have friends who work in specialties where there are many jobs available in the nonprofit sector, but they can’t afford to take those jobs. In their experience, nonprofit jobs work well only for people who have some other source of income, such as a trust fund. The nonprofit salary just isn’t enough to live on in this expensive area.</p>
<p>What a non-profit can pay is largely based on what its resources are. If they need 60+ hours from an entry level, it doesn’t sound like they are sufficiently staffed. Good idea to pay the dues and look around. </p>
<p>I earned only $9,500 in my first teaching job at a private school and “volunteered” for a few after-school activities too. I’ll bet that I averaged 50 to 60 hours a week that first year.</p>
<p>It took my son six months to get his first job. His IT experience from his college work-study job worked to his advantage. His goal was to work at Cornell and he had four interviews there plus one in NYC for their fundraising group. Two interviewers told him they had other candidates with more experience than him. He was discouraged but never gave up. His break came when he attended a technical job fair and spoke to two reps and got two interviews. </p>
<p>DD accepted her first “real” job a couple of weeks ago and will be starting shortly after getting her Masters in early May. Her process was short and, I think, close to miraculous. She had an internship last summer and they liked her, but the company had no openings in her field. In fact it was downsizing. But one of the gentlemen she worked for had relocated to a company an hour from here and, after she sent her resume and a paper she’d written for a class, invited her for an interview during spring break. She had an interview and they offered her a job a couple days later.</p>
<p>The job is in her field with a decent salary ($50K but DC area) and hopefully will work out. The only other full application she had made was for her “dream job” with a nonprofit. It’s in NYC and the salary was $40K. If she is still interested after working a while, maybe she can get a better paying job there.</p>
<p>She can do okay in DC on $50K. My D started around that; she lives in an apartment near a metro line in a pretty good neighborhood, 2 other girls in the 3BR apartment. She is able to put money in her 401K and open a Roth, build up a 6 month emergency fund (can you tell what my priorities are for her?), go on vacations, go out for drinks and eat out, and generally enjoy her life in DC. It is a great city for young people. One thing that keeps her costs down is that she does not own a car – not really needed since she lives about 4 blocks from a metro stop.</p>
<p>D graduates in June. She went to many recruitment fairs during her Junior and Senior year. This lead to several more in depth interviews and to a handful of on-site interviews. She limited her search to her home area. She was offered a position staring at just under 60K for the fall after graduation.</p>
<p>Part of what attracted her to this particular company was their straight forward way of addressing the work/life balance issues. She was told there would be crunch times where it’s expected that everyone work 80 hours a week if needed. This was balance by 5 weeks PTO. One of her interviewers stated the place pretty much shuts down in June and many take 3-4 weeks vacation at that time.</p>
<p>I’m also wondering if the 600K is a typo. I’ve never heard of anyone making that kind of money(even in finance) in the two years after college. </p>
<p>In one of OP’s recent posts, she said she knew someone making $470K, perhaps referring to her D1. As I recall her D1 has been out of college maybe 4-5 years and works in S&T in an investment bank.
This type of all-in salary is still on the high side and is dependent on the profits made by her desk which apparently had a great year.
My S who is in buy-side finance, a 7 figure bonus is not uncommon for young adults in their late 20’s if your group has done well. However, he knows this level of income is not sustainable year after year.</p>
<p>I actually know of some young people making extremely good money in their 20’s… but they are essentially self-employed, running their own businesses, and did not attend particularly selective colleges. Their parents are business people, too – and I assume that the parents were well off enough financially to give the youngsters some seed money. </p>
<p>I’m just bringing this up because there is a difference between money earned from a straight salary, and money that might be earned through commissions or profits. Of course business owners tend to plow a lot of their profits back into their businesses – and those who rely on income derived from self-employment or commission-based jobs can also find themselves losing money, or at least have incomes that can fluctuate significantly from year to year. </p>
<p>If the OP’s daughter is working for a nonprofit which is truly a cause that she cares deeply about, then there may be benefits to that job-- for her – that are not financial. Some people feel that quite fortunate to be paid money for doing the things they would gladly do without pay, if only they had the time. If the daughter is working in an environment where most of the people around her are volunteers, she may consider herself quite fortunate to be paid.</p>
<p>On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes people with high pay also find that their careers lacking when it comes to emotional rewards. They may make excellent money but hate the work environment and feel constantly overwhelmed by the pressures of their work. </p>
<p>So you really have to look beyond just salary. </p>
<p>To be more fair, you should also mention people with high compensation thrive on the challenges and pressures of their job and aren’t in it purely for the money. </p>
<p>In our household oldest continued her work study job at her college ( after graduation so she was salaried) and worked part time and free lance until she decided to go to grad school about 4 years later.
