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Are archaeologists grossly underpaid? - CRMArch 289
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Is it true that archaeologists are grossly underpaid across the board? Is there current opportunity for fair compensation? What does “commensurate with experience” mean?
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/crmarchpodcast/289
Blogs and Resources:
- Bill White: Succinct Research
- Doug Rocks-MacQueen: Doug’s Archaeology
- Chris Webster: DIGTECH LLC
- Andrew Kinkella
Kinkella Teaches Archaeology (Youtube)
Blog: Kinkella Teaches Archaeology
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Transcript
Introduction to CRM Archaeology Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. This is the Serum Archaeology Podcast. It's the show where we pull back the veil of cultural resources management archaeology and discuss the issues that everyone is concerned about. Welcome to the podcast.
Episode Focus: Archaeologist Compensation
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the CRM archaeology podcast episode 289, hosting on May 28th, 2024. I'm your host, just for today, Heather McDaniel McDevitt, and joining me are Doug in Scotland, Andrew in Southern California. Hey guys, how's it going?
00:00:46
Speaker
And a bill is off gallivanting and so is Chris, so they won't be joining us today.
Are Archaeologists Underpaid?
00:00:51
Speaker
But today we are, the three of us going to be talking about, is it true in general, is it true that archeologists are grossly underpaid across the board? Is there a current opportunity for fair compensation right now in the marketplace? Not that we're going to create, but does fair compensation actually occur in the marketplace right now?
00:01:16
Speaker
Where is that?
00:01:18
Speaker
generally. And then in general, what does commensurate with experience really mean? And these are, we're going to have our three segments like we typically do. And we're just going to go from there. So I think we'll, we'll start segment one.
Job Ad Realities vs. Expectations
00:01:33
Speaker
The impetus behind this podcast was Bill sent us, who's not here, but he sent us a post that, and I don't know really where he got it from, but it's a, it's a poster that is
00:01:47
Speaker
on a glass for Panda Express. And it talks about, it says, earn, grow and thrive. And then it says, discover your career path to $100,000. And then it has kind of a stair step. And we'll put this in the show notes, but it has a stair step where you start in the service area and the service and kitchen team at 40,000. And then you
00:02:13
Speaker
progressively move to a shift leader cook at 48,000, assistant manager at 77,000, and then a store general manager at 100,000. So not that we're going to just focus on Panda Express or not, but this is an impetus for us to discuss, number one, these memes that we see a lot. I think people put, because not that memes are
00:02:38
Speaker
wrong or bad, but I do think they can be very misleading if people are putting more stake in them than they should be. So you have something like this. It's very incendiary. It's very shocking. I have a bachelor's degree or even a graduate degree of some sort. I'm working my butt off in the field and I'm not making anywhere near any
00:03:03
Speaker
anywhere near these amounts, even from the bottom, right? That's what people are saying. So you see this a lot.
Evaluating Career Opportunities for Fair Pay
00:03:08
Speaker
Should I just go and work for fast food? You know, workers. And so, but there's a lot of components of this that people are not, are not really considering. And I think that I understand people should be fighting for just better wages, better benefits, better treatment, better professional opportunities, but without a clear
00:03:31
Speaker
For you personally, nobody can control it across the board. We can't. No matter how hard you try, you can try to make things better, that's for sure. But for somebody who's starting in the market, and that's really the people that are affected, I think most, you need to control what you can control. And that is by really understanding
00:03:54
Speaker
What these memes, you know, do they hold any weight? Is there, is it truly true that you cannot make good money in archeology? And if you can, how can you get to that? And so that's what we're going to talk about today.
