What was your entry level salary like?

Hager

Still studying and waiting to make the jump from Teaching to IT. I was wondering what was your first entry level job pay was like. Mine right now is $36,000 for basically being a 24/7 teacher (with all the paper work).

So what was your entry level IT job salary? what types of degrees/certs did you have?

networker050184

My first IT job after the military paid $52,000 with a CCNA. If you count the military as my first IT job I made peanuts...

empc4000xl

networker050184 wrote: »

My first IT job after the military paid $52,000 with a CCNA. If you count the military as my first IT job I made peanuts...

Same here, my 1st was 58K+ overtime which pushed me up to 70

seansabian

When I started in IT back in 1999, I started at $12/hr no benefits. Before I left that position I got a raise to $14 still no benefits. I only had Comptia A+ back then.

When I started at "What Can Brown Do for You?" the pay was about $32K + benefits. I left Brown and went to work for a money manager. The pay was about $35K + benefits but they paid $10K on my MBA and I earn @ $3k to $4k in bonuses every year.

After I earn my MBA with an IT concentration from DeVry. I went to work for the school district. However, I work for an EMO, a private educational organization that operates schools for local districts. Most people refer to us as charter schools. I started at $38K six years ago. I now earn around $63K but there are 10 schools, 550 teachers and staff, 40 servers, and 1200 computers for two people. I work with only one other guy. We work year round.

Overall, my pay got off to a slow start but taking on more responsibility on the job, experience and education made the difference in my pay not certs per se.

Brown was big on certs. However, the money manager and school district were not big on certs and really did not care if you had them or not. But both employers wanted me to know my job. From time to time, I may take a course at New Horizons or buy a text book to get up to speed on some technology but certs are a dead issue.

Mishra

I started out in servers being an it assistant... This is when I didn't even know what ping was.

7.15 an hour. $$$

chillwill_sc

I just got my first real IT gig about two months ago making $40k/yr (unless you include tech support at Verizon). Took me long enuff tho! Nice benefits too...we get two weeks off for winter break and one week for spring break all paid. I only had my A+ and Network+ when I first started...just got 70-270 about two weeks ago. Plus I have a B.S in Management Info Systems.

HeroPsycho

$72K/yr with MCSE. However, that was after a few years of doing sidework and an unpaid internship.

NetAdmin2436

I started at $9/hr back in 2003 at my current job....and that was with 2 college degrees

I now make almost triple that with benefits and all that jazz.

KGhaleon

Around $8/hr, and I got paid every 2 weeks.

I gradually moved up to $10, then $12, $18 and eventually got to where I am now making $21/hr.

You'd have to be lucky to get a big salary starting off in IT with little or no experience.

mamono

Many many moons ago when I was an undergraduate student, I made a little over minimum wage at $6.50/hour fixing PC's running Win95 OSR2 and Mac's running MacOS 7.5 as a student computer technician for the University. Nice to be able to just walk into work with two $1 Famous Stars in between class and scratch off some paid time.

royal

Started out in 2003 at a job making about $10.50/hr with A+ and Network+. Worked there for 3 months and got laid off due to them going bankrupt. I then started working crappy jobs not IT related as I went through college and then luckily landed my dream job. I'm a regular engineer (not senior yet) and make more than triple what I made at my last job and still have a ton of growth within my company (Senior Engineer and then Architect).

dtlokee

55k with my CNE (yeah there was a time when that certification was king)

vCole

Started out in Dec 2007 making $13/hr doing Help Desk. (not a call center)
As on Nov 2008 I make $17.30/hr.

blargoe

10/hr as an intern

Aldur

started working at JTAC @ $15/hr no certs, that was 2 years ago and my outlook has gone up considerably from there

ironlung

temp job lasted about 3 months payed about a $1,000 a week no certs.

JavonR

I'm still working in my first ever IT job making 40k a year for an ISP. No certs or experience was required.

BradleyHU

i started @ $40k...

