Internship ending, salary/contract negotiation help?

[Bernoulli]

I'm sorry to pester for advice but this is my first "grown up" job and I don't want to get this wrong!

I work for an small-ish engineering company as a CAD operator/trainee engineer. I've been part of a paid internship program for the past year along with a handful of others on the same program, and meetings are just coming around to discuss the future with the company, where I presume I'll be made an offer.

I know that the intention is to take some of us on as contractors, and some as permanent employees, who will have a salary circa £30k. More accurately I know we'll be plaed within a certain pay band which spans approximately 5k either side of that figure.

I know that our program has been very successful and we have been of far greater use to the company over the past year than they expected - the initial plan was to have us mostly training for the year, but instead after a few months we were essentially straight into working on live jobs, on par with the other, established CAD jockeys (though at a slower pace of course).


I am also strongly of the opinion that I am among the best of the group & my superiors strongly want me to stay on:

1) I know that I scored the highest overall grade out of all the applicants at the interview and assessment stage before being offered the job;
2) I know I've been delivering work of a high standard (technical drawings etc) which very rarely gets sent back to me with any problems (some of the others get things back several times);
3) I organised a review meeting with my mentor and manager recently to ask how I could improve, or if there was anything I was doing wrong or poorly in any way, and they had no bad comments to make whatsoever - saying I was doing absolutely fine and should carry on as I was;
4) I have been booked onto a paid-for overseas supplier visit for after the date of the meeting, which strongly suggests I'm not simply going to be let go;
5) I have fitted in well personality-wise with the other guys in the office, and get on well personally with my mentor & the other mainstays of the department; I know some of the other intens - although performing well - have slightly abrasive personalities;
6) My mentor has gone out of his way to ensure he be allowed to attend this meeting, suggesting to me he wants to ensure I get kept on and treated fairly;
7) The company has invested a fair chunk of money in training we have been put through this year.
8) Not sure if it would be relevant, but I feel I am more mature in personality than the other guys; on a similar note although we are all roughly the same age all the other interns on the program are single guys whereas I am married and have kids (to support on my wage alone, my partner can't work).

Also in my favour is that the company has had a problem with staff leaving this year due to another similar company nearby that are able to offer higher salaries. And I was offered £27k elsewhere straight out of university, so I know I can achieve at least that money elsewhere & that was with no experience whatsoever. I'm not sure whether to use these as negotiating points or whether they will have accounted for these already.

Negative points of concern,

1) Some of the other interns have, whether by sheer luck or orders on high, managed to involve themselves in special projects or have more involved/"important" roles, been invited to join special teams or otherwise demonstrated they are manager's favourites;
2) I don't have any showstopper pieces of work to show for my time there, just a sizeable backlog of well-executed but ultimately "background/bread and butter" work - I know some of the other guys have some interesting and important work they could use to argue their cases with;
3) Because of the bread and butter nature of my work, I am far from "indispensible" - however I know I am certainly a useful and productive piece of the puzzle, and the training we received this year has been backgroud knowledge intended to make us useful engineers in the future, not just to help us to do the specific role we've been doing this year.
4) One or two of the others have MSc degrees whereas I have a BSc; though I know some of the guys have much lower graded degrees than I do, or in fact no degree at all.



As such I have two main questions (sorry, here's another list):
a) Assuming they offer me a permanent, salaried position about the £30k mark, do I have any grounds to negotiate for more, or would that be above my station or too cheeky considering it's my first real role in the company.
b) Assuming they offer me an equivalent contract position, how much would I realistically be looking at; and does that have any more or less flexibility on wage compared to the salary.

[rog007]

Bernoulli said:

As such I have two main questions (sorry, here's another list):
a) Assuming they offer me a permanent, salaried position about the £30k mark, do I have any grounds to negotiate for more, or would that be above my station or too cheeky considering it's my first real role in the company.
b) Assuming they offer me an equivalent contract position, how much would I realistically be looking at; and does that have any more or less flexibility on wage compared to the salary.

I would:

A. During negotiations, enquire once about the ceiling salary based upon my intepretation of my worth and external market rates. If they really wanted me they should give a little just for the cheek of asking. If they don't agree, I would leave it there, get the job and renegotiate next year.

B. More difficult to answer, but contract rates should reflect lack of security, notice period, lack of additional benefits, my own attitude to risk, state of the market etc, etc. I would want an equivelant £45k to compensate.

Hope that helps. Good luck!