Understanding Wage Statistics
00:04:08
Speaker
See enter and Doug, do you have anything you want to say to start off with? I was just going to add some more context. So that Panda Express is from California. Oh, thank you. Yeah. And part of it, and I think this, this is one of the things that,
00:04:23
Speaker
good thing to discuss, especially when people talk about how much we should be making as archaeologists. California just passed a new law for food workers. Different laws affect that bottom rate. But actually, and this is the thing, everyone sees these amounts and no one really actually investigates
00:04:46
Speaker
a little bit further. So like, even on that sign, there's like a little asterisk there. Talking about like total compensation. Actually, like, that's sort of an average. And there's like a lot of legal texts down there saying like, you know, Panda Express makes no guarantee that you'll actually make this money. And everything else makes it. Yeah. Yeah. But even then, like, that's actually not like 40k is actually not
00:05:12
Speaker
the California minimum wage for fast food workers. It's actually under it. So you're not actually working your 40 hours a week. And again, it's all these sort of like, you really have to dig into numbers because everyone, all right, this is a pet peeve. Everyone somehow magically becomes a statistician on social media and life. Like, it can be quite frustrating for me because, you know, I do statistics of people looking at things like wages for a living.
00:05:42
Speaker
And it's actually very complex. And whether you're choosing the median or the mean, the average or the midway point, that makes a huge difference. Actually, what you really should be looking at is distribution. There's always these things like, oh, the average. The average is always going to be pulled up because you can't, for the most part, you can't make negative
00:06:05
Speaker
wages. We could talk about how you can lose a lot more money going to a job where your expenses are way higher than what you're making, and yeah, technically that's negative. But on any of these stats, you can't do it. So you're always going to be dragged up if you're looking at averages. And so people always look at that and they're like, oh, the average here is this, and it's, you know, whatever. But actually, there's a nuance that needs to go into discussing wages. Like, okay, so maybe your average
00:06:33
Speaker
is this and maybe 40% of the people make that. But then you're going to have 20% who are going to make a lot less. Did you guys ever work in call centers or do sales? I did. No, I didn't. But I think I know where you're going with this.
00:06:50
Speaker
Yeah. Then you would have been like, you know, when they signed up, they're like, Oh, and this is employee like Tony and Tony, you know, they basically pick the top employee, the best salesperson, like usually in the entire country, not just your, your, your sales office. And they're like, yeah, they're making 150 grand or a hundred grand doing all these sales or, Oh, again, it's the same thing with the servers.
00:07:14
Speaker
in restaurants. I mean, you, you can have a server who is making, you know, $30 an hour, even more than that because of the tips. Plus their wage and where you can have somebody who's making 15 an hour. They're just not that great a server or they're not getting the good tables or whatever. Yeah. So, yeah. So there's a huge nuance that I think needs to go into that conversation where don't look at the headline figures, look at the distribution.
00:07:42
Speaker
the distribution is incredibly important because whoever's, usually in any of these arguments, someone's trying to sell you something. Either trying to sell you that they pay really well or they're trying to sell you that you're not paid enough, but you really need to look at that distribution and really understand what those numbers are because you're just going to be misled and then you're going to get angry.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly right. Right. It's it's an ad meant to make you feel bad and let you down. You're like, oh, I've made bad choices. I should go work for Panda Express. That's the answer to all my problems. Right. And you just fall right into it because I know how that is. Right. Even even for me, Mr. Successful college professor. Right. When I look at those numbers, I'm like, damn. Now, I do make more than the top tier now. I don't want to brag, but I'm bragging. But
00:08:35
Speaker
I didn't always, it took a long ass time to get there, right? So, and it's only really, you know, relatively recently that I've been able to go past that. In the beginning, I was at the bottom of that tier, you know, even as a full-time college professor, right? That I was right. I was, I think.
00:08:53
Speaker
I think I was tier two on the I was tier two on the Panda Express scale. So, you know, it can be made to make you feel bad. But as you guys are saying, yeah, it depends on averages and the fine print and all that good stuff. So look before you leap. Yeah, I'd also like to look at, you know, what are some good things with this with this
Career Path and Professional Growth
00:09:11
Speaker
posting? The one thing I like about it is that it does give a somewhat clear now it.
00:09:16
Speaker
It's a good reminder that when you are working for a company that you're asking what are the potential opportunities. It's not just about coming in and making money right off the bat. You want to know what are the opportunities for your growth within that company.
00:09:36
Speaker
Be careful how you ask these because you can come across wrong when you do it. You know, I've had people that, well, I want to know exactly what you're going to do for me. Right. And I think it's more of a conversation of, listen, I'm, I'm really looking to grow professionally. Of course I need a job, but I would like to grow professionally. And are there opportunities for me to grow within this company? And so it's just a.
