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Any other students get crap pay?

2 points by pjw1187 ↗ HN
Hi everyone, I'm a CS student and wanted to see if anyone else has ran into this problem pursuing jobs/freelance work. I often find that companies will only pay 7-10 dollars an hour because you are a "student". One company wanted me to debug their primary software product and fix it for them for 8.00 an hour. Anyone else find this issue in college?

3 comments

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aaronblohowiak
as much as it sucks, take the jobs. the experiences you get now will more than make up for the pay differential if it means your career as a whole has a better trajectory as a result.
gexla
Building experience with a company is good, but the marketing and business management side of your own freelance business is good as well. Finding gigs for $50 / hr when you are currently being offered $8 / hr is also important experience. That's being able to sell!
gexla
The companies will pay your hourly rate or you won't work for them. That's how freelancing works. This is especially important for freelancing considering that you have to pay self employment taxes, you have zero benefits with the company and there is no long term commitment.

You don't even need for your client to know that you are a student unless you are handing them a resume / coverletter. My clients almost never require these things though.

As a student, likely the worst thing you have working against you is a lack of experience. Still, your rates shouldn't be that low though. I would rather work for free in a really good environment, but if you really need the money then you may not have that luxury.

Ultimately, you may have to take what you can get. But there are other options. I don't know anything about the desktop software market but web development gigs are pretty easy to get and they are everywhere.

One place to start is sites like Elance and Odesk. Sure there are a lot of silly jobs posted there and equally silly developers responding, but if you take the time to look you will find good opportunities. Once you start building some experience and a client base, you can start raising your rates.

Good Luck!