The Graduate Student Job-Search

• Random Topics and Musings,» By Kevin Buell» September 19, 2005» kbuell@umich.edu

Life, What Matters To You?

Hours left7 Days a week = 168 hr/w 168 Sleeping = 56 hr/w 112 (168-56)Average Commute = 5 hr/w 107Household Chores = 9 hr/w 98Eating = 9 hr/w 89 Average Work Week = 46 hr/w 43

Time can not be created, we can not ‘make time’Time can not be stored, we can not ‘save time’

All we can do is spend it. How we choose to spend it should represent what matters to us in life.

American Time Use Surveyhttp://www.bls.gov/tus/

Total Time for everything else left in your life which matters to you*Approx 43 hours

*Parenting your child, brushing your teeth, talking with your wife, grocery shopping, reading a book, religious activities, learning French.

Happiness in life basically boils down to two things, Happiness in Love and Happiness in Work. -S. Freud (Paraphrased)

Finding Jobs:Mark Your Calendars!

Have your Resume’s & Business Cards Ready!

CAREER FAIR• The Twenty First Annual University of Michigan Engineering Career Fair, sponsored by Tau Beta Pi (TBP), the

National Engineering Honor Society and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) will be held on Monday, September 26, 2005 and Tuesday, September 27, 2005 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

• Be an internet stalker and see what companies you are interested in ahead of time! http://www.umich.edu/~engincf

UofM CAREER Center• Must submit resume in fall, then if there is a specific job you are interested in you must re-submit- applying for that

specific job about 3 weeks before the interviews/recruiters for that company are visiting campus. • IMHO Waste of time, except for following up on companies you like from Career Fair.

CONFERENCES• 10 business cards & e-mail addresses • Informational interviewing.

RADLAB• Professors/ Advisors• Job Listings E-mail (IE, Rebeiz)• Job Board Announcement

Note: This is industry-focused, academia is quite different- and not something I really know anything useful about.

Timing your Job SearchWhen do people get job offers?

RadLab Job Offers Recieved By Month

00.5

11.5

22.5

33.5

44.5

Janu

ary

Febru

ary

Mar

chApr

ilM

ayJu

ne July

Augus

t

Septe

mbe

r

Octobe

r

Novem

ber

Decem

ber

N(T

OT

)=23

Companies seem to want to make offers between 6-3 months before you can start. They don’t really plan farther ahead than that, and less than 3 months is hard to make happen.

Number of JobOffers receivedPer month. From the RadLabSalary Survey.

National EE MS & PhD New-Graduate Hires

Jan-Mar April-June July-Sept Oct-Dec0

20

40

60

80

100

120MS job OffersPhD Job Offers

Source: NACE quarterly Reports

Many More Job Offers reported in April-September than in Oct-March

Interviews Suck!

There are many types of Interviews, and you need to learn to be good at each.

• Traditional • Behavioral• Telephone Interviews• Technical• ‘BrainTeasers’• Selection Vs. ScreeningFor Sample Questions for Traditional and Behavioral Interviews, Review ‘STAR’ Technique, Behavioral & Traditional Interviewing StrategiesSee: http://www.quintcareers.com/job_interviews.html

Dealing With OffersQs: Who decides whether to make you an offer? How do they decide how much money to offer? And who can you negotiate with?

As: The person who will be your direct manager decides whether to make you a job offer or not. This manager tells the HR people to put together a job offer package. The HR people decide what amount to offer based on a spreadsheet calculation with your degree, experience, cost of living in the area and comparisons of what other companies in the industry are paying, and what other people in the company itself who are of the same ‘grade (IE Engineer level 7)’ are making they get an idea of what the ‘JOB IN PLACE’ costs. Essentially the HR people are asking themselves ‘How much would it cost to hire someone else to do the same job?’

From this information, they create a ‘range’ approximately $10k wide- and they make an offer somewhere in that range. They will not deviate from that range, but with good negotiating you can get your offer to be near the top. They will never tell you the range, and they may not have clearly defined edges- but it exists and they have an idea of what it is before they make you your first offer.

