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 7:14 pm
dee, i read salve’s money smarts because i learn from it. if she is not the financial expert you expect her to be, it doesn’t matter to regular people like me because, truth is, salve is able to make us interested in reading and learning about money matters.
i am sure many of us take time to go on vacations, and if we aren’t careful, we end up spending more than we budget. her blog on vacation helped us learn a lot from contributors.
her article on 0% interest in credit card purchases was also very enlightening, and so on, and so forth…
even if i don’t know her personally, i am glad i have met salve thru money smarts. it would be nice to meet her one day and discuss our money boo-boos and triumphs.
October 16th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
@ cat:
“. . . either the corporation which hired the person pay them for a certain percentage of the total annual take home pay,” Or?
Have you read Magallanes’ article? It really sounded . . . unreasonable. It was almost like reading pep squad cheers - appeal to positive emotions yet are logically insubstantial.
I read your OFW start-up business posts. Where’s part 3?
October 16th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
I guess many commenters here haven’t heard how the Robert Half in the US and the other headhunters operate.
It is just like getting someone to polish your resume, give you the tips on how to pass an interview with flying colors and does the haggling in terms of salaries and other benefits.
In return, either the corporation which hired the person pay them for a certain percentage of the total annual take home pay. No out of pocket cost from the applicant.
In placement agency, they do the same but for temporary appointments, they
pay only a certain percentage of the asked pay-per-hour to the employee i.e. 65 per cent of the total salary billing.
Headhunters have specialization too, like they only place accountants or executives who are difficult to come by.
Just because you do not know some industry practices, you think that the concept is absurd. That is not what is covered in the university curriculum.
October 16th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Dee, your comment made me think about my first post in MoneySmarts last March 7. Yes, this blog is all of seven months old and I’m quite proud of it, not because of what I have written but because of its impact in the lives of people who read it. As I said in that post (The millionaires around us):
“This blog is for those who want to know the ingredients, who want to be inspired by other Pinoys who give the rat race a kick on the butt, and for those who are already financially independent but want to coach some people along the way. This is a blog for Pinoys who want to be money-smart, not just rich, and for Pinoys who understand that the best way to focus on that goal is to help each other.”
I have been writing about personal finance for more than 10 years now and have formal training in financial planning from some of the best people in the industry. But I’m not an expert and I don’t claim to be. I don’t claim to be wealthy either. But everyday, I find that there are many more things to learn and the best attitude is to always keep on learning. If you put a financial expert here, believe me, you will still find it hard to meet 10 people who agree with him all the time.
The truth is, there are a lot of varied opinions out there, and the key is to find your voice to keep on asking and learning from those who know. MoneySmarts is all about deepening the discussion on the very colorful road to real prosperity. MoneySmarts also connects ordinary people to people who are in the know, but rather than get readers to kowtow to an expert, the goal is to demystify the road to wealth in such a way that readers can know for themselves if that expert is leading them to a pothole or not.
If you look at the wealth of comments from people who read this blog, you will see that deepening discussion. You will see people finding their voice and learning from each other. You will see people who are starting to have their own opinion on whether to listen to an “expert” or not, because they are starting to save more, spend less, invest more and live in a more fulfilling way.
Personal stuff I share are meant to remove the mumbo-jumbo from finance and keep the economic theories real to many of us who are ordinary people. Sources are always linked to, including original articles that I cite in my blog. Oh and by the way, if there’s one thing I value, it’s the fact that not once have I thrown away my integrity for money. So, no paid press releases here Dee. You can count on that. Enjoy reading!
October 16th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Where do you get your sources Ms. Duplito? Your blog or whatever you call it is becoming to read like a paid press release of a bank or other companies. Sometimes, it does read like your personal journal. Who cares where you and your husband will spend your Christmas vacation? Just trying to advertise yourself or maybe your newfound personal wealth? Who cares about your projects or ‘abogading’ as well? An experienced money or finance expert should be hosting this blog.