

Any other students get crap pay? - pjw1187

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?
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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!

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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!