00:10:01
Speaker
question, not a, do you do, it's not accusatory, I guess. So just making sure that you're asking in a professional way. And then I think having a rubric is important. So, you know, I've created a rubric for the company that I work for. So there's a clear path. These are the expectations of where you are when you enter this stage. So there's several stages.
00:10:26
Speaker
And then you look at your career path. This is where I can be. This is where I am right now. And you can see clearly where you fit. What are some things you need to do to progress to the next stage? And it also, as a professional, you shouldn't be looking at, okay, what's the quickest path from A to Z?
00:10:44
Speaker
It is what can I collect? What information? What skills can I collect along the way? I want as a professional, I want to grow within each section. And I want to master that section before I move on to the next section. And why? Because every time you move on to that next role, which is a promotion, you're a rookie all over again.
00:11:08
Speaker
You want to make sure that you are set up for success and that you can grow within that level and then get to that mastery. And then you move on, you're rookie again, and you just keep up. But that's the healthy growth that you want. It takes time. You're not going to get from A to Z. And if you're only thinking about money, you are going to be only focused on that A to Z path. And you need to look at what's happening in between.
00:11:35
Speaker
So why don't we take that conversation to the next segment? All right. So segment two of archaeology podcast.
Reality of Archaeologist Wages
00:11:45
Speaker
It's CRM archaeology podcast episode. You should not have given me this task, Andrew. Just 280. Go forward. Yep. Where we are talking about, you know, is it true that we're grossly underpaid across the board as archaeologists? Andrew.
00:12:04
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And, you know, we hear this all the time. Like, you know, people just complain to be like, yes, we are. Yes, we are so underpaid, so grossly underpaid. So I think in in this segment, we really want to talk about what do we actually make? You know, what is the the.
00:12:19
Speaker
different levels. And yes, we all know that in a place like California, it's gonna be on the high end, you know, and that's so that's okay. If we talk about that, we go well in California, it's this, that's right. But what is the this thing? So what I'm curious, you know, is, okay, first, what does the very top tier CRM archaeology person make now? I mean, like,
00:12:43
Speaker
company owner of like a mid tier company, you know, the highest level, what, what do they make? And then what does the lowest entry level person make? And then finally, what's all that middle stuff? And I think that can be the hardest part, even for us as professional archeologists, like what, what are these various positions? What do they mean? How much do you actually make in the middle realm? So first highest end position,
00:13:10
Speaker
Like Heather or Doug, what would you say? What do those people in the stratosphere make in CRM? OK, so there's different categories, even within that. Yeah.
00:13:19
Speaker
You can have the owner of a CRM company because I think this is important to understand because you see a lot of this conversation on social media where people are complaining about the smaller CRM. In fact, I think there are many times the ones that are guilty of maybe these low hourly rates and the low per diem.
00:13:41
Speaker
And so the small serum companies, I'll tell you, they're not making a whole lot. There are some, I mean, I know there's one down in San Diego where he ended up getting a large contract with
00:13:57
Speaker
San Diego, city of San Diego. And he just captured everything. And my understanding is he's now a millionaire. Wow. As as an archaeologist on his own company. However, my understanding is this person did actually do it off the backs of other people. And he focused mainly on monitoring. So that's the other thing is that, you know, there's there's some people that work
00:14:25
Speaker
with me that love monitoring, they love it. And there's others that absolutely hate with a passion. So that's another thing you need to think about, but we won't focus on that. But what is, want to do, what kind of work does this company do? So that's like crazy, right? That's a lot of work. If you own a company,
00:14:43
Speaker
There's always a long there's a there's a continuum of what you could potentially make. And there's so many different factors. So there is. And I know I know it's a it's a tough question, but I'm just saying, like, you know, ballpark numbers, man. OK, so if you are somebody who. So it's important to understand who you are to when you're looking at what you're going to make potentially.
