What's Up with These Salaries?

Having spent much of the past two years either unemployed or doing contract work, I'm on a LOT of mailing lists for jobs in the creative fields.

Lately I've seen some job ads that make me scratch my head and go "Hmm" because the salaries they offer are so far off from the norm.

Salaries for writers and editors have always been subject to variability. A lot of variables come into play: whether the company is for-profit or not-for-profit; what other responsibilities the position has (e.g. managing a team), etc. But even so, these are a bit odd.

1. Proofreader: Up to 60K (?!)

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Position: Full-time Proofreader
Location: Western Suburbs - Warrenville
Status: Full Time
Estimated Duration: Full-time
Starts: immediate hire
Rate: Up to 60K DOE

Job Description:
Our high-end design firm Client is looking for a meticulous full-time proofreader who has at least 7 years of experience

In this role you have mastery of grammar/syntax rules, command of AP and Chicago Manual of Style guidelines, and flexibility to learn and apply client-specific preferences.

You must be proficient in reviewing editorial, design/formatting, and consistency issues.

Knowledge of layout software a plus.

You will support design staff with projects spanning all types of print and web materials, and held to very high standards.

You will be working in a fast-paced environment and therefore must be self-starter, independent, and have an exceptional eye for detail.

In my entire career, I have never seen a proofreading position that paid $60K annually. Never. Usually they are around $30-$40k, and often far less. (A Craigslist ad posted the day before offers a whopping $11.00 an hour for proofreading, which works out to $22,880 annually.)

Either this company's salaries are extremely high in general, or the actual range for the position is something like $40-$60K and they don't actually start anybody at the upper end of the range; that happens.

OR, the economy is really starting to turn around and proofreaders are finally being paid what they are worth. I dare not hope!

2. Web Coordinator: $27K a Year (?!)

Position: Web Coordinator
Location: Northern Suburbs
Status: Freelance
Estimated Duration: about 3 months
Starts: ASAP
Rate: $13/hour DOE

Job Description:
Our corporate client is seeking a Web Coordinator to join their team for a couple months of freelance work.

The ideal candidate will have a positive, can do attitude, a consumer service mind set, and be willing and able to help in and pitch out where needed.

Will be apart of the customer service email support team.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
o Shared oversight of email boxes to ensure timely and coordinated assignment, management and completion of customer inquiries, responses, issue escalation and satisfactory resolution/closure of customers’ online service needs.

o Ongoing tracking of incoming, escalated and completed inquiries via a standard management report, spreadsheet and/or other graphs, so customer inquiry volumes and issue types can be measured and analyzed.

If you have a creative problem solver and can help troubleshoot with customer service experience, this is a great opportunity for you to get your foot in the door of a growing, world renown client.

At my current job, we have a very similar Web Coordinator position. We hired someone straight out of college; she didn't have much work experience. Even so, I would have been horrified if we had offered her a salary of $13 per hour (which works out to $27,040 annually) like this ad offers. Especially in the expensive city of Chicago.

For goodness sake, $27K is not much higher than my starting salary in my first job out of college -- 14 years ago! I know people try to get entry-level employees on the cheap, but even so, this salary is a bit ridiculous.

* * *

It appears that salaries for editors seem to be varying even more widely now than they have in the past. Chalk it up the shaky economy, I suppose. Remember many years ago when people jokingly blamed all strange weather on El Niño? We'll call this the El Niño Economy: it's gonna be weird for a while.