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Get a seat at the table and build the design career you want. This podcast is for designers looking to break in, level up, and take control of their careers—whether you're freelancing, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to get noticed. Every two weeks, we dive into career fundamentals, design best practices, and the hottest topics in the design community.
So there's this feature in LinkedIn where it shows that you're open for work, which I refuse to use because that just Seems screams, I am desperate to find me anything. Yep. Think when I was let go, think twice. I have I did I refused to turn on the open for work. Like, my positioning was, I still have a job, but I'm applying to you.
Tyler:And then you can still play that. This is my current salary. I would love something. And
Nick:you're officially live. We're officially live. Exactly. I mean, this is just an experiment.
Tyler:The doctor, Marked.
Nick:Good one.
Tyler:I think it was a really good one.
Nick:Yeah. I liked how you went full circle and made this episode not just a rant, but also helpful in a way with some takeaways. So well done there. It's gotta be. Right?
Nick:So next one.
Tyler:You think we can do this in twenty five minutes or so? Yep. Might have to jump to a meeting at 09:30, but I think we have twenty five minutes.
Nick:Yeah. Sure. Let's let's go for it. Something money related. I'm not sure how yet, but it just came up to me when you told me, like, hey.
Nick:Common enemy horror stories always work. And then I was like, okay. Yeah. Well, second thing, money also always works. So it can be really specific.
Nick:You know, tips on negotiating money, also maybe success stories or how to find how to know your hourly rates, that kind of thing. And Yeah. Let's take it from there. Let's make it a high speed twenty, twenty two minutes super episode.
Tyler:Do it. You wanna kick us off? Let's talk money.
Nick:Mhmm. Yeah. I I think that's exactly the opening I had in mind. Okay. Alright.
Nick:So let's talk about the most important topic ever. The whole world turns around it, and that's money. And specifically money yeah. Right? I don't think we have ever talked about it.
Nick:Not really as the main theme of an episode. The salary, revenue, negotiating your hourly rates, your salary increases, that kind of stuff, I think it's really important to, yeah, to to to give it some some time and and and talk about it. Both for you as an in house person and me as a freelancer, think we can cover this whole area with money talk.
Tyler:Yeah. I think yeah. Money is a touchy subject, but it's something that we should talk about. Especially, like, your something for me that I never thought I'd be pushing for in my career. I think I as a a kid, earlier in my career or when I was in school, was like, if if I can find something that I can do with art or drawing, I'm cool.
Tyler:I don't care what they pay me. I think the when I was looking at salaries, I was like, I think if I hit 40 k per year, I'd be happy to look like to live on that for the rest of my life if I can do something if I could do something around my art because I was never good at that's the only thing I really excelled in in school. So I was like, if I could do something like that, I'll it'll I'll enjoy because I get to do something crafty and and artistic.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. And then reality hits.
Tyler:Yeah. And then reality oh, there's more. Yeah. There's a
Nick:So when you say 40, that's Canadian dollars? Just so Canadian reference?
Tyler:Okay. Yeah. That's Canadian. I would go on this website called payscale.com, if you've heard of it. It's like one of those websites you go to.
Tyler:You get to see you put in a job title and you get to see what what you would get paid for that particular like, you're a plumber, if you're this or that. So I put in graphic designer, what is the salary? And it had this really cool feature called gig zig, which is basically it'll it shows you what the your career progression might be, which was like the inception of all my greedy money hungry nest. If you overdramatic, it was like, you it'd be fun. You put in your career path, and then it would show you what the three steps above that that position would be.
Tyler:So like if it was junior designer, then it'd be senior graphic. And then also, it would show you where the the fork in the road would be. So if you wanna go, like, senior graphic designer or artistic director, then what that path would lead into. Right. Which, like, my first dipping my toes into like, this is how you climb the career and get more money.
Tyler:That's what it was for me.
Nick:I mean, did did you the results you got from putting in your career and your your job then, did it bring you close to the 40 k, or did you have a a moment of reality hits hitting you and being Yeah.
