Subject: Re: local geek pricing and gathering certifications
From: Craig Callender (craigc@corith.com)
Date: Thu Mar 07 2002 - 22:50:26 AKST
The real fact is, if you charge less than $90.00/hour, no one will hire
you because they will think you are a joke. And if you already have good
customers in the area, you're probably looking closer to 150-250/hour.
I worked for a company called MosquitoNet up in fairbanks, they contracted
me (at the time I was 17) to trouble shoot a perl script for a customer at
$250.00/hour. Guess how many certs I had. Zero. I didn't even have a
high school diploma. That particular job took me about 12 hours (I didn't
know perl at the time). So, your price is what you want to make it. I
would suggest starting for small businesses, and charging between 70 -
100/hour. That should get you started, I think certs are a joke.
-- Craig C.
P.s. The real knowledge comes from experience, you can eat your piece of
paper.
On Thu, 7 Mar 2002, Buddha wrote:
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 22:01:38 -0800
From: Buddha <buddha@gci.net>
To: aklug@aklug.org
Subject: local geek pricing and gathering certifications
I've been tapped to be the "geek on call" for a local real estate agency,
but have zero experience in the private sector. I have countless years with
"hands on" experience and have spent the last 3.5 yrs as a sys admin on
Elmendorf.
Two questions:
1) Can someone point me in the right direction on the web on how to do time
estimating, how to do business proposals, the order to do things, etc. I'm
a Gooogle master, but have no idea what the keywords to look for are. (And
I really suck at this "customer relations" thing...I'm used to being "the
geek behind the scenes".)
2) What are the going rates for computer/networking jobs around town per
hour? I'd heard $90/hr somewhere before. In investigating the network at
this agency, I talked to the tech at Alaska Computer Brokers eho desined it
and I asked him a few questions about pricing, etc. His response was,
"Well, how many certifications do you have". My response: "None. I too
busy fixing/installing hardware/software that I don't have time to study to
cert on anything". I mentioned the $90 number to him and he said this was
the upper range for me as I had no certifications. We chatted some more and
I come out it feeling like I need to gather as many certs as possible to
"get paid". Can y'all enlighten me on pricing and this certification
quandry I seem to be in?
Thanx in adavance,
-Jim "Buddha" McMorris
Jack of alot of trades...Master of none
PS: Please re-broadcast the particulars on this friday's meeting. Thanx.
In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and
null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of
IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there
be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they
carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called
the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was
evening and there was morning, one interrupt.
-- Rico Tudor, "The Story of Creation or, The Myth of Urk"
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