It is Hard to Find a Job Without Taking a Salary Cut

I recently discussed the job market with a few ex-colleagues and a consistent theme was that it was hard for them to find a new job that paid as well as their current job.  Generally, the job market in our area (Washington-DC based technology and telecom) is good, but it's hard to find that job that pays as well as you would like.  When they speak to the hiring company's HR department or hiring manager and salary is discussed, they hear something like "..we think you are perfect for the job..we cannot pay that much..we don't pay that much to our current employees.."

I offered some advice, which I will repeat here.

Taking a small pay cut (5-10%) to get into a good company, with a good manager, and a good job is fine.  A good company and manager will recognize your worth, give you chances to prove yourself and move up, and over time, the slight salary loss will not matter as you are being paid more, doing more valuable work, and getting more opportunities.

Also, there are plenty of good companies that pay well, but it is hard to get jobs in these companies.  Why?  Simple! They are good companies with good compensation so everybody wants to join them.  Some of the people they hire are the people who left the poor-paying jobs that you are finding.  So you have to work hard, be persistent, and be lucky to score the well paying job with the good company.  It is far easier to find the satisfactory or poor company with the low paying job, which is why you are faced with the predicament of finding jobs but not liking the pay.

So my advice is to not worry about a small pay cut for a good opportunity and to be persistent and work hard to find those good opportunities with good companies that pay well.  If all else fails, wait for marijuana to be legalized locally and be one of the first to open a weed-shop, you will surely get rich and be happy, but you may be hungry all the time and laugh a lot.