00:15:07
Speaker
If you are somebody that wants to work, wants to put in the eight hour day, wants to put in a good eight hours and wants to go home and not think about work and just put it on the shelf and you're done, right? You could make good, decent money, but that's going to make different than you're not going to make as much as somebody who is
00:15:28
Speaker
really is working more than eight hours. And I'm just going to give a two minute little lecture on that. Okay. But then I want hard numbers, man. Yes. Okay. You are, you, you are, people have this concept that when you become salary, that it's still 40 hours. It ain't 40 hours. It does not count anymore. So anyway, so, but if you're somebody who is
00:15:51
Speaker
imaginative, who is constantly thinking about what can be better, is working on business development, is working on all components of working a business within a company. So you're not a company owner, but within a company and you are, you're it, you're the director. In some companies, you're making several hundred thousand.
00:16:13
Speaker
So, and that matters, though. Is it 200,000? Is it 400,000? You know what I mean? There are people out there that are making north of 400. Yeah. OK, so there could be people making more than that. But it also means, though, that there, you know, these are the people that are there. They're unique.
00:16:34
Speaker
Yes, they are. Yeah, I mean, I know that it's about or not just about desire. It's about an ability. They have so much. Their skill set is just like any other business. They have a unique skill set that that brings in money and allows them to manage and grow a company to be successful or to write a practice within a company to be successful.
00:17:00
Speaker
I know what you mean. I know it's not just on a spreadsheet where it's like, OK, if you get to level 10, this is what you get. It kind of depends on who you are as a person. Just not everyone can do it. And who you work for and who you work for. And the amount of money that's coming in. Right.
00:17:15
Speaker
I think both of us know a handful of those people, and I would agree they would be in that world. So yes, in CRM, as an archaeologist, you can, if you're the right person, can get in that multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars world. Okay, yeah. So then now let's look at somebody who's very good at what they do, who is maybe a regional
00:17:42
Speaker
So regional director, I would say you're looking at, okay, in California, it's different.
State Wage Disparities in Archaeology
00:17:49
Speaker
Let's just work with California. And then you can scale it down based on other, and I would say California and maybe New York, areas where it's scaled larger. So you're looking at,
00:18:06
Speaker
above 200. Right. So, yeah, there and then there we're getting into the like, oh, maybe this is the person on the top scale, you know, and yes, you need to have some specific knowledge and stuff. But this maybe this is something reachable. And if you're not a superhero, you know what I mean? To push back to New York, New York should be higher because of cost of living. But like when you actually look at wages,
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah, East Coast is actually a very terrible place to do archaeology. Is this New York City? Are we talking about the higher end in engineering firms? What are we talking? Yeah. Like if you're talking about like wages. So, you know, the highest wages for archaeology in the US, Alaska, and California. And those are mainly, you know, cost of living reasons for that.
00:18:59
Speaker
you know, very expensive places to live in general across most of the state, most of the across the entire state. Whereas, you know, certain states, you might have a city where it's very expensive and the rest of the state might be low, but in general, so those are our costs of living reasons. And then you look at wages and like basically west of the Mississippi is better than east. And when you, when you look at those wages of like New York state or like Pennsylvania, Virginia,
00:19:29
Speaker
Again, it's tough because, you know, you're doing projects across the entire state. And so you're only getting numbers for like a state, but like, yeah, New York, comparative, like you get paid more in California than New York. New York is actually, the wages tend to be for serving East coast. So, you know, smaller states, they'll say like, we're looking for people with experience in the Northeast, you know, like Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania. And yeah, for the most part,
00:19:59
Speaker
day, it's a rougher deal on the East Coast in New York. But in general, as Heather pointed out though, there's always going to be exceptions. So if you're working for a large engineering firm, they don't actually tend to... Some of them will have that cost of living, but they just pay really high no matter where you live or where you're doing it. It'll be a company pay scale.
00:20:24
Speaker
Some companies do some adjustments, but a lot of companies just can't be bothered. It's great to work for Jacobs or any of the large engineering firms wherever you live, especially if you can live somewhere in the center with low cost of living. For the most part,
00:20:44
Speaker
an average wage is going to be not as great on the East Coast and as on the West, across all wages. Field tech, Fruity, project manager, technician three, there's all these different terms, but yeah, for the most part,
00:20:59
Speaker
It's a rough deal. What I care about, and I want to beat out of all three of us, is actual numbers. Because if I'm listening to this as a young CRM person or whatever, I'm just getting into it, where can I reasonably go? And so we've already talked about, OK, there's these superhero rock stars who can get these multi, multi hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that's good to know, just to know.