Negotiating 101

Say that you were expecting something higher. Say that you were really hoping to be able to accept their offer because the job is the one that you want- but that now they are making it hard because the offer is lower than you were expecting.

Once they give you an initial offer, with good negotiating you can probably push it up $3-5k. Q:*Why?* A: Why waste bait on a fish that is already in the boat?

Q: What Sort of a Salary Are You Expecting? –DO NOT ANSWER-A1: ‘I think that is a little premature. I don’t even know the job yet.’A2: ‘Competitive’A3: ‘You really are in a much better position to know than I am. What do you think?’A4: ‘I will consider any reasonable offer.’

3 Possible answers to any job offer.1) Yes. This ends negotiation. 2) No. This ends negotiation.3) Stall. Always say you need time to think about it! (3 Weeks) “I was really hoping to accept this job, but this salary is lower than I was

expecting. I need time to think about it in comparison to what I could get elsewhere.”

READ A BOOK ON HOW TO NEGOTIATE!

• You are already a highly skilled engineer, with thousands of hours of training under you belt. But, your negotiating skills are probably pretty weak. Investing just a few hours in developing this skill will pay off in THOUSANDS of dollars in annual salary.

• I recommend the following book for a ‘short and sweet’ introduction. It can be read in one evening, it’s a 5-star book on Amazon.com, and used copies are available for only $0.67.

• How to Outnegotiate Anyone (Even a Car Dealer!) (Paperback)by Leo Reilly It is less than 100 pages, and takes most people less than 4 hours to read.

Comparing Apples and OrangesThe 7 most important factors in evaluating Job Offers

•Job Content (30%) – Is this work interesting to me?

•Your Boss (20%) – Can I work and get along with this person?

•Salary and Benefits (15%) – You like those, right?

•Your Co-Workers (10%) – Will I fit in with the corporate culture?

•Typical Work Week (10%) – Is travel required? Can I pursue my other interests?

•Location (10%) – Do you like the region you will be living in?

•Organization Flexibility (5%) – How with this job affect my lifestyle?

*Stolen From:www.jobweb.com/Resources/Library/Career_Pursuit/evaluating_jon_75_01.htm

How do I know which job offer is best?

Theoretically speaking, all your job offersWill form a bell-curve of ‘desirability’ or ‘value’

Practically, this is not a quantitative problem- but this *IS* a useful way of looking at things sometimes.

Therefore, your offers will have a Mean, and a standard deviation.[Unfortunately, you can’t calculate those until you have at least 3-4 offers.]

j

j RaDD=Desirability, aj is weighting of the factor (Ajob content = 0.3),R=0.00 to 1.00 rating of the ‘Desirability’ of the offer in that factor (Ie, Salary offer of $40k = 0.01 Salary Offer of $130k=0.98)

Your responsibility to yourself is to choose the one that is FOR YOU the best you can get!

Your Job Offer distributions• Your first offer is always your ‘current best offer’

• What are the odds that my NEXT offer will be the best offer? P=1/N [50% chance that job offer 2 will be better than job offer 1. 33% chance than job offer 3 will be

better than both 1 and 2.]

• The value of getting a new offer then is [Desirability (New Best Job) – Desirability (Old Best Job)] * likelihood that next offer is a new

best job offer.

• As N-> ∞ you get your perfect job, but there aren’t N=∞ jobs available.

• Each offer takes time and energy (cost) to get. In the beginning, job offers are hard to get because you aren’t very good at the job search. In the end, job offers will be hard to get because you will have already interviewed for all the PhD jobs available (consider the situation in academia).

• You should STOP SEARCHING when the COST of continuing your search is more than the BENEFIT of acquiring new offers.

*Job offers are a random process. If you turn down offer X, offer Y will come around in a couple of months. It may be better, it may be worse. But you WILL get other offers. That is the strength of your position, and you must not fear that ‘no other offer will come’.* The AVERAGE RadLab experience is that people get one job offer for about every 2 months of a job search. BUT, this ranges from 3 job offers in one month, to one job offer in 5 months.

