RE: The Cost of Living in the Bay Area

Lisa Dusseault (lisadu@exchange.microsoft.com)
Tue, 28 Jul 1998 17:13:27 -0700

I don't know if anybody else responded to this... As a canadian with a TN
visa, I believe you have more flexibility than that in getting a title for
your job on your visa. Even though I have an engineering degree and my
husband has a Math degree (honest -- it's math, not science or arts), we
both have "computer systems analyst" on our visas. The job title you use
can describe your job, not your training. All the company has to do is show
that your training is useful for the job, and that there aren't enough US
graduates with that training.

Lisa Lippert

-----Original Message-----
From: WILKINS@hws.edu [mailto:WILKINS@hws.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 1998 12:44 PM
To: fork@xent.ics.uci.edu
Subject: Re: The Cost of Living in the Bay Area

>> http://www.iii.com

>Have you looked at the other search engine companies?

Not really as I always assumed that I would stay in academia.
It was not until Innovative Interfaces started to pursue me
so aggessively at the Conference that I seriously considered
this option.

>They are paying top dollar. I wouldn't take any positions
>without at least sending a resume to the top 3 or 4.

One of my problems, however, is that as Canadian I have to have
the word "librarian" within my job title if I am to get a NAFTA
visa (or else the company would have to get me an HB-1 visa and that
is much more difficult to acquire than my current NAFTA visa).

>My recomendations off the top of my head:
> o $10k moving expenses

They are offering 2k moving expenses

> o 15%- 35% of salary signing bonus

They are offering around 7-8% as signing bonus

> o I don't know your salary history, but take your
> top potential salary and median tech industry
> for the area I think is 65k, in that area is $72,9k.
> and figure out where you fall in the scale.

Hmmmm... Maybe their offer is not even in the ballpark of
what I should be asking. My current salary sucks beyond
belief, but living in Geneva is cheap. I gave up the big
bucks for the glory of working in academe, so almost
anything seems better.

> o Another rule of thumb is tech skills with some
> other skill is worth 5-25% more also (look at
> a CS degree and MBA). Library science with tech
> skills are desired right now.

I don't have a CS degree. I have an MLIS and a B.Ed. My
tech skills have all been bootstrapped and nothing is official
on paper (other than three to four day seminars here and there).
Although, library schools these days do focus on the tech side
of things.

>Greg's magic calculator says you are worth $94.8k with a signing
>bonus of $19k for 1 year and $33.1 for 2 or more years and a
>$10k moving fee sight unseen with good recs.

Boy, that is some magic calculator you got there! If I could get
that type of cash I would be doing cartwheels in the library!

Anyhow, thanks for the advice. It is good advice and I think I will
definitely try to get them to come up at least a few thousand and to
see if I can get them to sweeten the signing deal.

Diva