License = Promotion

$60k per year

Risk = Reward

How much more reward do you want for the extra risk you're now taking.

I have had past students finally get their license and receive ZERO recognition or raise from their employers. They all quit and went elsewhere for more pay.

Around here, I have asked what the going rate is for a new licensee and the common answer is $60K.

I respectfully suggest you are asking the wrong question. The right question is ... "How much extra value am I creating / bringing to the company now that I have a license?".

This is (or should be) how your boss is looking at things. If you bring extra value now, do not hesitate to:

1. Demonstrate in monetary terms exactly how much extra value
2. Make the case why you should receive a fair portion of that value

Once you can clearly demonstrate those two things one of two things will happen. 1. You get the raise you seek, or 2. They really do not want you on the team.

Lots of folks will proclaim that you are an important part of the team, blah blah blah. But the truth is, once you show them the proof if they do not go along with a raise, they are the sort of company that views employees as expendable assets to be used and discarded. I say why work for folks like that.

If you are not bringing extra value, now may not be the best time to be asking this question.

Larry P

When I was first licensed my boss told me that just because I have a piece of paper to hang on the wall doesn't mean I would get paid as an RLS until I started doing the work of an RLS. I agreed with the opinion of my boss but about 16 months later we sat down for a performance review, in that time I had taken over most of the projects in the neighboring state where I held my license. About 95% of my time was billable. I did everything from answering the initial phone call to signing the map and giving the office manager my billing for the project. For my efforts I was told the company appreciated the extra work I had taken on but they could only afford to bump my pay about $0.25/hour. I found a new job and gave my notice two days later.

> Risk = Reward
>
> How much more reward do you want for the extra risk you're now taking.

Assuming they are asking you to take more risks.

When I got my first license, the firm where I was employed didn't need me to sign maps or take on any greater supervisory tasks, so they gave me a token raise. The owner was a PE/LS, and he signed off on everything.

I kept them out of trouble for several years, and then moved on.

How many raises have you gotten since 2008?

Very interesting discussion.

I can easily see how an employer would view the current employee as actually being less valuable to them upon learning they now have their own license. This can be viewed as a desire to leave the company to become an independent operator or to begin interviewing with other companies in need of a license holder.

In other cases, the employer might offer a nice pay increase if the employee will start stamping a significant portion of the company's work, thus spreading the liability.

I would assume that for the majority of situations there would be no change in wages or benefits.

When I got my license I was invited to breakfast with the "Big 3" of the firm I was employed with.
At the breakfast I was told I would be given a $1/hr raise and be promoted to the title of equipment manager, which gave me the key to the storage closet.
I stayed there a few weeks and went on my own.

Obviously I was the exception 🙂

When I was first licensed I switched from an at will employee to a contract employee with a $5K raise, gas card (I had a 45 mile commute), company credit card to take clients out with, was added to the company executive pension plan (in addition to the 401K) and started receiving twice yearly bonuses based on a percentage of total company profit rather than individual performance.

Wow I am totally shocked to see what really happens once the license is under your belt. It seems as though most companies dont really care whether they keep you around or not and are more interested in those that will do the same work for less.

I am hoping that I'll be the exception as well. Of course I'm aware that the real value of how much someone is worth is based on what they can offer, how much work they can do, and how much of a benefit they are to the company once they get their license.

For all the people that ended up leaving their current employers and going elsewhere, I'm assuming that you must have then hired on asking for more knowing that you were worth every penny and therefore got a raise but had to work extra hard for it

Yep, for the 5 years I worked for a company prior to achieving my license, I was consistently assured that I would get a significant raise and promotion when I passed. That day came along and I asked about it; "we'll get back to you on that" was the response I got. They were expecting me to sign and stamp stuff. I refused to do so unless I got paid for it. They finally offered me a $1/hour raise. I was gone shortly after that.

When I got mine back in 94 the company had a standard .50 cents per hour for SIT and 1.00 for LS , that was it . The rest is merit and what you can do for the company .

I did a lot of surveying in Alaska in my LSIT days, made around $65/year. It's a tough case since I don't know what company you're working for and what your capability is being freshly licensed. If you're boss is making you stamp--it's your name and your stamp..so you should be compensated. If you're freshly licensed and not stamping much--it would be hard to justify a huge bump. But alas, a raise is probably in order.

When I was hired, I was told I needed to get registered in the 3 state we work in. So far I have obtained my registratio in 2 state with my application almost complete for another license. When I reached my first milestone and got my PLS I got NO compensation. Then I got my second registration only to get taken out for lunch and told, "we wish we could give you something extra in your check, but we can't". So now I ponder on if I should invest my time into a 3rd registration or not.... For what? Unfortanitly there are no openings in my area that I have seen. So as far as your question, does it make you more valuable to the company to have your license? If so , they should compensate you for it, if not it's a big loss for them when you say "see ya".

Funny, Prof. Gibson at UF used to say the same thing ... he even discouraged students from going back to work at the places they interned because they wouldn't see the pay raise from completing the degree / passing the LSIT ... of course, this was when companies were beating down the doors to hire survey grads ... now it seems like a "take what you can get and don't complain" work atmosphere ...

Cliff

McDonalds employee's make 60K in Alaska due to everything being inflated. I wouldn't have a clue what that would translate to for a professional license.

Only those folks up there really know, hence the risk=reward.

Shoot and a buck an our raise was a lot of money back in 1958.... Is that when you were first licensed?

My boss (owner / operator) bumped me up $4/hour for passing, and we are in discussions for putting me in a salaried position.

We had a frank discussion about salaries at his company versus other larger firms. He told me that he probably could not offer what other, larger companies could, which is around that $60k mark. But I was laid off in the summer of 2009 from one of those larger companies. At this point, it's more important for me to have a consistent income than it is to try for the largest salary.

Right now where I am is a good fit. While it is a very small firm, it has a decent reputation in the area and for that reason has been able to keep the doors open. I am willing to settle for less for the time being, especially since my boss is looking to retire in five years and would like to hand the keys over to me.