Dear New York city employers looking for employees...

[Yavin4]

If you require a college degree, five years working experience in the field, and strong technical skills (well above the standard MS Office skills), then offer a NYC experienced professional's wage which is currently at $125K per year.

If you want to pay less than that, then you're going to have to lower your requirements accordingly.

I've been a hiring manager in NYC since 2005. I know how difficult it is to find candidates even when you offer the experienced professional's wage. Anything less guarantees that you hire someone that you have to train vigorously in order to get them up to speed.
If you want someone that can be plugged into your current system with little to no additional training, then offer a NYC experienced professional's wage.

How did I come up with $125K? Take the average price of a studio apartment in the tri-state area, $3500, multiply it by 12 then multiply it by 3. That's roughly the salary you need to in order to rent an apartment in the tri-state area. People making less than that will need some sort of housing subsidy, e.g. living with roommates, second income to a spouse, parents, rent controlled, or some sort of govt. housing subsidy.

So, please stop wasting everyone's time with your offer of $90K.Thank you.

[Scottie Mom]

1. Same on the West Coast!

I have looked at legal employment and what they pay and what they want? Eons, miles and oceans apart.

[intheflow]

2. It's not as bad as NYC, but even in my small city in Western Mass

it's impossible to find one-bedroom apartments, and 2br+ apartment or home rentals start at $1600/mo. I work for the city, supposedly make a good income, bring home about $630 a week. If I wanted my own place, I would have to pay more than half my monthly take-home pay before utilities. So here I am, age 58, with a housemate. I thought I'd be done living like a college student with roommates and eating cereal at this point in my life, but here I am.

[Polybius]

4. "supposedly make a good income, bring home about $630 a week"

Here in NYC, that's poor. Minimum wage is $15 an hour here, and that's barely over it for 40 hours. One advantage though is that there are tons of one-bedroom apartments here in Staten Island.

[Johnny2X2X]

3. The competition for highly skilled workers right now is incredible

I get head hunted on a regular basis. I throw out just ridiculous numbers from time to time to see what the response is, and usually it's, "That's doable."

Lost a software test engineer off my team this Summer to the same tactic. He said a recruiter called him and asked what it would take, he spit out $200. I figured he meant $200K, nope, he asked for $200 an hour and got it. Now this is an absolute elite guy, just a workhorse (does the work of literally 3 competent engineers), but he got $200 an hour with no cap on overtime. It's a contract position, but he's making like $1/2 M a year with OT on a 2 year contract. 10 years ago that money would have been unheard of.

And I'll be honest, the right number comes my way and I will take it.

[Polybius]

5. $200 an hour?

Wow, I am in the wrong field. Wish I was just out of HS again.