Discussion on:

Lower salary job opportunities can pay off in the future

Money, time, security, knowledge, and prestige. Each of us deals in these 5 currencies, and every opportunity can be measured in the value provided in each of these.

The key to personal success is knowing which of these is most important to you and recognizing which opportunity provides the highest aggregate return.

Too many of us have been taught to only focus on the currency of money, and are the poorer for it.

To the Author:

I'm really curious as to
- what was the number of years you stayed in each of your first two companies?
- what were your beginning and ending job titles?

(from the author)
first job Eastman Kodak - 5 years, starting title: Programmer trainee. Ending title: Sys. Systems Analyst

second job Cap Gemini E&Y - 7 years, starting title: consultant, ending title: Business Development Executive (salesperson)

third job Coca-Cola - 11 years, starting title: Systems Analyst, ending title: Director/Program Manager

In general I agree with your positions. However, it is necessary to give a lot of thought to taking less money, especially if your new employer knows your last salary. In larger companies it may not make a difference, but in smaller and medium size companies where HR policies are not as stringent I have seen it lead to smaller annual increases, due to the fact that the manager thinks the employee will work for less, doesn't want more, or money is not important to him/her. It can also lead to less respect, as I have seen happen particularly with some older employees. Be sure to communicate very clearly and make your future expectations very clear.

In my case, I was working for a small software company with a TON of job related stress. I took another position at a research lab with a considerable pay cut. However, it placed me just below a lower tax bracket and net pay barely changed. FIY I took a $10k pay cut but net only changed $3.3k
I took the job mainly to relive stress(instead of working 12+hrs/day I work 8hrs/day). But it has allowed to me to learn several new skills and I am able to market myself to two new postions instead of just software development.

I agree with the article. In light of the economy for the last two years I had to choose between lower pay for better job satisfaction or higher pay but less satisfaction (and more stress). My previous two jobs as software engineer for two startup companies ended as you would expect - I was let go. Before that, I was a college instructor for five years before I switched to computer. Of course, changing a career from biology to computer science was not an easy transition in this recent economy. Sometime I wondered if I may the right choice. I would be curious to see how many of our readers have gone through similiar experience. Right now, however, I am working as a data specialist in a major Atlanta hospital. If it weren't for my degrees in computer science and biolgy, I wouldn't be here - I would be out there trying to find work like everyone else. My current salary is a lot less than the last job (about 32k) but I have what I did not get - security, more potential opportunities, and most of all gaining new skills (as well as less stress). I am doing more things than I ever have did in all previous work experiences. For example, network security is something I did not do previously but that I am involved with now. This alone will eventually pay off in the long run. Like Tom says, you have to consider all of the "tangible and intangible aspects of making less money and the non-monetary benefits a new job boasts". Great article, Tom.

How do you convince a company to take you on in a position listing a requirement for a skill that you don't have experience in directly but which, based on previous experience, you can probably learn quickly?

What I have been running into is companies that want 6 or 8 skills (e.g. C++, VB, Java, ASP, C#, SQL, Delphi, and Access) but aren't willing to accept someone who has experience in 3 or 4 of those skills and a willingness (and proven ability) to learn the others.

Having been less fortunate in my choices of companies (I've been laid-off several times by everything from hospitals to banks to computer companies), my resume has more but shorter jobs on it than some. It's not that I sought to be a "job hopper" . . . I just had some bad timing (e.g. I joined NCR 8 months before they did a massive lay-off).

I sort of agree that accepting a (slightly) lower salary in exchange for learning a new skill and/or more stability is a an acceptible trade-off; however, I have found far too many instances of a "permanent placement" being a "2-week notice contract".