Consider, a sample Job search

N P

1 0.100

2 0.190

3 0.271

4 0.344

5 0.410

6 0.469

7 0.522

8 0.570

9 0.613

Goal: I want a job at the top of possible jobs- “For ME”What is the probability (P) that I have found AT LEAST ONE such job, if I only have N offers?

90th Percentile M=.9

N P

1 0.200

2 0.360

3 0.488

4 0.590

5 0.672

6 0.738

7 0.790

8 0.832

9 0.866

80th %ileM=0.8Probability of having at least

1 job offer above your ‘target’ percentile.

P=(1-M)^N

N P

1 0.500

2 0.750

3 0.875

4 0.938

5 0.969

6 0.984

7 0.992

8 0.996

9 0.998

50th %ileM=0.5

Salaries for EE Graduates

Georgia Tech MIT UofMRadLab

BachMasters PhD Bach Masters PhD Bach Mast PhD PhD

Low 45000 60250 45000 55000 56000 71000 ?? ?? ?? 70000

Median 55000 64800 80400 55375 69750 92930 532086211

1 73250 86367

High 61000 100000 115000 58000 8000013000

0 ?? ?? ??10300

0

Avg Bonus

Bach

3500

Masters

5000

PhD

6250

GeorgiaTech: http://www.career.gatech.edu/students/resources/salary_negotiation/MIT: http://web.mit.edu/career/www/salary/04employer.htmlUofM: http://career.engin.umich.edu/Annualreport.htmlNational: NACE Reports, from ECRCStanford: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/CDC/surveys/0405/engineering.htmlCarnegie Melon: http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/employ/salary/cit.html

National Averages: MS $64,416PhD $80,206

National avg Salaries for EE Graduates- By Quarter

Jan-Mar Apr-Jun Jul-Sept Oct-Dec6

6.5

7

7.5

8

8.5x 10

4S

alar

y

MS 04MS 03PhD 04PhD 03

No Clear Seasonal trend in Salaries. SOURCE: NACE

UofM Average EECS Salaries

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 200550

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

Academic Years Ending (Ie, 2003-2004 listed as 2004)

$1,0

00

Starting Salaries ACCEPTED University of Michigan EE Reported By: ECRC

BachelorsMastersPhD

MIT [PhD, Masters, and Bachelors]

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 200540

50

60

70

80

90

100

Academic Years Ending (Ie, 2003-2004 listed as 2004)

$1,0

00

Starting Salaries ACCEPTED Massechusets Institute of Technology EE Reported By: MIT Career Center

BachelorsMastersPhD

MIT PhD- Salary Range Distribution

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 200560

70

80

90

100

110

120

130

PhD Starting Salaries ACCEPTED Massechusets Institute of Technology EE Reported By: MIT Career Center

PhD (Hi)PhD (Avg)PhD (Lo)

MIT Masters Degree Salary Range

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 200540

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

120

MASTERS Starting Salaries ACCEPTED Massechusets Institute of Technology EE Reported By: MIT Career Center

Masters (Hi)Masters (Avg)Masters (Lo)

MIT Bachelors

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 200540

45

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

BACHELORS Starting Salaries ACCEPTED Massechusets Institute of Technology EE Reported By: MIT Career Center

Bachelors (Hi)Bachelors (Avg)Bachelors (Lo)

Q: Does school rank effect salary?A: Consider the Effect of School Rank

on *MBA* Salary

0510152025303540455060

70

80

90

100

110

1202004 Average MBA Starting Salary Plus Bonus

MBA School Ranking USNEWS & World Reports (2005)

$100

0s

Harvard

UofMUofM

U of Washington

U of Maryland

BYU

Top-Tier Schools get significantly higher salaries than the national average.

