I want Rs. 25K as a starting salary?

April 21, 2008 2:13 pm 56 comments

I’m writing this entry from Fast NU Lahore Job Fair and lets not even go there about the fair, that’s a completely separate entry.

I have interviewed about 30 or so students, all of them soon to be graduated in their respective fields like IT, HR, Marketing, Telecom engineering etc. When you ask them their expectation about salary, the uniform response is:

Question: What are your salary expectations?
Answer: It should be at least 25k +

Question: Why 25k, how you came about this figure?
Answer: Sir, I have spent X amount on my education and now have a BS / MBA degree in so and so field. And I think this starting salary would only compensate for the cost I have spent on my education.

Question: You understand that initially, any company be it my own or my clients, they would need to spend some time on your training to make you productive. Do you think it would be wise for any company to pay Rs. 25k to an employee who is going to perform 3~6 months after this training period?
Answer: Sir, XYZ bank is paying Rs. X to their MTO’s, then why we should not be benefited of the package?

When you start a dialogue with them about their expectations and the current market situation; they do realize the reality but then 25k rules ☺

How this happened? How the students have defined 25K, 30K or 35K as a benchmark for a starting MTO level position? Let’s discuss and is this a right conclusion from the students?

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56 Comments

  • Well first of all i donot think so that there is any viable reason for asking such questions. Every one has its level of satisfaction. Guys from top slot institutions spend 75 percent of their precious life time for their education only. I donot think so that 25000 is such a amount that should be even exaggerated. Every one has a right to claim for its abilities. Also keeping in view the high living cost now a days the above questions doesnot makes any sense.

  • Companies managers and executives should first consider present cost of living before asking such questions.

  • Well nice discussion.

    i think 25k is enough for a fresh graduate. i worked in SCB as DIRECT SALES REPRESENTATIVE. with a fixed 12000 salary and if you achieve your monthly target you can easily get 25k a month and which is engough for a graduate student, or in a student life.

    25k should be a standard for a fresh graduate.
    because in a student life average student expenses are not more then,

    5,000 for Mobile cards(loads) for 1 month.

    350 for daily(lunch & dinner)
    350×30=10,500 + 5,000 =15,500

    150 fo daily Car expenses(CNG, Diesel for 1month.)150×30=4500
    15,500 + 4,500=20,000

    and the remaining 5000 he can use for other expenses.

    i think these are the expenses of average students.

  • Yasir Nawaz Raja

    Its sad that employers do not realise the most important resource of all ‘human resource’. trends in business evolution have shown that well paid employees that are retained make a scalable company with many future prospects.

    I speak from experience of the textile industry (which was the pioneer industry of Pakistan), ever heard what happened?, textile engineers were not taken seriously & the MIAN or MALIK owners went about hoarding massive profits for their own gain, rather then re-investing in the employees & equipment. Today, they cry for any kind of subsidy & they say they are not competitive with other countries.

    The same goes with literally all the other industries at the moment, Telecoms, IT, banking, Manufacturers, Steel industry etc. ‘The CEOs are blinded by their none technocrat ways of not changing the way that business can evolve’.

    Retainers for employees & customers are very very important’ meaning how can you keep them.

    Any case study from Microsoft can enable any person to understand that stakeholdership to employees, retainers with added benefits, good exit strategis to employees and further retaining of customers to increase them can make business prosper. Other wise the cost & profit charts waver like a DSL connection with PTCL!!!!!

    What does this all mena Quality….. we need to talk quality!!!

    Let me finish to the question that was asked: do you know today a servant or Nauker (if without family) with full abilities to work can demand upto Rs.8000 per month with 1 day off, mind you, we also end up providing boarding & lounging besides the occasional 1-2 weeks of in the year? SO this end up to an accumulated cost of Rs.12000.

    So lets be realistic thats a retainer the rest well my frinds do not sell yourself short!!!

  • @Yasir Nawaz Raja Said – I agree on most of the points you raised. So far in my line of business software development, I have found one and only one thing, we are not that technically sound as we portray ourselves to be.

    Ever heard of “Technical Debt” ? Every person working to contribute to the company has a technical debt measure. The only people who keep it balanced are the ones who show an acceptable standard and worth paying hell lot than 25K.

    To be fair, companies should have efficiency markers and they should be made known to the employees as their efficiency markers increase, their salary will increase too.

    Anyhow, we should realize that we are in competition with the “world” therefore we should pay our employees well in return for efficiency. It’s time we come out of stagnant thinking.

    By the way, I really like shophive as it “works”. Couple of things I want to mention to make the author of this post aware that these will contribute a lot more than he might think.

    1. Usability: The usability factor is below 50% which should be at least 70%
    2. Visibility: below 30% on larger resolutions, this should be 100%

  • I have rather mentioned the practical side of the story in contray to HRM theories. Theories are their but in practical world there are other things which satisfy employees and increase their efficiency. If you want to increase productivity and increase efficiency of employees then you have to satisfy them financially or forget about Lums, UET, GIKI, Nust and choose a FA pass computer programmer which can work for you.

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