Regarding compensation

[Radha Damera]

Hi.....
Iam in search of job. I have 31/2 yrs experience in java and J2EE technologies with a masters in Information Systems.I was offered an open position from a consultancy. They said that they will pay me 50k with benefits in California or in Seattle, WA.
Is it ok? I feel that 50k is too low especially for CA. B'se I have received calls from various agencies which can offer $40-50 per hour.So it is kind of hard for me to decide between high hourly rate with no benefits or salary with health insurance and other benefits.
So can anyone advice me in this regard.
I appreciate your time and help.
Regards
Radha.

[Mimi Chan]

I live in the Seattle area and work in the IT department. Having said that, 50K per year is a little low. But then you must consider how long you have been searching for this position, and you may not know when you will get another job offer.

[Sadanand Murthy]

Originally posted by Damera Radha:

So it is kind of hard for me to decide between high hourly rate with no benefits or salary with health insurance and other benefits.

If you take the hourly rate: Assuming that this is a year-long project:
You factor in the # of productive hours you are likely to put in. Start at the standard 40 hrs/wk = 2080 hrs/year. Subtract (holidays + vacation that you may take + an estimate of sick days) * 8 = hours you won't get paid for. Normally, there will be 6 holidays; perhaps 3-5 days of sick days. Most Americans will take 2-3 weeks vacation over the course of the year. Your name sounds Indian. In that case, you may need to take 4 or 5 weeks of vacation if you are planning a trip to India. An approximation of 35 days comes to 280 hrs that you won't get paid for. That leaves you with 1800 paid hrs. 1800 * hourly rate - annual health insurance premium will be what you will be looking at in gross income. Compare this to the yearly salary & see what makes sense. Keep in mind that the hourly wage project may get cancelled 3 weeks into it. So you have to factor in this risk also and see how comfortable you are with this risk.

[Sunder Chitturi]

There are companies that give more than 40-50 , but now a days there is so much competetion for that and also god only knows when those opennings will come.

[Joe Richard]

If you need a job you should take the lower paying steady job. The stable lower paying job may be the best way for you to go for now untill the job situation picks up. Everyone is feeling the crunch, so if you could stay at the lower paying job and ride out the unstable job market for a while you would be ok.
$40-$50 jobs are hard to find, but if you land a long term gig it would be great. With a long term project you should be able to pay for your own medical insurance, even with the 1800 working hours per year. I did consulting work for a company that allowed the consultants to come in during the holidays to work, so they would get paid for the holiday. There is a big risk with the $40-$50 jobs, they could cancel the contract after 2 weeks.
The question is do you like to gamble or play it safe?
Joe

[gowri desai]

Radha,
IF you have been looking for a job of a long time ( > 6 months) I would suggest you to go ahead and take it. From my experience, if the company knows how talented and hard working you are they will raise your salary automatically. When I started on my first job after 3 years break, this consulting company offered me 19 $/hr ( not to mention I have to take train to work- 7 $ per day). I took the job as I had no offer at hand other that false promises by some consulting companies for 45-50$/hr. Within 6 months the company raised my salary to 60K. This hike was done both my client and the consulting company.
if you like the job description go for it, you have nothing to loose.

Gowri

[Jeroen Wenting]

Indeed take what you can get and look on from there...
I lost my job last year and took another position (on a temporary contract) paying 30%+ less (plus lesser benefits).
I did this for several reasons:
1) I hated sitting at home without even money to buy studybooks to increase my knowledge
2) The longer you're out of the loop the smaller your chances to get another job!
3) It was still a little more than my unemployment money.
Few months later I landed a permanent position that pays almost the same as my original job by now.