What is the starting income for a student just coming out of college and getting into advertising?

Question

I currently have an internship at an advertising agency in downtown Chicago and was wondering how much my co-workers may be making for future reference.

Answer 1

The salary/remuneration for a particular job is the market value for a particular profession and designation at the city/town where the office is located. Job postings at websites like Monster, Yahoo HotJobs and Careerbuilder carry information about salaries.  The Govt Dept of  Labor, (www.bls.gov) Bureau of statistics has information about median salaries for different professions and details of additional compensation offered. Other online resources are salary.com and payscale. Your salary will also depend on  your educational qualification and how you handle your career. More details and links to relevant websites available at http://tinyurl.com/rndxq

Answer 2

It varies with the position and department.  Are you going for Account Coordinator, Jr. A.E., Junior Copywriter/Art Director, Media Planner, Traffic, etc.?

P.S.  You can also go through the regional classifieds in Advertising Age and the Midwest edition of AdWeek.

Answer 3

It all depends on where you are working and your actual job function. It also depends on whether you will be working for an  agency or in an in-house marketing department.

Chicago can be a fairly expensive city in which to live. If you are thinking of working outside Chicago, I would encourage you to research online for various Salary Surveys. The internet has tons of them. Once you find one, you can enter your job title, locale and level of experience to find average salaries in your area/field.

Good luck to you.