Job Discussion Forums

[once again]

In Hong Kong, most job adverts ask you state your expected salary. This is very annoying as if you go too high you will not even be interviewed and if you go too low it is is difficult to know if they would have paid you more! In your home countries and the countries you are in now, what is the practice?

[Roger]

OK, so it's a little disconcerting and putting you at in highly disadvantageous spot. Still, I can't find much wrong with it - it teaches you to be realistic and a tad modest!

In the mainland, they often promise you sky-high pay levels, only to start negotiating them down once you have accepted a deal with them!

[denise]

[once again]

How do they deal with the salary issue in Japan?

[denise]

[richard ame]

Hi
Generally the "package" for want of a better word is only available to those who have the nonce to ask about it in the first place and once you have being presented with a contract to sign the amount they intend to pay you magically appears in a small box ,no one asks if that is acceptable they just expect you to accept usually reminding you that the economic crisis is still raging . So you smile graciously and put your mark on said piece of paper . If by some chance I was asked what the orginal poster suggested I would probably tell them I don't come cheap anymore and wait for them to suggest a figure which of course would fall well below my ideal figure Turks love to haggle and so do I makes the whole thing that more enjoyable . Why don't you try it,what have you got to lose ?

[Roger]

Denise,
you asked me if I could raise my pay at a later date, and to be honest, yes, you can - on occasion! Most of us who do part-time work have to negotiate again and again. If it is the same school calling you, you can make it a point that since your last engagement at their premises you have worked at some other place for better pay - and they might buy into it.
It also works this way: They up your pay of their own free will. This happened to me this very summer. I had made no noise about low pay, and they added to my workload, then they decided to raise the hourly wage as well - both sides were happy.

But to answer ONCE AGAIN: One should have some market knowledge - how fierce is the competition? What's the current maximum hourly wage or salary? And in Hong Kong: How much does your current employer pay? A new one will not double your income just because you do them the favour of switching employers. I reckon if you add five to ten percent to your old pay scale your new employer will consider this reasonable (provided you have not lost your job through your own incompetence). In the mainland, on the other hand, they almost never contact your former boss, and they rarely want to see a reference.

[Gordon]

In Japan, it depends what kind of schoool you're in. Most conversation schools have a minimum salary that almost everyone gets. I work at a university where they pay you based on your age. Education has little effect on your pay. Great if you're old, bad if you're me. I make the lowest salary as a prof, nearly 1/3 that the old Japanese professors make. That's OK, at least I'm not old.

[Glenski]

[once again]

Roger, current market knowledge doesn't really help as the ads are so scant on detail. You have no idea from the ad what the job actually entails. For instance, the job ad may state "Full time Native English Teacher required. Experience and qualifications required" From this how do you guess at an expected salary? If the number of teaching hours is low and there is no lesson planning required obviously this would be different to a job that required 25 contact hours and material development. So sure you can put a low salary to get the interview, but then when finding out what the job actually entails it may actually warrant a higher salary. But by then you have already stated an expected salary. And given that salaries are never stated, it is difficult to get market knowledge other than knowing what you are already being, or were being paid. Actually I wasn't looking for tips on how to deal with the issue, so you are not actually answering my question. Your advice is welcome, but not neccessary. I was just wondering what the situation was elsewhere. Thanks to all that have replied on this matter so far.

[Glenski]

[once again]

MOST OF THE ADS ARE AS SCANT AS THAT. No kidding..most of them.
Check out this site for job ads in HK. http://www.classifiedpost.com/jscommunity.php?communitycode=EDU&lcid=HK.EN
Apart from the kindy ad, the only ads that have a salary stated are for the Uni posts, which do not help when dealing with the private agencies/schools. And my actual point was to ask what happened in other places!

[Mark-O]

I agree with Once Again - in fact, I asked him the very same question myself: what should an 'expected salary' be for me in HK? I asked this as the job ads were giving me nothing to indicate a reasonable expected salary. In fact, in the small time I have been looking at these ads (past 4-6 months), details have become more and more scarce. Salary information is practically non-existent now.

Using advertisement terms such as 'high pay', or job descriptions like 'Teachers Needed: FT, PT, Temporary all ages, levels, areas', offers very little/no scope for an applicant to gauge what his/her expected salary should be. It's farcical and a very sly recruitment procedure.

Like Glenski said, at least with Japanese Eikaiwas you know where you stand in terms of a benchmark salary. HK schools now appear to be looking for the lowest bidder - and we all know where that leads ...

Sorry Once Again, this isn't where you wanted to steer this post! It would be interesting to hear other peoples experiences from outside of HK.