00:21:21
Speaker
that that is out there. And then Heather brought up the point of like the regional manager person, hey, maybe 200 grand. That is still obviously something to shoot for. Not everyone can do it, but that is, hey, if I play my cards right, if I do good things, if I get an advanced degree, if I'm a people person, if I have some business sense, you know, maybe I can get, okay, maybe it can top out at 200,000. I also want to point out we're talking numbers that I don't reach as a college professor.
00:21:49
Speaker
And I want to just say, you know, that yes, I teach at a community college, but whether it's community college, whether it's for you or whatever, our salaries are generally vaguely similar, honestly. So where would you get more? Yes. Yeah. No, that's that's a sweet deal. I'm not complaining. But but in the grand scheme.
00:22:08
Speaker
Just so you guys know, you know, like a fully tenured professor in that world will top out and maybe one thirty just in that world, you know, maybe one fifty or something. Again, it depends as it always does. But just so you guys know, right. And I don't make one fifty as my rate, you know, yet. So.
00:22:29
Speaker
just just to know that's where I am. So when people are like, oh, academia, the golden route for money. No, not necessarily. If you play your cards, right? CRM, you make more money than academia. Anyway, I come in on that real quick, because I think it's different. It's tough.
Academia vs. CRM Salaries
00:22:50
Speaker
Because in a sense, like, it's academia is a lot harder to
00:22:57
Speaker
break into, you know, possibly, you know, there's maybe a hundred, 120, 150 PhDs in archeology each year in the US. And there are maybe, you know, between 25 and 50 positions that come up, which might be less as, you know, numbers go down. And so, you know, you're, you're looking at maybe the odds are roughly, you know,
00:23:27
Speaker
20%, 30%, 40%. Certain years are really bad. I remember COVID, no one hired, so there was an entire year lost there. Right after the Great Recession, that was a really crappy year to try to get into academia. There's that. It's much lower odds of being able to get in.
00:23:49
Speaker
And your starting pay is not that great. Like I would guess, uh, starting pay for a full-time professor again, it varies so much. I don't know these days, 70 grand. See what I'm saying? Right. Full-time assistant professor. Yeah. Yeah. Like California. Yeah. Which is going to be lower in other States as well. It's one of those things where like there's that and then, you know, most, we don't have really good numbers on like how many people will make it through 10 year majority do.
00:24:16
Speaker
to associate professor. And then, you know, some people don't always make it to professorship, but there is like, once you get into academia, there's a fairly defined sort of step trajectory. Yeah, there is. Yeah. This is also sort of a complaint that you run into in sort of CRM. And so they're like, you know,
00:24:37
Speaker
go back to that Panda Express. There's nice levels and stuff. That's what they were saying. You have to have a rubric. You have to know where you're going, what your path is. And that is something that people should be asking when, again, professionally,
00:24:52
Speaker
when they're looking at a job, not just sometimes you get a job because you really have to, you just need to make ends meet. But in the grand picture, while you're making ends meet, you need to look at, ask if they have a rubric, ask if they have, what are the specific levels and what, what do those specific levels pay?
00:25:12
Speaker
And what is required of me? What do I get to that next stage? These are all things. Now, you're not there's going to be a lot of companies that do not have this, but the companies you want to work for do have it. And why is that? Not just so that you know where you're going and what you need to get there, but you have people that are in the company that are progressive and they are thinking these things.
00:25:34
Speaker
What do we expect from our employees? And we are putting time and effort into growth of our employees. And part of that is having a distinct rubric of what we expect. Because there's a lot of people that will just give you what you're willing to take.
00:25:55
Speaker
Yep. And, and those are the people that really do not care. I mean, some companies, they get a little nervous when you put something on black and white on paper saying, if you get to this point, you will make this. That makes HR people nervous, but it's a clear path and it's not impossible to find a company that does that. Right. So the problem with that though is this is, so this is something you see across server complaint across,
Career Progression and Relocation
00:26:22
Speaker
all archaeology. And this is something that I think we should... If listeners really need to... And if you're new to the field, you really need to understand is archaeology is relatively small. Actually, I'm just going to go back to that Panda Express. It's like, oh, nice levels. Here's this. You start off at 40 and then you can make it up to 100K. But then Panda Express has 40,000 employees and only 2,200 stores.
