Unique Job – Salary Range Advice

[Walter Biscardi]

All I’ll say is in-house corporate never pays the same as working in a production facility. Or at least it rarely does.

When you work in corporate, it’s a given that you will wear many hats and perform all sorts of duties which go beyond what you were originally hired for and what your job title is. When I worked in corporate, my title was usually Editor, but I did Animation, graphic design, writing, camera, directing, producing, DVD authoring, show running, you name it I did it. All for the same salary.

Yes, companies pay a lot when they go outside to agencies and production companies, that’s just the way it works. But that money does not come from the same pool as your salary so they are two completely different things. So you “saving them money” over an agency does not automatically mean you get a $25,000 raise if you saved them that much over the agency.

These days 4 to 6% raises are the norm, or even higher than the norm. One thing you have done, and one of the reasons I encourage a lot of newbies to go into corporate production, is you have developed a tremendous skill set over if you had just taken a motion graphics job somewhere. Sure you’d be a better motion graphics guy, but you wouldn’t have all those other skills that are useful to small companies like mine.

I have no idea what the going rate is in Pittsburgh so I can’t help you with the salary. But definitely don’t get into the “well I’m saving you all this money” argument because that money is allocated from another part of the company budget and it will fall on deaf ears. If you can get a 10% raise that will be doing very well. If you think that will still leave you underpaid, float your resume around to local production houses, see if anyone is interested and what type of salary they think you’re worth.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.

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[Zane Barker]

I know its sad but sometimes the only way company will understand what a in house production person is worth is when they discover that they cannot find a replacement because they wont pay enough n

As for using your own personel equipment. DON’t!!! Not even if they pay you more. They ether provide the equipment or they pay to rent it each time it is needed. If you don’t follow that and use your own personel equipment then one of two things will happen. 1 they will assume that they are providing all the equipment needed to produce the level of production that you are giving them. They will assume this because they may not know you are using your own personel equipment. 2 they will continue to “use” you. If they know you are using personel equipment why should they pay you more for it or privide any for you, and why should they you provide it for free. And if your providing that for free then they will always be looking for other things you can do for them without any additional compensation. For example the books you are buying yourself so you can learn to do the work they are assigning you. If they assign you work you don’t know how to do, THEY need to be paying for any training materials needed.

**Hindsight is always 1080p**

[Bill Davis]

Another way to look at it.

Congratulations. You’ve managed to get a company to pay you a reasonable liveable wage while you accumulated an incredible range of personal skills and competencies.

Most other people would have had to spend THOUSANDS of dollars in schooling and training to assemble a similar skill set – but you’ve managed to do it on SOMEONE ELSES DIME!

BRAVO!

Now all you have to do is decide whether you want to continue to learn and progress within the conditions they’re willing to PAY YOU to do – or whether you think that you’re capable of taking this knowledge and going out in the free marketplace and see if that marketplace values the skills similarly (or even MORE than you do.)

Nobody can answer that question for you.

The only note I’ll make is this. It’s a VERY difficult market out here even for the MOST talented and accomplished people. If you’re not willing to LOSE your current position. Walk softly. Make sure you’ve secured an alternate position before you put your foot down regards demands on this one.

[Steve Martin]

Hi Joshua,

Here’s a different way of looking at it. You can look at the situation that you are in as a paid post-graduate degree that you got paid to attend instead of paying for it out of your pocket.

If you feel that you have “graduated” perhaps it’s time for a “promotion” to a new position. If it’s a large organization, that’s often the only method by which people can get a significant raise – by getting a different job title.

Of course that presupposes that your boss has the same opinion of your skills that you do. And that they have the budget to give you the promotion you believe that you deserve.

If you like the job, the people and the company, it might be worth gentle persuation to convince them that yo’re worth it. If you’re doing the kind of things you say you are and you’re likable and work well with others, have an open and honest conversation about how much you like being there but would like to earn more.

If you don’t really like the job, consider polishing your resume and demo reel. But tread carefully. Don’t allow yourself to develop a bad attitude and “check out” mentally.

Remember, it’s a tough job market out there so recognize that all of us are replaceable – especially in this economy.

