Over the past months since being laid off, I’ve seen a lot of job postings for community managers. Many of them seem to pay a reasonable rate, and I tend to apply to those. In general, I’m not particularly salary-motivated and, while I respect wanting to be paid what I’m worth, I also am willing to consider lower salaries if a role seems like a particularly great fit or is for an organization that may not have the funding to offer as much but has a great purpose.
As such, I often set my searches on job sites to at least $80k/year (USD) and, unless they meet the exceptions mentioned above, I rarely apply for roles where the low end is under $100k/year. Today LinkedIn recommended a posting to me with a range of $65-85k per year (plus bonuses/stocks) for a senior CM role. There’s no indication of any benefits, either other than the bonuses/stocks.
While I definitely do see companies like this, where they’re looking for a CM at a rate that (in my mind) is particularly low, generally these seem to be companies that are just dipping a toe into community as a concept and are unaware of what a CM is or does or what salary they should expect to offer.
Conversely, this position is being offered at a company whose entire purpose is to build community within a very niche audience - wealthy 25-40 year olds - and help them further increase their net worth. Their core concept is community and selling rich people on the value it can provide and they’re offering a range that I’d characterize as 50-75% of what a senior CM should be making.
The irony of this makes me laugh. They’re looking for a CM who could never be one of their members because the salary they’re offering is so low, they’d have to work for over 170 years to even earn the median “worth” of their target members and would be unlikely to have the disposable income to earn the money in other ways.
The disappointing thing is that they will likely find someone to take this role as posted… cuts in the tech industry seem to have hit a lot of CMs and, personally, I’ve struggled to find many opportunities that are worth the time to apply to. If I weren’t able to be choosy due to my spouse’s work, I might have to consider these roles that under value the work of a CM, too.
Out of curiosity (and setting aside my usual non-confrontational personality), I wrote to the job poster asking questions about the rate and benefits missing from the posting along with mentioning that I’d generally expect a posting like this to offer $100k/year and other benefits. I got a reply four minutes later - answering no questions but stating simply:
Thank you for the feedback! I will share with our team.
I sincerely mean it,
I guess it’s a better response than what I usually expect - nothing, or someone bristling because I dared to criticize them.