00:26:51
Speaker
there's about one to 20 ratio to get to that top level. And this is something that, again, if you were in that corporate, and I've seen this, I've worked outside of archeology and different things, and what people don't quite understand, and this is true of almost all jobs, unless you're in some sort of job where there's just, you know, tons upon tons of job opportunities,
00:27:17
Speaker
in your city or in your company, or if your company is rapidly growing, you really aren't actually going to have a lot of chances to progress. So like, yeah, oh, it's great if you can make up to 100K, but like at your store, if you're at your Panda Express store, if you have someone who's at 100K and has no inkling of wanting to quit, or maybe only like three years older than you,
00:27:43
Speaker
Well, you have to basically wait for them to either die or retire. And you run into that in archaeology as well is like, even if a company has a really set list of like, these are progression, these are, you know, you're gonna go from tech to crew chief to project manager, which has a really defined role instead of the generic, everyone calls it a project manager, up to a PI, up to an office manager, up to, you know, regional manager, up to national, you know, even if they have those steps.
00:28:10
Speaker
likely you're going to have to switch to a different company. Yeah. You're always going to have someone above you and there's not going to be, it's going to be a pyramid. It depends. It depends on where you work. And, and I also want to give a little caution about engineering. And I think we need to take this to the next segment. I want to be cautious about engineering companies because not all engineering companies are, are going to pay you well. And it also depends on,
00:28:39
Speaker
But what are you taking on? You're not going to get the same pay for somebody who is in the field working and their job is done when they put the shovel down, they're done.
00:28:53
Speaker
There's a different pay rate for somebody who is actually working in a management position, has a lot more responsibility, who has responsibility for bringing work in to making sure that everybody that's in the field has a job. These are all things that the more that you take on, it's just nuance. The more that you take on, the more money you're going to make. And not everybody, and you have to be realistic about yourself, not everybody is really want to do that.
00:29:20
Speaker
You have to know you have to look and that's what the rubric is good for is being able to understand what are the things are going to be expected of me and is this something i want to do. Is this something that is going to fit with me professionally with my life dreams you know there are some people that.
00:29:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you just have different concepts of what you want to do with your career. Some people want to make their career their life, and some people want to make their life their career something that they do in order to enjoy other parts of their life. And so you just need to be honest with yourself. But one part is you need to be working for a company that at least gives you some kind of understanding of how that progression can go in the context of what you want to do professionally and personally.
00:30:06
Speaker
And I think we should take this to the next segment. Welcome back to segment three of CRM archaeology podcast. Episode 289, where we're talking about, we got, we got a real heated conversation going. Not in a bad way. It's good. This is good. It's an emotional subject. It needs to be talked about. We're going to do our very best.
00:30:30
Speaker
to get you guys some hard numbers here. We all feel very passionate about this. I actually think that we should probably do a series on this. Yeah, this is an important subject and there's so many misnomers and we have only covered like two of them and there's dozens. But there's a lot. Anyway, Doug, you had some things that you wanted to address. Yeah. One thing I was going to say, it's going back to those levels and that again, there's maybe like 10,000 archaeologists in the US, you know,
00:30:58
Speaker
different years, different estimations, maybe it's up to 12 in a good year, bad years, it's down to like seven or eight. But that's like, in terms of those levels and defined being able to move around a company or move up in a company, I think if there's one thing I can get across to new people in the field is you're most likely going to have to move. Even that Panda Express example I'm using, most people to move in those corporate things, you actually have to move
00:31:28
Speaker
to different Panda Express locations to become a manager. It's not really talked about. In the others, in a big city, you'll have a lot of opportunities. But I've known people who have worked a lot of the big corporate things, and it is very true. I've had people move halfway across country to go take a manager position. So when I talk in that Panda Express, like, oh, you can make 100,000,
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah, if you're in California, then you might have to actually move out to like, I don't know, Alabama or Wisconsin or Juneau, Alaska, to get to that level. And that is the same thing in archaeology, only it's worse because, you know, Penn Express has 40,000 people, 22,000 opportunities. You know, they're that much larger of an organization, that much larger of experience and opportunities. You are going to have to
00:32:25
Speaker
to really, unless you have luck, and some people do this, some people manage to stay with the same company their entire lives and are quite happy, make decent living, make decent money, and that's great. But in general, for most people, just like how you have to move around at the tech level, I think a lot of people have this misconception that like, oh, once I get, you know, project manager, wherever they're calling it, or a PI, that basically they can then just sort of sit and put down roots.
