Graduate position likely salaries?

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ajobbins

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#666976 3-Aug-2012 13:49

timmmay: Interesting. So it's less after currency conversion, less with the currency ignored, or less as a fraction of your total income? Probably all three.

I know when I was in Australia I was pleasantly surprised how much cheaper taxis are than NZ.

About the same with currency ignored (On balance. Some things more, but most things less)

'Currency Conversion' is the same as the above tho, assuming you are converting both income to NZD and expenses to NZD. If I just convert income to NZD it's less expensive here. If I only convert expenses to NZD it's more expensive here.

Much less as a fraction of total income. (Same outgoings, more incomings)

Not to mention my employer here pays 9% on top of my salary to my super fund. In NZ super came OUT of my salary (The way they work out the 'total package' included the employer contribution).

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khull

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#668640 6-Aug-2012 23:19

ajobbins: I got a grad job with a large IT multinational 3.5 years ago (Beginning of 2009) in Wellington.

Started on $44k plus bonuses (which turned out to be a fraction of what was promised, despite being in the top 10% of performers).

Fast forward 3.5 years later and I am now on a comfortable 6-figure salary.....in Melbourne. I move up pretty fast and held some management positions, but the big salary jump was definitely when I came to Oz.

timmmay: Remember the cost of living's a lot higher in Australia.

Disagree. Dollar for dollar, my cost of living here is less. That said, there are a lot of tax complexities and I do pay more tax here. I won't be buying property here because a) We don't plan to be here more than a couple of years b) Stamp Duty would just be a total waste of money for a short term purchase in a depressed property market and c) the VIC government has removed their incentives for first home buys of newly built properties, so now you can only get the $7k federal grant - which is only a fraction of what we would have to pay in stamp duty.

But overall - cost of living here = less

How much over 6 figures as a guideline? And supposedly the responsibility is the same what percentage less would an equivalent NZer be on?

timmmay

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#668676 7-Aug-2012 07:35

A contract architect or project manager with ten years experience can make $200K in NZ.

ajobbins

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#669283 7-Aug-2012 20:54

khull:
ajobbins: I got a grad job with a large IT multinational 3.5 years ago (Beginning of 2009) in Wellington.

Started on $44k plus bonuses (which turned out to be a fraction of what was promised, despite being in the top 10% of performers).

Fast forward 3.5 years later and I am now on a comfortable 6-figure salary.....in Melbourne. I move up pretty fast and held some management positions, but the big salary jump was definitely when I came to Oz.

timmmay: Remember the cost of living's a lot higher in Australia.

Disagree. Dollar for dollar, my cost of living here is less. That said, there are a lot of tax complexities and I do pay more tax here. I won't be buying property here because a) We don't plan to be here more than a couple of years b) Stamp Duty would just be a total waste of money for a short term purchase in a depressed property market and c) the VIC government has removed their incentives for first home buys of newly built properties, so now you can only get the $7k federal grant - which is only a fraction of what we would have to pay in stamp duty.

But overall - cost of living here = less

How much over 6 figures as a guideline? And supposedly the responsibility is the same what percentage less would an equivalent NZer be on?

I probably have less responsibility in my current job than I did in my last two roles in NZ, one of which I had people management responsibilities. That said, I was underpaid for the roles I was doing in NZ - pitfalls of climbing the ladder too fast

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JimmyH

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#669327 7-Aug-2012 22:12

For your first job, worry less about salary and whether you could extract a few more dollars at the margin, and concentrate on getting a good entry level job where you will learn a lot and be able to progress on the career path you want.

Sorry to say it, but freshly minted graduates aren't (usually) terribly valuable to an employer - it's usually not until they have 12-24 months work experience that they start to add significant value. Rather than push the employer on salary, push on experience and training. That's worth more in the long-run than $2-3K on your initial salary.

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