kermit, I hope you PMed Cheese. I'm sure he's got a very good idea of how things work in our industry.
36,000 seems pretty low to me. I started in late 2001 with Stantec (consulting firm) who are notorious for underpaying, and they gave me 40 grand to start. I wasn't thrilled with that, but I was coming off 6 months unemployment, and woulda jumped at anything.
Within the first year I had made enough of an impact for the company that I was able to demand a 15% raise. I got it too, since we were so busy, I was a good enough employee, and they woulda taken some serious hits on some projects if I had left. I'm now at 55k, and about to get my stamp, so I'm expecting to hit 60k by the end of the year.
Long story short, my advice is to take the job, bide your time and make yourself as needed as possible. When the time comes to demand a significant raise, you'll be able to do it.
I assume that since you're working at a video store, you're in more or less the same position I was in when I took my first job with Stantec. While there are plenty of jobs available right now, it's difficult in your position to know where they are. It's also hard to know who to give the resumes to. Send them to the company's HR department and they all but dissapear. Funny thing is, now that I've been working for four years I know enough people in the industry that I could jump to pretty much any company of my choice. You just gotta get into the door and get your name out there.
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