I've been asked what kind of salary I'm looking for - I have NO idea.. help!

Fay_elizabeth

Hi Guys,

I need some help, I live on the outskirts of London and work in central. I lost my office job last week (my bosses are shutting their office) but the lady who owns the office across from ours has pretty much offered me a job there. Now this office is much bigger, its a publishing agency with lots of employees all working on brand new apple macs etc.

My job would be exactly the same as my old one: customer service assistant via phone and email with some packing and taking phone orders.

At my old job I worked for £7 an hour, 37 hours and I barely got by. My overall salary was £12,500 a year (bare in mind this is in central London)

The lady offering me the job has asked me what salary I am looking for, I have no idea! I thought about saying £16,000 as its going to be full time in central London, but is that too high / low?

Any advice anyone can give would be great!:T

johnmichaeldoyle

Maybe look at job websites like reed, totaljobs, monster to get an idea of what the average wage is for a customer service assistant, then go with that...

On total jobs they have a salary checker. I would put the link but don't want to get banned for spamming. It looks like the average for a customer service assistant is about £17,000 but when i put in customer service advisor the average is £20,000....

MissSarah1972

On www.reed.co.uk most are about £18-£22k

I would try for £17-18k and see what they say.

Now is your chance to get a job with more money and if you don't ask you don't get.

Good luck.

InsideInsurance

Personally always try and deflect it away from you answering directly.... say that the average according to the agency Reed is £18k - £22k and given your X experience you believe you would be about average or above average or whatever you feel you are

Acc72

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Personally always try and deflect it away from you answering directly....

I agree with the above.

If asked again, try to turn it back on the person by saying "what is the pay scale for this role?" or something similar.

Try to get the opportunity to show what you can do for the company and how with your experience you could quickly become a member of the team etc. etc. before the subject of money is raised.

At the end of the day, worst case scenario I cannot see them looking to pay less than what you currently earn, so hopefully at least you will have a job (better than no job) until you find something better paid.

cmw1212

Assuming your hours are staying the same then £16k would be in line with the london living wage which is £8.30 p/hr.
Note the LLW is not bound by law though.