What do you consider "normal" compensation for on-

drainey

I have a job offer on the table. It's a Citrix admin for a banking company managing roughly 190 servers. Salary offer is on the low end at 48k but I plan to negotiate. However, during the interview I was led to believe that on-call is laid back and the calls are minimal. But the offer came as salary plus $450/wk for on-call. On-call is a week at time every 6 weeks.

What do you guys think? Is this normal for on-call or should I be expecting to put in some serious OT when on-call?

nel

On call varies depending on where you work im afraid. the 2 jobs i have been on call for have usually been quiet. but that doesnt mean this job will be...i dont even get paid for mine!!

swabbies

My experience is to not take a manager's word for how busy an on-call rotation is. I am not trying to say something bad about managers, it is just that they are rarely on-call and are usually a bit removed from what it is really like.
If possible I would ask to speak to someone who is a part of the on-call rotation. My experience is that usually on-call is a bit overwhelming for the first few months and then becomes no big deal.

Slowhand

On-call can be hectic, even when it's one issue that comes up, so be careful. And, while the salary seems very low, (strangely so,) the on-call rate seems pretty fair to me. That'd basically be like adding an extra 'half' to your paycheck each time you're on-call. That's about what I'd get at my last job, (my current one offers no incentives for being on-call. . . or much else, for that matter).

liven

I thought getting paid for on call was a thing of the past.

I have been on call for several jobs, and I know tons of folks that have had to do on call work.

I have only known one that ever got paid for it, and it was just 100$ a week.

So to me that sounds like a really good deal.

Plus is this job a move up? Will it make your resume look better? Will you get to do new things or things on a bigger scale then what your used to? If so sounds like a win win situation!

drainey

Liven:: It would be both a step up and a lateral move. Currently I work for a Managed Service Provider which handles the IT for serveral SMB type shops. So while no one client has that many servers I do handle quite a few in the course of week. However the Citrix experience, exposure to blade servers, 190 servers at one company and load balancing and clustering would be huge and a nice step up.

Slowhand: I agree depending on the call and what the issue is on-call can be very hectic.

Swabbies: I did talk to an admin which is why I went searching for other opinions. Manager says it's laid back. Admin says they require immediate response times and require you to stay with it until it's done. Nothing unusual in that. But I made it clear in the interview that there might be times where there's a conflict between my job and my wife's (sick kids, early meetings, etc.) and as she makes 2+ times what I do I usually have to give. Manager said no big deal. Admin said oh yeah it'd be a big deal on-call means now and until it's done.



all: Currently I get $20/day for on-call plus 2 hours pay minimum if I take a call (if it goes over 2 hours I get paid for actual time). So that's why I considered 450/wk alot. Big thing is I have a decent job and while I'd love the experience the job being offered would provide I don't need it and don't want to be blindsided by on-call expectations I didn't see coming.

Project2501

We get $260 a week for the week we're on call plus any time worked at our hourly rate.

MikeInMoseley

I got £1500 pa + an 1.5x or 2x hourly rate depending on when the call was. To be fair we rarely got called out.