*Very little equivalent data available for engineers. See MIT, Georgia-Tech, and National

Engineering Rankings198 Schools grant graduate Engineering Degrees, the top 10 are:

#1 MIT2 Stanford3 UC Berkeley4 GeorgieTech UIUC6 UofM Ann Arbor7 USC8 Caltech9 CMU10 Purdue (Source: US News & World Reports: 2005)

So, MIT does clearly beat the national averages due to their rank (reputation). But, Georgia-Tech and UofM (as a whole) do not. Luckily, RadLab does.

IEEE Salary Survey (Your Best Friend)

http://www.ieeeusa.org/careers/salary/

Condition Selected Values

Base Adjustment

Primary Adjustment

Employer Size: Not Specified 0.0% 0.0%

Specialty Group: Other 0.0% 0.0%

Professional Specialty:

Other 0.0% 0.0%

Primary Job Function:

Unknown 0.0% 0.0%

Employer Type: Private Industry: Other

than Defense or Utilities

0.0% 0.0%

Line of Business: Not Applicable 0.0% 0.0%

Highest Degree Held:

PhD or Equivalent 28.5% 30.8%

Region: Pacific 0.0% 0.0%

Metro Area: Other area in region 0.0% 0.0%

Professional Experience:

0 0.0% 0.0%

Current Job Experience:

0 0.0% 0.0%

Number of Technical Employees:

0 0.0% 0.0%

Number of Non-Technical Employees:

0 0.0% 0.0%

Responsibility Level:

Engineer Level 3 7.0% 7.2%

BasePrimary

Sources

10th Percentile

: $60,100.00 $62,300.00

20th Percentile

: $66,200.00 $69,300.00

30th Percentile

: $70,900.00 $74,700.00

40th Percentile

: $75,200.00 $79,700.00

Median: $77,700.00 $82,400.00

60th Percentile

: $84,200.00 $90,300.00

70th Percentile

: $89,300.00 $96,300.00

80th Percentile

: $95,700.00 $103,900.00

90th Percentile

:

$105,400.00

$115,500.00

Estimated annual income for this situation, from base salary and primary sources (base salary plus any bonuses, commissions, or net self

employment income):

Comparing Yourself to other UofM Students

• Average Journal Papers as 1st author:1.9(Hi:5 Lo:0+) (+1.2 not first author)

• Average Conference Papers as 1st author:2.8 (Hi:5 Lo:0+) (+1.7 not first author)

• Average GPA for Doctoral Candidate: 8.05 (Median: 8.14 Hi:8.73 Lo:6.90*)

+ IEEE/IEE publications w/ advisor for 2001 RADLAB PhD recipients (N=11). * EECS PhD Grads, Fall `04+ Winter `05 (N=24) [I think CS and Systems people

are running up the average GPA.]

UofM RadLabGradComm Survey

Survey Year (PhD’s ONLY) 2001-2002 2004-2005

Students Reporting 5 7

Highest Accepted Base Salary $93000 103000

Average Accepted Base Salary (Excl. Start Bonus) 88800 86367

Lowest Accepted Base Salary 84000 70000

Standard Deviation 3421 14508

Average Number of Offers 2.6 3.0

Max Number of Offers 5 6

Average Std Dev in offers received by one student* 5% 6%

•This means, any given student receiving multiple offers, what is the standard •deviation of the multiple offers received by that single student?

Which are better, California Oranges, or Florida Oranges?

Examples from: http://www.homefair.com/homefair/calc/salcalc.html

Use online ‘cost of living’ calculation comparisons to compare your ‘Effective Salary’ in Job 1 in City A to Job 2 in City B

If you earned $80,000 in Ann Arbor Michigan,How much would you need to earn how much to have the same ‘standard of living’ in other cities?

Miami, FL $76,882 Albany, NY $79,174 Ann Arbor, MI $80,000 Boston, MA $101,000 Santa Clara CA $104,595

Greed, Fear, And LazinessEmbrace your Vices

The fundamental principles behind all economics

Greed- The desire to receive maximum possible reward for a given investment/risk/or effortFear- The desire that for a given return, you wish the minimum risk/uncertainty

I add Laziness,Laziness- The desire that for a given reward, you would prefer to make the smallest possible investment/risk/ or effortLaziness is just the inverse of greed, or greed stated another way.