Securing her current job was an ordeal compared to the hiring process for my first career type job.
She had multiple ( phone & in person) interviews over a 4 month period until she was hired & this was for a temp position. It was only after she had worked there for a year that she was taken on as a regular employee with benefits.
But it sounds like the sort of job she was aiming at. </p>
<p>Youngests first job out of college will be more like a paid internship and is time limited,( possibly less than a year) but I still think it is a very good opportunity for her.
Doesn’t pay much though, actually so little that I think we will have to take on her school loans which I didn’t plan for but am happy to do.
She is contracted for 30 hrs a week and 10 hrs of that will go toward her room & at least one meal a day.
But at least I will know where she is, she was telling her dad she wants to learn to sail, so she can take boats from port to port around the world.</p>
<p>My grandson’s first grade teacher was reassigned to teach kindergarten less than one month before school began. We were told they received more than 200 resumes for the open position. They hired a young woman whose only teaching experience was subbing in two other school districts. She has proven to be amazing and has fit right in. So there’s always hope for success no matter what obstacles lie in your path. </p>
<p>Just for the record, I did say D1 is earning UNDER $600,000. I did not want to give specific income. But it was not a typo. I also stated that she works in finance and graduated 4 years ago this May’14.</p>
<p>D2 does get benefits. One of the benefits is help with college loans. However, she does not have any.</p>
<p>So it sounds like several interviews, writing samples, maybe presentations is the norm now for entry level jobs?</p>
<p>I think there is considerable variability, depending on the field and position. S was hired for his first career position but because he had worked 2 summers in his field (and worked p/t during the year), they considered him to have 2 years of experience when they hired him even though his job was technically entry level, with scheduled promotions AND raises, up to a target rate. He never told us all the details of his interviews, but we believe he was flown to be interviewed probably at least twice before everything was said and done.</p>
<p>Yes, I believe your D2’s process was not as atypical as you might think, even though her working hours and wages sound difficult to take.</p>
<p>I can believe the $600,000 number. A lot of salaries are based on surveys and are usually reported as averages. There are huge variabilities in those numbers. I can tell you that in medicine, we will scoff at the averages because some incomes may be double to triple what is reported. Furthermore, many of the top earners will not participate in the surveys.</p>
<p>It would be nice to see incomes surveys that included medians, standard deviations, work hours, and years of experience. Otherwise it would be hard to say what incomes are fair or not.</p>
<p>"There are huge variabilities in those numbers. I can tell you that in medicine, we will scoff at the averages because some incomes may be double to triple what is reported. Furthermore, many of the top earners will not participate in the surveys.</p>
<p>It would be nice to see incomes surveys that included medians, standard deviations, work hours, and years of experience. Otherwise it would be hard to say what incomes are fair or not."</p>
<p>I agree with that. It can be really hard to compare without knowing specifics. In my profession, there are people who earn less than 20K, and some who earn more than 600K. Who you work for, how much you work, how long you’ve been with the company, specifically what equipment you work with can make a huge difference in income. When you see generic numbers, you wonder who even fits into those categories.</p>
<p>Agree about reported salaries. You can find out what government salaries in our state are for various fields, including public attorney, administrators, nurses, teachers and others, as well as the salary range. It tends to be significantly below the range for private industry, but the benefits tend to be great for the state and county. There are trade-offs.</p>
<p>Morrismm, your daughter might want to ask if the college loan benefit can be applied to something else.</p>
<p>You do need to factor in benefits in computing overall salary value – I mean, a $28,000 job that includes health insurance maybe better than a $32K job with out insurance – although on the low end of the pay scale, the availability of subsidized health insurance under ACA changes the equation somewhat. </p>