Good Luck

Production is fun – but lets not forget: Nobody ever died on the video table!

[Steve Martin]

Bill,

Pretty funny…it’s as if we were both reading the same script!

Steve

Production is fun – but lets not forget: Nobody ever died on the video table!

[Bill Davis]

I’m fond of the phrase “get your mind out of the gutter so mine can float by”
at least this time you and I are paddling in the clearer stream!

[John Davidson]

Your best bet for more money is to negotiate an exit and establish yourself as a vendor for the same company.

[Mike Cohen]

[Joshua Klinkenberger] “Unfortunately my position, since starting here, has changed A LOT and is quite unique.”

Actually Josh, your position is pretty common – a company hires you for X, finds you are pretty good at Y and Z and they keep giving you more and interesting things to work on.

Generally you should wait until a performance review to suggest a salary upgrade, or risk alienating yourself, especially during economic times like we are all coping with.

Sure there is a possibility that your bosses do not appreciate your talents or what you are worth, but they no doubt appreciate the work you do. But maybe they have not considered the value of your work vs paying a la carte for it with outside services.

So rather than trying to tell them how freaking awesome you are (which you may be) – sell them on how you are doing work they would otherwise pay outside contractors for. You might poke around on the web for service providers in your area, and figure out some ballpark numbers, such as what the going rate is for the various projects you deliver.

Consider the two statements:

1. I’m awesome and you should pay be X because I do great work and I do a lot more than you hired me for.

or

2. Over the past year I have completed X projects, and at prevailing rates for outside services, we would have had to pay Y. Thus, for my salary, we are getting a great deal.

Assuming the difference between X and Y is more than say $50,000, then you may have some leverage, but as Walter pointed out, saving them money is not necessarily an easy sell.

Regarding statement 1, bosses do not like being told by their employees that they are doing something wrong in the eyes of the employee, and they certainly do not like demands or managing up.

It is a buyer’s market for employers, so present your position in a way that benefits your bosses – their paradigm is what is important to them, and should be to you too.

Good luck and address this post haste.

Mike Cohen

PS – Google yourself

[Moira Elefson]

I’ve heard the same thing about the many hats thing, so it’s really starting to settle in now. And you are defiantly right about saving the company money vs getting a raise. Money flow is so strange in a corporation. Departments charge each other and I’ve even seen one group charge another rent for using their space! Crazy system – so I’ll try some of my other means for my proposed salary raise.

It’s actually not so much a raise as it is a completely new starting salary. At least I hope if goes that way because like you said, raises are usually percent based and even at 10%, I’m going to have to leave. Everyone gets yearly raises of about 1-5% (pending on company performance) but since my starting salary was so low, those raises have been miniscule.

I am very thankful for the skills I’ve learned, and I’ve actually been dedicating about 80% of all my outside time on my new portfolio/website. I’ll begin a new demo reel soon and I can jump back into the market and see what happens.

Thanks Walter.

[Moira Elefson]

I’ve been thinking about the personal equipment thing more and more, and I have to say I agree now. If they want to do something more complicated than they can with what they’ve provided, I’ll offer them to rent my equipment at decent rates compared to local rentals. There may be a ‘conflict of interest’ to rent my equipment, but if my rates are the best, then it should be ok – I’ll deal with that when I get to it tho. I have used my own camera when I first started, and one day I didn’t have it, someone wanted a picture taken and they got bent out of shape when I said I couldn’t. “Sorry I didn’t bring MY camera to work today!” ha I didn’t really say that, but your right, that’s how it goes. Now they’ve bought some stuff, but if I brought my video stuff in, it would probably become annoying/they’d take advantage of me more.

Ah, and actually when I said I bought all those book, I just meant I bought them at work. My company paid for all my books, training, certifications, software, etc. I bought a couple of books, but ones less relevant to my job.

Not plugging anyone or anything, but Andy Epstein’s book The Corporate Creative is phenomenal! It’s really changed the way I look at everything at work now. It’s really motivating while also showing some of the ugly truths. It was wrote for graphic designers, but as a corporate creative… it’s worth reading anyway. Also, it’s a 2-3 nights read.

Thanks Zane