Salary Negotiation and how do we find out going rates in an area?

sandman748

Hey All,

I'm interviewing with a Cisco Gold partner next week. There is not an official opening available but it's one of those "If you are the right fit, we will find a position" type deals through an employee referral.

I'm having trouble finding out what salary I should be asking for. I have 7 years experience with Cisco UC, Routing\Switching, and Firewalls. No previous consulting experience but have worked in senior positions with a couple of the larger customers in the area.
Certified CCIE (Collab), CCNP (R&S), CCDP. The position is focusing mostly on the UC side. Local salaries on the customer side are about 80K for network engineer\ team lead, and its pretty hard to find advertised positions over 90K.

I know a few consultants in this area are making 100K plus but none of that is advertised and generally I have no idea what the typical pay in this area is or should be.

The work I would be doing is typically billed to customers @ 175-250 an hour. The demand is moderate and the supply of qualified candidates in this area is very low. The company is currently expanding into new territory and they currently have to fly people across country to do the work in my area. Travel would still likely be 25-50%

What do you think is a fair salary to ask for given the billing rate? What other factors should I be considering? Do I ask for more if they want to register my CCIE number, or if they want non-compete \ non solicitation agreements?

I appreciate any and all input. Thanks.


Also on a side note. Are VAR's in the USA hurting enough to bother with sponsoring CCIE's? Always wanted to move to the US but the whole VISA thing has kept me from really looking into it.

DoubleNNs

I've literally spent this entire weekend doing research on salary negotiating. I don't have an answer for your question (yet) but looking forward to reading other people's responses.

thomas_

Try to look at job postings in the area and see what the salaries are for any listed position even if they aren't for exactly the same position. This could kind of give you an indication of salaries in the area overall. If there is a salary listed somewhere for a junior/mid-level position that gives you another baseline. Look up positions on glassdoor for various companies(shoot for your exact area if possible) and see what comes up. Finally, maybe see what the body shops are offering for pay rate and multiply that number by 2 or 2.5. This last bit is purely speculative...

School districts, cities, counties, public universities usually have public pay scales. If you can find a position that seems to be similar to what your skills are then that gives you another baseline keeping in mind it might be on the lower end of the spectrum.