Tyler:I think I talked about this before, but my first job ever was 40 k. I I think I I spoke I was like, I I'm like, well, I've I've hit it. I can now retire.
Nick:I've I've I've made it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not not caring what you're not not caring what your salary is is is the the main ingredient for getting abused salary rise. You know?
Tyler:Yeah. Because there is a value into, like like, the like, from an a business perspective, it's if I hire someone, they should I should get a three x return. I think that's, like, the standard math. Like, if I pay someone to do this job, they should return me three x in revenue. I think that's what there's more it's more complex than that, but I think high level, that's how you should be thinking about it as the employee or the person kind of putting forth their work.
Nick:You know, it's it's just challenge with with something like that and also with with those tools on on the Internet where you can see, like, an overview of your, you know, potential salary. You said there are just a lot of it depends going around there. You know? Because when you say, like, three times the the the costs as a as a return, it depends. Like, if you sell a service, it's way easier than when you are a different kind of company when you have a product, I think, for example.
Nick:But then also over here, at least in The Netherlands, like if you are in Amsterdam, things are way more expensive. The salaries also are way higher than when you are more to the East or to the South Of The Netherlands in a smaller city. And then also, you are a graphic designer in a large consultancy firm versus an agency, salary levels are very different. And just to throw one more in, and then I know there are way more even. But the final one I want to mention is if you stay at the same place for a long time, you will probably like, in in lots of cases, you will your salary will grow grow slower compared to a quote unquote job hopper.
Nick:You know? The market goes faster. So there are there are a lot of factors in play, which makes it it very difficult to to just, you know, find a number on the Internet that is somewhat, you know, realistic for your situation. Mhmm.
Tyler:That's true. The job hopper thing is a big one. I think that's I think that's prominent in our industry. It's like you we've learned that if you if you hop quite often, like, you'll your salary jumps. It's like, I have a baseline.
Tyler:This is what I'm paid. By jump, I should be paid more than I am currently. And that generally outpaces the 4% salary raise per year.
Nick:Yeah. True. Yeah. And it it gets way easier if you have a job. Like, if you have a job, you know, like, this is what I'm currently making.
Nick:So if you have a job interview somewhere else, you have that to fall back on. So if I make, like, 3,000 a month, I know in my salary negotiation I want to go back to 35. But if you have never had a job before, like, you don't know if it should be 25 or 35. You you don't know what the what the benchmark is. So I'm well aware of that for our listeners without a job.
Nick:You know, it gets easier after the first job.
Tyler:Yeah. And even if you were let go, you don't have to this is so there's this feature in LinkedIn where it shows that you're open for work, which I refuse to use because I just Same. Screams, I am desperate to find me anything. Yep. I think when I was let go, I think twice, I have I did I refused to turn on the open for work.
Tyler:Like, my positioning was, I still have a job, but I'm applying to you. And then you can still play that. This is my current salary. I would love something above it, anything.
Nick:Yep. Yeah. That's that's smart. You talking about the feature as a whole or just that green banner? Because I have, like, the invisible version enabled, you know, browsing, looking around, but never the green banner.
Tyler:The invisible one is good. I've gotten, like, someone reach out within, like, half an hour of me turning that on. I was like, how does this work, this magical button?
Nick:Click.
Tyler:No. But the green the green banner, it always seems like if you have the green banner and no shade here. But, like, it seems like the green banner communicates something negative, and I'd rather have something positive associated with, like, my application. Like, if there's if some if I apply, someone looks at my profile, it looks like I have a job. And I don't think the gap, if it's, like, a couple weeks out, that's a big deal.
Tyler:Yeah. Or even a month or two out.
Nick:It's the same as you where you almost always get that question at the end of the interview. Like, okay, well, are you applying somewhere else? And when you say like, no, no, you're the only ones, like, it takes away the whole urgency for them to give you a response quickly. So even if you do and maybe this is a bit shady, but if you do not have anything else going on, should always say like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Have an interview tomorrow.
