CNN Money reports that the average starting salary for 2018’s crop of new college graduates is $50,390. While this rate is affected by both location and field, a quick scan of sites like Payscale, Salary.com and even Indeed seem to show a different perspective, with much lower actual starting salaries.
Here are the average starting salaries in 10 major US cities from the CNN report:
- San Francisco $63,995
- New York $60,972
- Boston $59,460
- Los Angeles $56,386
- Chicago $55,177
- Philadelphia $54,169
- Minneapolis $53,766
- Denver $53,010
- Dallas $50,743
- Atlanta $49,584
Today’s college graduates may have high expectations for salary, especially if burdened with student loans, versus what your company can actually offer for entry level positions. So how can companies bridge the gap of salary expectation versus reality? How do you attract new graduates when you are a non-profit with typically lower wages than public sector jobs?
1. Show the future!
I know you don’t actually have a crystal ball that predicts the future, but there is an easy way to show a candidate a possible future with a career path graphic. A simple graphic – easy to create in Word or PowerPoint you can use to show the starting point of the entry level job, and the possible next step up.
One of my favorite examples is “The Shacksperience” from Shake Shack:
The Shacksperience career path graphic shows the starting point for new team member employees, and shows how they can move up in the company after gaining experience and building on their on the job skills. An entry level team member can move up to become a trainer, manager. The key is to show that the starting point, is not a “dead end,” but only the beginning to something long term with room to grow and learn new things.
2. Show your salary, or salary range in the job advertisement.
This will quickly help candidates identify if your job is in range of what they are looking for, and prevent people from applying if it’s not in their range. Additionally having salary information listed in the job advertisement helps with search engine optimization for Indeed and Google.
3. Bridge the salary gap with perks.
If you simply cannot come to terms with the desired salary, or as a non-profit, you are out of range to be as competitive as you would like, there are other ways to still remain an attractive employer by offering perks that help with work life balance. For example Paid Time Off PTO, time off for volunteering, gym memberships, flex time etc.
By using a combination of showing the entry level employee a potential future, making your salary range visible in your job advertisements to weed out candidates who are not in range, and by offering great perks that increase work life balance you can attract qualified graduates to your company. Don’t forget to continually communicate with your candidates to provide a great candidate experience.
More reading:
Starting salary for the class of 2018: $50,390 (CNN)
13 Inexpensive But Effective Benefits That Keep Employees Happy
http://www3.forbes.com/leadership/13-inexpensive-but-effective-benefits-that-keep-employees-happy/