A Closer Look atGreed, Fear, and Sloth

Greed- When choosing between two similar jobs, choose the one paying more money. Two similar jobs, each requiring about 45 hours of work a week. One for company pays $80k, the other pays $85k. Choose the $85k job!

Fear- When choosing between two otherwise roughly equivalent options, choose the one with less risk. $10k starting bonus, or $10k value in stock options. Choose the starting bonus! Choosing between one job offering a starting salary of $88k, and one which offers $76-90k, take the $88k!

Sloth- When choosing between two jobs with similar rewards, choose the one requiring less time investment. Two similar jobs, each paying about $90k. At one company, everyone works 42.5 hours a week. At the other, everyone works 52.5 hours per week

Choose the 42.5 job!

Real-World Examples• GREED- Obvious

• FEAR- Company A offers $95k/year. Company B offers $90k/year, but says that “There is no limit to how much you can earn here. Just come and prove yourself, and you will get raises.” Choose company A. Do you believe that if you were a high performer at company A, that you would NOT get raises?

• SLOTH- Defense industry company pays $90k (42.5 hours/week). Computer industry company pays $98k (52.5 hours/week). Choose the defense job. The other only pays 9% more money, for 24% more work.

Remember: Greed is what allows you to feed your family, Fear is what allows you to protect your family, and Sloth is what allows you to share your life (spend time) with your family.

Comparing Salary VS Signing Bonus.

• Choosing between salary or starting bonus, consider the following:

• To compare them, consider if you took the starting bonus- and invested it in a stock market index fund (r=10% return) then took annual ‘dividends’ out of it over the period of your career (n=25 years).

• That annuity will pay out an annual value that has an equivalent affect on your salary would be.

1 - r) (1

rr) (1 Payment Annual

n

1-n

P

The Annuity Formula

http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/annuity_calculator.htm

Rule of Thumb$100 in annual Salary=$1,000 Signing bonus

The value today, of money tomorrow (IE ‘Vesting Bonus’s’)

• For calculating the value of a retirement plan, or a signing bonus that needs 5 years to ‘Vest’.

• The current value (Present Value, PV) is related to how much money you will get in the future (FV) in year ‘n’, given an ‘equivalent-risk’ rate ‘r’.

nr

FVPV

)1(

http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/present_value_calculator.htm

•Note, picking the right ‘r’ is quite complex- This is why finance majors go to college. But, here are some ‘rules of thumb’EXTREMELY LOW RISK: Use the ‘r’ of ‘US Treasury Bill/Note’ for a similar time period (3.4% for 6 months, 5.3% for 30 years) LOW RISK: Use the ‘AAA Bond Rate’ (4.5% for 5 years, 5% for 10 years) MODERATE RISK: the historic average stock market return, 10.5%HIGH RISK: use the historic average stock market return for small-companies, 17.5%

Valuing Stock Option

• How much are my stock options, which ‘vest’ in 5 years, worth? Should I get a signing bonus instead?

• Learn the Black-Scholes Option pricing Model.

http://www.margrabe.com/OptionPricing.html

•Rule of Thumb :Math is hard. Look up what other people are paying for it. That’s what it is worth!

Stock Option Value IILook Up Price of “CALL OPTIONS” on one of the many market-quote sites.http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/streetools/options/option_montage.aspx

Last Net Change % Change Open Prev Close High Low Bid Ask Volume

28.23 -0.07 -0.25% 28.21 28.30 28.32 28.00 28.30 28.30 36613900

Jan 2008

61126-0.12.502.102.25.WNLAG

1832000.14.303.904.00.WNLAF

1013330.05.605.205.20.WNLAY

034271.07.006.606.70.WNLAE

012690.010.6010.208.80.WNLAD

012560.014.5013.9014.00.WNLAC

VolOpenInt.