00:32:54
Speaker
But actually, if you are going to be moving through companies or trying to move up different levels, trying to become a regional manager or wherever that level is or that set out career trajectory, you're most likely going to have to move or you're going to have to wait until someone above you in that company moves or dies or retires.
00:33:16
Speaker
most people are retiring or moving to a different company and not dying. But you know, there's, there's quite a few people who do that, who just stayed till the very end in their archeology job. And so that's just something to say is like, I think there's this misconception that like, once you, you've stopped, you know, once you stop field teching, trouble bombing, wherever you want to call it, that you can just sort of settle down and be able to move up. But archeology companies are actually very small. Even if you're in part of a large engineering firm,
00:33:46
Speaker
if you're doing something like that and you're moving up in those companies, you may be moving out of archaeology. And this is the same at the federal level as well. There's a fairly big complaint among federal archaeologists, same with state archaeologists, is there's not actually a lot of opportunity to basically progress in your career, because essentially you're waiting for someone above you to leave so you can take their position. Now, you can get lucky. There can be booms, hopefully not bust.
00:34:15
Speaker
And during booms, there might be a lot more opportunities, like your company might grow. But for the most part, the largest, well, okay, now chronicles like 800 people, and that was it. For the longest time, the largest company was like 100 people, which was like SRI, like a decade ago, it was only 100. And there's only so many regional managers, so many office, so many PIs that you can put into a company of 100 people. And that's just the reality of these progressions. And it's slightly when you,
00:34:45
Speaker
simplify it and do that nice little graph of like, oh, you're going to progress here, here and here. Life doesn't work that way. And actually, sometimes your careers might go up and down and like, you know, that step to Panda Express, you might actually go up two steps, go back down a step because there's better opportunities and then shoot up like two steps. So I'd just like to throw that out there in terms of Andrew's question about like wages. Yes, numbers, numbers, accurate. So it's been about
00:35:16
Speaker
six, seven years since I've done the numbers. Acura, relatively recent. This is going to be a couple of years old. I think they collected the numbers either 2021, 2022, so right before inflation really kicked off. You should probably add 20% to all these numbers. There's a range. What I talked about is East Coast
00:35:39
Speaker
definitely a couple of dollars less and it gets a lot. Numbers. Numbers. Okay. Low end. And this is probably like, again, think of this a couple of years ago, low end is like $15 an hour for your tech for entry going up to about 30. That that's sort of your range, but to be realistic, that 15 to 17 range, they had about like 40% in that. I think that's probably down to like,
00:36:05
Speaker
Nowadays, probably a quarter, your lower end is going to be like 18 to 20. And that's going to be mainly the East Coast. Probably like 10, 20% of people are going to be making 30 or more dollars. And that's going to be like your California and your Alaska range. But that's sort of your entry. Again, it's a pretty big sort of shift there. Well, actually, not really. It's about $10, but $15 or whatever.
00:36:34
Speaker
But that's it. Basically, and most people, you know, a couple of years ago, we're making about 18 to 20. Right. That's, that's, you know, and think about that. That's different, different states. But, you know, 18 to 20 is probably going to cover a lot of the middle states. So, you know,
00:36:48
Speaker
you're sort of Illinois over to like Nevada issue or maybe not. So, so if I'm listening to this, I'm like, okay, I'm new to CRM like country wide, really low, like something like $17 an hour. Be like, okay, this sucks.
00:37:04
Speaker
You know, but and then up towards 30 bucks an hour in the more expensive states, that kind of thing. That's kind of what I've seen in my experience. I've seen fairly recently in California, I've seen a lot of like 25 ish world. I've seen an uptick in the last like five years, seven years, you know, something like that. So I used to see a lot of 17s. Now I see a lot of 25s and up.
