Dan Magallanes, CEO of Headhunter Manila, says your salary should be four times your age. Meaning if you are 30 years old, you should be getting P120,000 monthly – at least.
Bink, blink, blink.
I make a mental roll call of my acquaintances and close friend and find that I can pull out only 10 percent of the names in my roster that meet this rough rule of thumb. CEOs, senior management in a multinational firm or entrepreneurs who have already made it big in their chosen businesses are what their calling cards say.
What does that mean? If we are not getting this kind of pay scale, we should get a career consultant to fix our sagging careers, Magallanes says. I admit that the previous sentence is laced with a bit of jaded flippancy, but the headhunter makes an impassioned case on why paying a career consultant a hefty fee is worth it, even when our salaries are languishing.
I have observed that most of our executives and professionals at any point in their career would rather buy a high-end mobile phone or an expensive designer bag than pay a career consultant for their stagnant or sagging career. They tend to forget that they have to live on a parallel lifestyle based on their position in the company and of course their take-home pay. If you are bent on having a good career, you have to focus on how you will attain it at a certain paradigm. It is not wanting but not doing anything.
He cites several cases to drive home the point. Here’s one: a 38-year-old who graduated from a “not-so-known college in the southern part of the country” gets half-a-million per month on top of dizzying perks, besting nine other candidates from top universities. He even got a sign-on bonus of $50,000. He had no MBA and does not intend to get one.
Raising your eyebrows yet? Here’s another one:
Magallanes says he plucked this 28-year-old communications officer who graduated from an up-town college in the south from an international NGO and placed him in a blue-chip company for three times his salary in the NGO. This blue-chip company was bought by another giant, so Magallanes advices him to get a job somewhere else. Three months of searching ends up a dud and guy gets nervous. Magallanes tells him to be an entrepreneur. On his first month, he earned his salary for the first quarter of the following year.
I would love to meet this guy and get him to coach MoneySmarts readers next year. In a country where UP, La Salle, Ateneo and UA&P lords it over all the others, a guy who says he does not look for MBAs from top universities has something important to say to Filipinos. But here’s the most controversial part in his article:
“The best career is in the Philippines nowadays. Blue-chip companies are coming our way. This is the place to become successful. The most comfortable life is here. You leave the country because you feel you cannot make it here. If you cannot make it here, you cannot make it anywhere.”
True or false?
Read the entire article here.
October 16th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Employees deserve to be paid 4x their age or even more if they make more money for their company. If they make 1M a month for the company, they deserve maybe 500k not just 120k.
But if you can make 1M a month consistently, why would you work for a company? People who are really good at making money are working for themselves. Corporate types can’t make money on their own or can’t make as much as their salary. In which case, maybe they don’t deserve their pay.
October 15th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
@qwerty, it’s ok, I know it was an honest mistake.
You can also look at it this way…the x4000 rule may not just be compensation in pesos. You can include here different employment benefits: i.e. medical/HMO, SSS, philhealth, VL/SL, training, etc.
OR you can interpret the statement this way…
Filipino skils DESERVE x4000 compensation. Dan’s statement serves as an eye-opener and at the same time, a motivation. He is actually throwing us a BIG compliment here, people.
I do hope Mr Dan reacts to our comments here, soon.
October 15th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
I highly doubt this person’s claims, as his figures are extremely optimistic. But I while I do agree that earning four times your age is possible, I doubt that it’ll be a headhunter that would make it all happen.
This is because in the Philippines, (where some consider earning 30t a month an “okay” job) if you manage to earn 4x your age, I assume you’re probably smart enough not to need the services of a headhunter.
In my humble opinion, all this is a hypejob, and that Dan Magallanes (whoever he happens to be) has a pretty good publicity machine.
(I’d actually look for who handled his PR and hire them, not Dan.)
Because anyone with good sense can be a consultant of something or other. And they’re terribly easy to find.
Disclaimer: This is just purely a personal opinion, and is not meant to offend anyone. Opinyon ko lang po ito, at maaaring ako’y mali.
October 13th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
To Dan M: You stirred the hornet’s nest! Whether for or against your controversial article a lot of our kababayans have given such strong reactions….I enjoyed reading the comments especially that of ODA, HACHIKO, PINOY INVESTOR, PETER, FATIMA, et al……I have one question though….the opportunity you mentioned is available to the healthcare service industry? I work as a nurse based in the US.
October 13th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
@Oda
Cerebral opinions - as I have come to expect!
@ec
Can you even think of a logical reason how the Philippines can “****up” by being lead by alumni of top universities? I think one needs great social skills and good brains to get ahead in life. Our professors didn’t teach us to be evil and corrupt. My teachers are heroes who endure a difficult job for low compensation. Don’t lump all of us together.
By the way, your disgusting language really gives me a glimpse of who you are. How sad.