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Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

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Re: Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think college/uni should be about personal growth and education first, career opportunities second. Can it help you get a job? Great. But that shouldn't be why you do it; you should do it because you want to learn about the world. That said, since university is privatized, it's expensive, which sucks for society. So it's definitely going to be a consideration of whether it's affordable to learn or not.

In a way I can agree with that, but we need to change the narrative. Instead of telling kids to go to college to get a job, we would need to change it to "go to college to learn interesting things." When we tell kids that, that's the expectation they will end up having when they go. The demand for college also has to go way down to make it more affordable, save for maybe an act on the government's part. Learning for…

> In a way I can agree with that, but we need to change the narrative. Instead of telling kids to go to college to get a job, we would need to change it to "go to college to learn interesting things." When we tell kids that, that's the expectation they will end up having when they go.

100%

> The demand for college also has to go way down to make it more affordable, save for maybe an act on the government's part. Learning for learnings sake is great, but not $50k great.

An act on the government's part, or less predatory institutions. Maybe both. But it's absolutely needed. Reducing demand for education because of finances is terrible.

Re: Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I've heard. But I don't really care. I'm single. My current salary is enough to pay my mortgage, all my bills, all my student loans, my food bill, etc. and still have enough to not only save, but donate. I give a minimum of $1,200 to St. Jude's every year, plus assorted charities and even random Twitch streamers who make music if I like what they do and they seem like decent people. In other words, despite everyon…

I'd never fault someone for being content, and if there's a specific tradeoff you're making for that paycut, then more power to you But otherwise- there's a difference between "trying to make as much money as possible" and "keeping a casual eye out to see if you could be making more money doing roughly the same thing you're already doing". Imagine if you could give twice as much to St. Jude's, or pay off your student…

Oh, sure. But that's the big caveat, isn't it? "If you're not having to sacrifice any of your other life priorities in the process." If attempting to go for the bigger paycheck leads to unemployment, then I won't be able to survive myself, let alone help others. Everything is a risk-reward analysis, but such an analysis requires an understanding of how likely each outcome is. If chasing the dollars is more likely to lead me to fewer opportunities, then it's not worth doing.

Re: Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd never fault someone for being content, and if there's a specific tradeoff you're making for that paycut, then more power to you But otherwise- there's a difference between "trying to make as much money as possible" and "keeping a casual eye out to see if you could be making more money doing roughly the same thing you're already doing". Imagine if you could give twice as much to St. Jude's, or pay off your student…

Oh, sure. But that's the big caveat, isn't it? "If you're not having to sacrifice any of your other life priorities in the process." If attempting to go for the bigger paycheck leads to unemployment, then I won't be able to survive myself, let alone help others. Everything is a risk-reward analysis, but such an analysis requires an understanding of how likely each outcome is. If chasing the dollars is more likely to…

There should be no risk, though. Don't quit your job, just look around while you're still employed. Put in your notice if/when you accept another offer

Re: Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

#44
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I HATE the TC designation. that 200k TC is more like 140k/year when you factor in vesting Can you explain this calculation?

He’s saying 60k of the compensation is equity and other fringe benefits

Startup equity can be completely worthless, but shares of Apple/Google? Seems pretty solid...

Re: Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, sure. But that's the big caveat, isn't it? "If you're not having to sacrifice any of your other life priorities in the process." If attempting to go for the bigger paycheck leads to unemployment, then I won't be able to survive myself, let alone help others. Everything is a risk-reward analysis, but such an analysis requires an understanding of how likely each outcome is. If chasing the dollars is more likely to…

There should be no risk, though. Don't quit your job, just look around while you're still employed. Put in your notice if/when you accept another offer

The risk I'm concerned about isn't that my current employer will fire me. It's that if I switch to another job, I might not last long at the new employer.

That said, I'm doing the job switch thing anyway; not to get more money, but because I've grown to hate my career and am hoping to switch into a more creatively fulfilling one. If I can find such a job with a larger paycheck, of course I'll take it; but I'm also willing to take such a job with a pay cut if that's what's available to me in the new industry.

Re: Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

#46
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s saying 60k of the compensation is equity and other fringe benefits

Startup equity can be completely worthless, but shares of Apple/Google? Seems pretty solid...

NCGs at Apple are hourly their first year (not sure if they are granted stock on date of hiring w/ a 1 year cliff or if it's granted after the probationary period), and Google has unoffically stopped hiring NCGs w/ stock (almost every single NCG at Google I know who's been recruited since 2018 has been recruited through the ER program)

Re: Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be no risk, though. Don't quit your job, just look around while you're still employed. Put in your notice if/when you accept another offer

The risk I'm concerned about isn't that my current employer will fire me. It's that if I switch to another job, I might not last long at the new employer. That said, I'm doing the job switch thing anyway; not to get more money, but because I've grown to hate my career and am hoping to switch into a more creatively fulfilling one. If I can find such a job with a larger paycheck, of course I'll take it; but I'm also wi…

Fair enough, best of luck

Re: Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

#48
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I HATE the TC designation. that 200k TC is more like 140k/year when you factor in vesting Can you explain this calculation?

He’s saying 60k of the compensation is equity and other fringe benefits

Yep! Exactly this! Apparently I need coffee to be coherent!

Re: Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

#49

My 2 cents as a Zellenial: 1. I've spent an hour trying to find this survey but cannot. My hunch is it's an online survey with questionable reproducibility (especially after looking at similar research produced by Clever) 2. I'm not too surprised by my college aged peers overestimataing average starting salaries. With the increase in CS/ECE students and a relatively small but vocal minority talking about 200K TC out…

For public companies with monthly vesting without a cliff (FB, Goog), TC is actually a good model for what the company deposits in your bank account at the end of the month. For private startups, it's obviously a less good measure both because you don't get the incremental liquidity over the course of the year and also because even when you get that big chunk of shares at the end of the year, it isn't liquid. An inte…

When NCGs say "TC" (or at least the NCGs I've interacted with) they calculate it as Base_Salary+Total_Equity_Grant, when in reality it should be Base_Salary+(Total_Equity_Grant/Vesting). I've seen a couple experienced (10+ YoE) people do the same mistake as well, but this is all anecdotal of course

Re: Gen Z Is Overestimating the Average Starting Salary by $50K, Survey Finds

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way I can agree with that, but we need to change the narrative. Instead of telling kids to go to college to get a job, we would need to change it to "go to college to learn interesting things." When we tell kids that, that's the expectation they will end up having when they go. The demand for college also has to go way down to make it more affordable, save for maybe an act on the government's part. Learning for…

> In a way I can agree with that, but we need to change the narrative. Instead of telling kids to go to college to get a job, we would need to change it to "go to college to learn interesting things." When we tell kids that, that's the expectation they will end up having when they go. 100% > The demand for college also has to go way down to make it more affordable, save for maybe an act on the government's part. Lear…

I say decrease demand, because people are going to college for the wrong reason. People have been told that they cannot get a good job without a college education, and that is simply not true. Because everyone thinks thy need one in order to live comfortably, tons of people who otherwise would not think of going, or even want to go, end up going. This ends up raising the price, because universities know they can get away with it. If people were going strictly to learn, I would agree.

At this point though, I think the only thing that is going to fix this situation is the government setting limits on tuition. Future generations are going to have it worse than even we have it unless something drastic changes the market.

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