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 9th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Hi Fatima-
I haven’t heard about him before this article. I did not even realised that such a profession is available here in the Phil.
Pessimism = realism? So are you saying that in the reality you are living in, there is no room for optimism? In my reality, it has plenty.
But I guess, we have our own realities. I understand your opinion and respect it.
I just hope that most of the people here does the same with Magallanes’ opinion.
Cheers!
October 9th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Peter, I think, we’re not being pessimistic he, we are only being realistic. There’s a big difference between the two.
October 9th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Dear Peter, we Are motivated to earn more - just not in PH. In PH, starting salary from a multinational = 5000php net and work is 12 H per day and 6 days a week; in northern Europe, starting salary = 90,000php net and work is 8H a day and 5 days a week. In PH, pessimism is roughly equal to realism. Being optimistic at home requires one to be a bit delusional. By the way, have you consulted Magallanes?
October 9th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
This is article is bull.
I believe that we should aim for passive income that is twice our monthly expenses.
October 9th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Most of the comments here are exactly the reasons why most Filipinos are waaaaay off Mr. Magallanes’ target.
Did not even seen 1 comment that said this post motivated them to earn more. Most dismissed it, and thus loses the traction to stay on the road. I guess these are what you are calling the 95% of the population. Veeeery pessimistic.