Nick:You know, just to Interesting. Yeah. Just to fake the the demand that might or might not be there.
Tyler:The the line I like to do is like, I'm in a couple of fruitful conversations with a couple of companies at
Nick:the moment. I think I think that's that's very fancy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Nick:Know, when I when I opt jobs, if that's that's a verb, like, the the first time, I only like, when I well, the first time technically wasn't really job hopping because they told me that they weren't going to extend my contract, but they were nice enough to tell me like four or five months before that happened. So I had a job, but I was going to lose it. So conversations then were way easier. Oh, this guy has a job and he wants to work for us. Wow.
Nick:You know, that's impressive. But then I only got a €100 a month raise, and that's before taxes gets produced from it. But then the the one after, when I had way more confidence, I had I got an €800 a month increase, plus they gave me an allowance for a car, like, just to to travel, I guess, consultant to travel to Yeah. Different Yeah. So that was like a $1,500 euros a month increase.
Nick:So I I went from 25 to 40. So 2,500 to to 4,000, which was like a massive increase. I I I didn't believe it when that happened. Before we continue, if you're feeling stuck in your design career or if you feel like you're doing solid work while no one really notices, we've got a bunch of extra stuff on our website.
Tyler:We're building a community for product designers to actually learn, grow, and get hired, not just scroll and collect more inspiration.
Nick:There's also articles, checklists, and courses,
Tyler:all based on real world experience from both of us. No fluff, just what actually works.
Nick:Check out designtablepodcast.com. The link is in the description.
Tyler:Were you just rolling on on the money on your mattress?
Nick:No. Well, because it it it still wasn't enough because well, enough, know, enough is, of course, a a relative thing, but it's in The Netherlands with a relatively high cost of living. Like, it it's it it I went from below average to average, basically. Still a big step, you know, and that was really the result of me at 2,500 not really knowing anything, not having a baseline. And then the next company, I had the baseline.
Nick:I had more experience. I had two companies that I both of them I told I had another company, so it was not a lie. So the first one increased their offer by 100. And then the second one, they really wanted to make sure that they were the highest offer. So they went a little bit higher.
Nick:And that really helps me. And then I came in the job, and then I found out that compared to my peers, I was still below them even even even with me coming in later. You know? So yeah. Still I mean, it was still just average, but I was happy with the race, of course.
Tyler:Yeah. Yeah. And you're going it's like, you don't have to be on par with that one all the time. Like, you can get obsessive about it, like, going on Glassdoor and just some people post on Glassdoor, like, the salaries within the company that you're it or that you're applying to. That could be beneficial or not beneficial.
Tyler:It's like, oh, I'm above or below. So I generally suggest you looking at that before you start so you know, like, where what the salary band is.
Nick:True. Over here, and I'm not sure if it's a Netherlands thing or an EU thing, European Union thing, but I think starting this year or or this July, last July, it's now required for companies above a certain number of employees to to be open about, like, everyone's salary just to prevent people being abused. Curious to know if you think if that's a good thing or a bad thing for an employee?
Tyler:Think that I think it's positive because you there's transparency there.
Nick:Mhmm.
Tyler:You know, that you can at least hit the minimum. The negative is that there's then generally more competition. I think there's a higher click through rate for job applications that have a salary associated with it. So there's pluses in mind. I think it overwhelmingly positive.
Tyler:It's like that's that meets your threshold. Like, if I'm looking for a new job, this hits these at least the salary check among the other things. But then you're in competition with with others. Yeah. If that if the salary that you're promoting is either on or above market whatever the market is offering.
Nick:I I think the the ceiling comes down a bit too because when there's no transparency, I've had recruiters tell me no to my requirements because, you know, it doesn't really fit the salary structure that we have at the company. And then you just had to believe them. But now, you know, when that's really the case, you can't really go above because then everyone else will be like, hey. Why does this new guy have so much? I wanted to.
