Hi all,
Advice needed. I grew up really poor and have always struggled to negotiate salaries, raises, and higher freelance rates. I’ve been contracting for a company in the data/marketing industry for a few months. I didn’t have time to research rates and was afraid to miss an opportunity so I signed a contract to work for them for $28 an hour designing ads. The company is now creating a new department and is interested in hiring me on as an art director to help get it established. I have 12 years of experience and recently graduated with an MFA. I do have experience with marketing, managing multiple brands (albeit not glamourous ones), managing projects and staff, etc but it’s been a while as I’ve been in grad school for the last five years. I’ve been doing research for weeks to try to figure out what kind of salary range I should request. I’ve read it is best to be the first one to mention salary and it’s best to start high. I don’t want to throw a ridiculously high number out there but I do want to start high so I hopefully land in a place I can feel good about. I was thinking about starting about 12-14k higher than where I hope to land. Is that too much?
I’ve never actually negotiated a salary before so any suggestions are appreciated. I know I would be a huge asset to this company, but I’m not sure my portfolio is strong enough to support a high salary request. I have older, more relevant work, but haven’t had time to update my portfolio which is mostly focused on fine art and passion projects since my focus until recently had been art and design education. The job sounds like it could be a really great opportunity to move me in the direction I want to go, probably good enough to accept a below-market-average salary but I think I’m worth more and want to feel valued. I made the mistake of working for next to nothing when I got out of undergrad and am not interested in repeating that experience. Any advice is appreciated.
Also, feel free to take a look at my portfolio and share any impressions/suggestions. www.carolrecord.com