I'm going to be as straight to the point and honest as possible in the following post.
Recently I was having a conversation about my previous employer, not going to mention who they were here as I don't want to put a negative connotation on the company so for the rest of this article I will refer to them as Android World Co (AWC). I mentioned that I left because I was only making $12 an hour as a Junior Android Developer.
My co-worker who we'll call Henry for the purpose of this post shot back at me "Well you were just out of high school!!"
Really Henry? So my age of 18 years old says that I can't make a fair salary for my knowledge and skills? Arguably after not long of working at AWC, my supervisor told me he was impressed and was going to give me a $1 raise. At the time, I thought that was tremendous, someone recognized that I knew my stuff.
However, I didn't want a $1 raise. I wanted to be paid my fair market value, I knew I was worth more than that.
To put this in perspective lets say we have 2 candidates (C1 and C2) who are both applying to be and Android Developer at Android National Co (ANC).
C1 has a bachelor's degree from the University of Utah, he barely scratched through college, doesn't know how to use git except with using a GUI, doesn't really want to learn how to use git. C1 doesn't really want to learn new technologies, but will if he must. Kotlin, Java 8, yeah in your dreams, C1 thinks that these are just a waste of time because he doesn't want to put in the effort to learn these.
C2 has a high school diploma, and every night after school would spend 4-8 hours learning and programming because he loved it and really wanted to become a great developer. C2 has a passion for learning and wants to absorb everything he can about Android. C2 goes to local meetups to learn from his peers and asks questions from other developers to make himself better. C2 wants to learn Kotlin, Java 8, all the latest and greatest and stay at the top of his game.
Who should get the job? If you ask me, C2 should. I don't want an employee who doesn't care. I don't want an employee who isn't willing to learn unless forced.
I want C1. C1 may not have the same training from a University. C1 survived 4 years of grueling late nights. No sleep. He stayed up every night til 4 AM learning about programming, woke up at 7 AM to go to school and graduate high school. He learned what it was like to work for what you want.
I am definitely C1. Sure I may be biased on this, but don't; I repeat DON'T think that someone should be paid less just because they just graduated. Pay someone based on their skills and knowledge.