Nick:You know? So I think then recruiters will become even more reluctant to go above, like, their most common salary.
Tyler:Yeah. That's a tricky one. I think it's becoming more and more the norm. I'm saying is that, like, to set a foundation of, like, what each role should be paid. I think the people team is is is now kind of making it more fair or equal across people.
Tyler:I think back in the day or back in my in our day, it was more Wild West. Like, you whoever asked for it or was more aggressive, it gets paid more. True. Or if if you wanna pull the I'm gonna leave if you don't pay me more trigger, you can. That's that that has one bullet in it.
Tyler:So I I wouldn't keep trying that over again.
Nick:True. Yeah.
Tyler:But now I think they're trying I think across the board are trying to make it fair, like, making sure that you pay it's the the fair market value.
Nick:Yeah. True. A new guy who he discovered he was a thousand euros below per month below a colleague, and he and he felt he was better at this job. So he confronted his manager, and his manager called his bluff. So he was so he said, I want to be paid equal or I leave.
Nick:And he was like, okay. Leave. And then he left. And then later on, a different manager at the same company, he wanted to hire him back. And he was like, well, you know, okay.
Nick:But I want to get a thousand euros more than before. And then he became suddenly, he was in a position of power, and and he got his race, you know? So that that's a roller coaster. In the end, you are the winner. But also, like, the the the few people have of you is not probably not the best.
Nick:And the whole roller coaster up until that point where you win, if you win, I think mentally, it's so exhausting. So be careful.
Tyler:Yeah. Like, I'd say if you wanna be like, I don't shade anyone who like wants to hustle and kind of get more money because they deserve it. But I think the strategy there is to like back to like my three x example. Yeah. If you're at a place where you can kind of measure your ROI as an individual, if you can if you're a high performer and then you know the value and you calculate it, like I've put in this amount of work and this I can tie it to the the the revenue that the company generated this month or this year.
Tyler:And if it if the margins are healthy, you can push you can push for a higher salary. And you have the because you've done that research, you have the the the reasoning to be like, you have the backup needed. Because that's not a bad thing. Like, I you put in x and then the company gets y. You're you're you're positive in the p and l sheet or the the product and the profits and loss.
Tyler:Yeah. Profit and loss.
Nick:Profit and loss, I think. Yeah.
Tyler:Yeah.
Nick:Well, that's true. I mean, it's it's hard to argue with, you know, with the numbers just to to make it a bit dramatic unless you are really a piece of work and nobody likes you. I mean Yes. That's a different that's a different thing.
Tyler:The caveat is you have to be pleasant to work with, nice a nice collaborator, but you can like, as that that is the baseline. But, like, if you're a high performer and you just, like, you're just like the high achieves, like, you can go that route. Like, you just Yeah. It just shows that you're you're you work hard and then you wanna be paired fairly. And and you have a a business mindset because you can see what your what positive impact you have on the company, and you'd love to do more.
Tyler:You just wanna be compensated for for the True. True.
Nick:And for me as a freelancer this year, I think things are going well. And the the biggest thing that I can share for people who want to freelance also is that I started really low with my hourly rate. I just didn't know what the market rate was. I see sometimes on Reddit. I see posts where people are like, you know, what should my hourly rate be?
Nick:And then some people say, well, 50. And some people say, I do one fifty. You know? But then again, it's the same story as as before where it depends on your location, on your niche, industry, and and experience. There's so many variables that it's impossible for you to say to for someone else to tell you, like, you should be at 82.5.
Nick:You know, you just just don't know. So my very first freelance client was coaching. So I just told him, oh, you know, $50 an hour. And he was like, okay. Well, that's reasonable.
Nick:You know? And that's the first clue. Like, if people accept instantly, you know, you probably know that you could have gone a bit higher. Now I have my baseline. Like, I have one client.
