December 20/27, 1999

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Happiness Is More Than Money
Location and the cost of living also count when IT professionals consider job opportunities

By Diane Rezendes Khirallah

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hat's in that box?" That question launched John Passerello's IT career in 1963. He was in high school, and his job included sweeping the floor at Digital Equipment Corp. The man he asked was CEO Ken Olsen. The next thing Passerello knew, he was building power supplies and learning all about computer hardware. Since that time, Passerello, Digital Equipment employee No. 157, has worked in business and government, with assignments taking him around the country. But during all that time and despite significant travel, he remained a lifelong Bostonian.

Until last month, that is.

Passerello has spent the past three years living the IT gypsy life, but always returning to Boston between projects. His employer, Ceridian Employment Services of Minneapolis, offered him opportunities in Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Southern California. It was the perfect opportunity for the divorced, 50-something empty-nester with two married daughters.

As an avid sailor, he opted for Southern California and a job with Ceridian Tax Service, which helps companies with tax filing, as director of program management, responsible for identifying software-development processes needed to implement a best-practices program.

It's a great time to be an IT professional. With the current shortage of IT talent, headhunters come calling and career mobility has never been greater. A study by the Meta Group, an IT advisory firm, measures the current shortfall of IT professionals at 400,000 and projects that it will increase to 1.2 million by 2003. As recruiting expands beyond local areas, IT professionals and those who hire them need to know how geography affects compensation.

InformationWeek Research recently concluded a yearlong National IT Salary Survey on the Web. Among the 24,513 responding IT professionals, including managers and staff members, 9,707 survey-takers reside in 10 major metropolitan areas. While salary and benefits numbers and charts are helpful, they should be looked at only as a place to start a useful analysis.

If you were to look at compensation alone, IT professionals seeking top dollar should avoid Minneapolis and head straight to the San Francisco area. The median annual base salary for IT managers surveyed varies from a low of $72,000 in the Minneapolisı St. Paul region to a high of $90,000 in the San Francisco Bay area. For IT staff, the salary difference was similar: $54,000 in Minneapolis vs. $70,000 in the San Francisco area. The higher the position, the greater the difference in pay scale between the two cities.

But before putting up the for-sale sign on your house or apartment and placing that call to the moving company, it's vital to take a long look at the costs of living, particularly that of real estate. And be advised to negotiate for sizeable stock options, because that's how many owners pay for the nicer homes in Silicon Valley. Earlier this year, for example, a 1,100-square-foot fixer-upper on a tiny lot in a Mountain View, Calif., neighborhood sold for several thousand dollars above the asking price of $419,000. The neighbors' reaction: bemusement at who would pay that much--followed by calculations of what their own, nicer, homes must now be worth.

Mary Jane Range, president of BTS Executive Search in Stamford, Conn., generally recruits for positions whose base salary is $150,000 or greater. She says any IT pro considering relocating must look beyond compensation. "You have to want to live where the job is," she says. "One of the first things I ask candidates is whether they are willing to relocate; I like to get that out of the way first. One person said no: 'My support structure is here, and we're not moving.' I value that."

Range brings up a good point: It's not wise to ignore issues aside from the job itself. If the job ends and there's no other reason to live in the area, misery is sure to follow. The issues vary. For families with children, it involves looking at schools; for everyone, it involves climate considerations, cost of living, affinity to the culture, and pace of the new location. What leisure and recreational activities are important, and will the new area offer easy access? And what friends and family are left behind? There is no single answer; each person must give proportional weight to what is most important and decide accordingly.

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