Someone asked the following question on the Linked N Chicago group.
Fresh Grad Salary Expectations….What are they?
You just graduated college… What are you looking for as far as Salary? Would you turn down a salary of 40K? How do fresh grads determine what they are “worth” or should be starting out at?
I am really curious to hear your answers. Base this off just receiving your bachelors.
Here’s my response:
What areas are you looking about?
Coroflot’s salary survey covers:
* Architecture
* Design management
* Fashion & apparel design
* Graphic design
* Industrial design
* Interaction design
* Web design
http://www.coroflot.com/designersalary/
There’s a chart in their survey that breaks out salaries by years of experience. While they don’t cover someone with 0 years experience, they do have 1-3 years covered.
*** The average salary for someone with 1-3 years is just below $40,000. ***
Which seems spot on to me. If I were a grad in the creative field and was offered a job for 40k, I would definitely take it. I know of some places that will pay 30k/year.
AIGA also has a salary survey, although they don’t quite break it out into details of levels of experience. They only break out for an entry-level position is for graphic designer.
*** The median salary for an entry-level designer is $35,000 ***
Any thoughts on how much entry-level designers should be making? Please feel free to leave comments on this quote, or on the Linked N Chicago page (Registration required for the Linked N Chicago page).
32 to 40K? Wow! this is so amazing! This probably more than the salary of an average entry level medical practitioners!
when i broke into the biz 13 years ago (1997) as a graphic designer at an ad agency in the western burbs of Chicago, I was making $19,000. The agency had about 20 employees and the client-base was largely home builders, resorts, and education companies. It’s good to hear that entry-level kids are pulling in 35k. That’s almost double what i was making. And my job was in DuPage County which is one of the richest counties in the country.
I’m very surprised that Interior Design is lower than Web Design.