Nick:He pays me $50 an hour. He seems happy with this, and I we're all having fun. Okay. Nice. Next time, for someone else, I'm going to try 60.
Nick:You know? And that's the way how you increase your number. And at some point, you will get more rejections than people accepting your offer. And then, you know, you probably have your limit. But then again, there's still some factors at play, but that's how I, you know, went up from the starting point up until what I do now.
Nick:And for me this year, that's been the the biggest increase in revenue. Like, I I didn't want to work more hours. I didn't want to become a workaholic at fifty or sixty hours a week. But I just had, like, two projects that wrapped up, like long term clients. They were at 50, and I was able to replace those $2.50 an hour, with two at 95 an hour.
Nick:You know? And I'm not going to share, like, absolute numbers or anything, but I kept working the same hours, but it still was a quote, unquote raise for me because I just increased my average hourly rate. You know? So that's the biggest piece of advice I can give a freelancer, just to look at your average hourly rate and just try to increase it with every new client until you hit the resistance of potential clients.
Tyler:I think it's a really good tip. Yeah. Because like you more like more of this if you like, having more rejections than than acceptance is like how you know you're in that in that perfect gray zone of, like, yours but also you're saying no to the clients that you don't like. And the Of course. The higher you the higher clients pay, the better clients they are, I imagine.
Nick:Yeah. That that that's often the case. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Nick:But but that's the thing you have to figure out. Like, when you are a junior freelancer, so you're freelancing for the first time, even if you have tons of experience in house, like, have you to figure all those things out. When I started, I said yes to everything, everyone, including from the last episode, all the horror stories. Like, some of them are for my freelancing time. Then at some point, figure out like, hey, this this type of clients, you know, or the type of work or this just the energy I get here, that's probably not what I want to do anymore.
Nick:So then I'm saying no to that type of work or I'm not advertising it anymore on my website. But you have to go from yes to everything, like broad selection of work, spend some time, figure out what you like, and then narrow it in. And then when you narrow it in, you get you become an expert in that area, and you can ask more. And it took me two years after being employed for seven years. So only at my tenth or ninth year, I flipped that switch like, wait a minute.
Nick:I can I can also say no to people? And that's also where this uptick in revenue started. So you cannot rush it. That just takes time.
Tyler:Yeah. I think
Nick:yeah.
Tyler:That follow like, no notes.
Nick:No notes. Nice. Nice. Nice. Yeah.
Nick:Yeah. I mean, I I I we we talk mostly about in house from your experience and also my in house time. So I felt it was a good moment to wrap up this episode also by including some freelancer info for those of you listeners who are interested in freelancing or are already freelancing.
Tyler:I think money is a touchy subject, but I think it's something that you should always be thinking about in, like, at the same bar and level of, like, getting better at your craft and being a good, like, contributor to the team or else you're gonna be taken advantage. You should be paired you should be paid prepared fairly based on the effort you put in and, like, you're you're constantly we're constantly improving ourselves. So, like, going from a junior to then mid level to senior, like, you are increasing your craft and by result or by consequence, like, your value.
Nick:Yeah. I mean, that's true. I mean, you are your own little one man business with all things that come with it, you know, admin stuff, selling yourself, doing the actual work, communication. So it doesn't matter if you're a freelancer or in house, like, you are more than just your five coded prototypes and Figma output and presentations. You are the whole thing around us.
Nick:And now we have to stop because I feel like it's getting really floaty and spiritual almost about who we are. You know, it's probably not what we want to talk about.
Tyler:We'll cut it there. On to the next episode. Alright. That's another episode in the bag.
Nick:Yeah. Great episode. By the way, if you're stuck second guessing your work or trying to figure out your next move, drop a question in the comments or leave a review. We might actually feature you in one of our future episodes.
Tyler:And if you got any value from this episode, hit subscribe wherever you're listening. It helps more than you think.
Nick:You can can find everything else, resources, articles, and more at designtablepodcast.com.
Tyler:Thanks for being here.
Nick:See you next time.