CaptainCharisma

I'm still working at my first IT job, when I started I was given 28k (salary of course), I had already been working at this place for about 5 years prior. After almost doing 2 years of help desk work here and still making under 30k while having to carry around a company phone I'm ready to bail.

I took the job originally because I figured it would be hard to get a job because of the catch 22 thing that happens a lot when you look for your first IT job (i.e. everyone wants experience but nobody is willing to let you get any), since I had been with this company it made that a moot point because I was already an insider even without experience. What I haven't liked about the job is well the phone (both office and cell), but also the fact that my company pushed a cell phone on me at my first IT job and making less than 30k, but as I said I did it to get experience on the resume, also because there was supposed to be better opportunity for learning, but that hasn't panned out.

This first job has done one good thing for though, its given me perspective on what I want to do with my career. I'd rather spend my days in the future in the realm of netowrking than the realm of servers and desktops.

eMeS

In 1988 I started working nights in a large mainframe data center. My job required basically keeping one IBM 4245 and two IBM 3800 printers running throughout the night. My base salary at the time was a whopping $13,000 per year, which was really good for an 18 year old college student.

Including overtime, a 12.8% night shift differential, and a small annual bonus, I ended up making somewhere around $21,000 that first year. I can't remember the exact number, and I'm too lazy to go find the tax return.

It's now 21 years hence, and thankfully I'm doing a bit better!

MS

Mmartin_47

eMeS wrote: »

In 1988 I started working nights in a large mainframe data center. My job required basically keeping one IBM 4245 and two IBM 3800 printers running throughout the night. My base salary at the time was a whopping $13,000 per year, which was really good for an 18 year old college student.

Including overtime, a 12.8% night shift differential, and a small annual bonus, I ended up making somewhere around $21,000 that first year. I can't remember the exact number, and I'm too lazy to go find the tax return.

It's now 21 years hence, and thankfully I'm doing a bit better!

MS

My dad used to work for IBM back in the early 90's. He was a mainframe programmer, now he's an operations analyst and manages the data center where he works at.

Mmartin_47

Just curious for someone with MCSA, what's the entry level pay per hour?

Big Jizay

I'm in my first IT job making $14.50 as a Helpdesk tech. I received it in Sept. 2008, with having two associate degrees, A+, Network+, and MCP. Dang economy lol.

shednik

So if I understand this re-reading your other post you will have 2 Bachelors degrees fairly soon and will be looking for work. Personally I think you will be making atleast what you are now if not more due to your background...if I remember correctly HP you did something similar to this just as a history teacher? I'm 23 and only a year out of college and a month after i graduated I had the certs listed here, and a year of full time @ 13.50 and a year of part time experience @ 8 hr. I started my new job at 46k from my job before that of 28k, I think you will do well as long as you keep at it. I don't know how far into your BS you are but a masters may also be a good idea where you do that now in place of the BS or do it later on and find an employer to foot the bill. Apply for those jobs with 2-3 yrs experience and being a teach maybe you could do some sort of internship part time or a IT project at the school to get your feet wet. Either way best of luck to you in getting started with your new exciting career!!

msteinhilber

Started out at 45k, no certs and no degree although I was enrolled at the time for a B.S. program and my only experience was through projects here and there that I did for business customers during various on-site work in my old retail management job. Big factor in me getting the job was the IT manager was my #1 business client so he was aware of my technical know how.

Essendon

$31,000 Australian when I started about 1.5 years ago. Make almost double that now.

astorrs

$11/hr back in 1997. I make "a tad" more now.

Psoasman

My first tech job was at Integra Telecom,making about $17 an hour. I am almost $23 now, with certs helping a lot.

bencairney

£13K when I started in 1999 as a junior desktop engineer, about 3 times that now as sys admin.

Paul Boz

I started at $9.17/hr when I was 18. It was a tech support job at a local ISP. It sucked but entry IT always sucks.

Revenue

Started out making $44k NZD on Helpdesk with MCSA and a Degree.. That was almost a year ago, Got promoted to Systems Admin after 4 months. Now I'm on a bit more + Benefits