ChgAskBidLastCall

35.0

30.0

27.5

25.0

20.0

15.0

Strike

71209-0.67.607.107.30.WNLMG

01922-0.24.303.904.30.WNLMF

019650.03.202.803.00.WNLMY

820920.12.302.002.20.WNLME

04084-0.11.050.900.95.WNLMD

01770.00.450.300.00.WNLMC

VolOpenInt.

ChgAskBidLastPut

Probably: Your stock options will be ‘Call’ options, with a ‘strike price’ equal to the stock value on the day that you start work. To find out what they are worth, find out when they ‘vest’ (you can sell them), find the quote for option prices set for that time range, find the right ‘strike price’ then see what the ‘last’ value was for the call options.

Medical Insurance, Dental Insurance,

and the Company Gym• These really don’t matter. All companies have Medical, Dental, etc

insurance. • And although some are better or worse than others, it takes a *LOT*

of work to figure out which is better for you, and even then- the difference is small. Ex, good health insurance is worth about $1750 per year, bad ones are worth $1250.

• Exception: Gymnasium with pool on-site at work, or great free cafeteria on-site. This might make your life happier, and is worth more than the $.

But, I still can’t decide!

• The Indifference Theorem If, after all is said and done- you are having a very hard time deciding

whether you should accept job A with traits X,Y and Z. or job B with traits L,M, and N. It probably doesn’t matter which you choose. If one choice was clearly going to make you happier, you don’t have trouble deciding.

If you are REALLY having trouble deciding, it is because they are of similar

overall value. Neither one will probably make you much happier than the other.

Example: Job A has a better location more than Job B, but Job B offers more ‘time off’ which I enjoy a lot. If you can’t decide, it is probably because those are of about equal benefit (value) to you.

Earnings Years After Graduation

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 2040

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Years Experience

$1,0

00

Typical EE PhD Salary Progression Avg Over all Industries By: IEEE Salary Survey 2001 ed. Method 1 Uniformly corrected to 2004 Mean

10%ile20%-ile30%-ile40%-ile50%-ile60%-ile70%-ile80%-ile90%-ile

I’m rich, and yet- I feel broke.

• The average household income in the US is $30,000.

• I know a family of 4 that lives on $12,000 per year.

• Why do I feel so poor?• The average american pays just

over 50% of his income in taxes. [Federal Income, Social Security, State Income, Property/Schools Tax, and then Sales tax on whatever is left]

Single, Earning $80K, Living in Greater Metro Detroit Mi

‘Base Salary’ $80,000

Federal Income Tax -28% -22,400

Social Security -7.5% -6,000

Michigan Income Tax -4% -3,200

Mortgage-$160k Home -15k/yr -15,000

‘Taxes Plus Housing’ -46,700

Saving (retirement, kids college, rainy day)

-10% -8,000

Spendable income

(Car, Clothes Food)

$25,300

*Median Home Costs www.realtor.org/research.nsf/pages/MetroPriceMortgage Calculatorwww.bankrate.com/gookeyword/calculators/mortgages.asp

*As a rough rule of thumb, most home buyers purchase houses that cost between 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 times their annual income. –OR- 25-30% of ‘take-home’ salary (after taxes)

Ponderings on what that means…

• Your home is your single largest investment. You save 2x as much in your home each year than anywhere else.

• Renting is stupid if you will be in the same place for more than 5 years.• In the last 5 years, nationally homes have appreciated 49.67% [8.4% annually]. But

location makes a huge difference. California 5-yr avg = 102%, in Texas- 24%. (Dow Jones = 10%)

A ‘Small” shift in earnings can have a large shift in your life.Earning $91.2k instead of $80k allows you to save $16k (after taxes), instead of $8k.This doubles your savings, and allows you to retire at age 58 instead of 65Math: $8k annuity, 10.5% interest, 35 years. Final Value = $2.6M-OR- $16k annuity, 10.5% interest, 28 years. Final Value = $2.6M