00:37:29
Speaker
because people, you know, and this is to start in miscellaneous, you know, Acme archeology firm.
CRM Salary Expectations and Roles
00:37:35
Speaker
So, okay. So we have our, we have our below level. We have our high level. What's the medium level? Well, again, also part of that is again, little asterisk there, like, you know, 12, 12 months a year. That's, that is a decent, you know, that's putting you in about like the 40th percentile in terms of like wages in the, uh, the us, you know,
00:37:58
Speaker
Not, not the highest, you know, everyone wants to be more, but that is actually, you know, compared to a lot of service jobs that are not in California, where you have $20 as a minimum wage. I mean, like, think about it, like some people are still on the federal seven, whatever it is, you know, ridiculous. Not great. Yeah. So like, there's, there's that ring. So it's not bad, but it's not, it's not going to be the top. And then it depends again, like,
00:38:27
Speaker
good states to be in and be like Arizona, well, it depends where in Arizona, but if you can do Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, those Mountain West states are paying that $20 or so with good cost of living. Then your crew chief add $2 to $4 on top of that. If you're a crew chief, you're making a little bit more, maybe $5, inflation, it's starting to spread out a little bit more.
00:38:56
Speaker
it really, again, heavily varies. If you make that jump up to the office, you're potentially adding another $10, $15, $20. To get where? So you're in the office. And actually, Heather, I know you want to jump in on this. So let's take that. You're in the office. You're kind of a full-time employee. You're on that level. You're not hourly. You're kind of mid-range. What is that range?
00:39:23
Speaker
So in, I would say the mid...
00:39:26
Speaker
And again, this is going to be salaried. This is something, it's a job where you're salaried, you're getting benefits. This is not someone who's as needed and who's, you know, doing field work. And then sometimes they're getting, they're getting the opportunity to do writing tasks and other things inside the office. So you're, you know, you're at, I think the low, and again, I don't really know anything about the mid air, you know, the mid section of the country.
00:39:54
Speaker
in the Midwest, I really don't know what they're making there. I think it would be a good idea to look at it. So let's say for California, you're in your staff, quote, unquote, staff archaeologist. What does that mean? Staff archaeologist, you're somebody who's taking on writing tasks, you're doing writing sections, you are not writing. Some companies you are writing from start to finish a
00:40:16
Speaker
a report, but you are writing, primarily writing, you are going out in the field. So you have maybe a 50 50, 50 in the office, 50 in the field. And you're making about between 60 to 80,000. Yeah. In California for somebody like that. So this is, what does that look like? I have already been in the field. I've already worked. I've already have some years under my belt for field. You probably have some, some years, couple of years under your belt doing crew.
00:40:43
Speaker
Crew work maybe you've had a faster trajectory because you've worked on a lot of projects for a larger company and that just means you have more experience isn't just mean years of experience experience means like when i'm looking at a resume i'm not just i'm not looking at three years of experience i'm looking at what did they do what is the.
00:41:05
Speaker
you know, what kind of work have they done? You know, we have people that come in, I've been working for 15 years, but you know what they've done? They've managed one client, like a large electric company, let's say, and they've done all of their cookie cutter reports and that's all they did for 15 years. That's not somebody that's going to give me the same capabilities and it's nothing against them, but they're not going to give me the same capabilities of somebody who's worked 15 years and they've worked at a
00:41:31
Speaker
environmental planning firm, let's say, and they have worked on all sorts of projects, supported all sorts of projects, all sorts of types of reports in various different parts of the California and surrounding states. And their 15 years is going to mean a lot more to me than some like the previous example I gave. So anyway, you got between 60 and 80 for somebody who's got about, you know, five to eight years experience
00:41:57
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds pretty much like what I've heard, too. You know what I mean? In that world of stuff. And what would that person be called? So that's I'm so glad. So there are please be careful because I've you know, in my career, I've had companies come and ask me to, you know, you know, they're trying to recruit you. So they try to give you a lower pay, but then they give you the title of the lofty title of
00:42:26
Speaker
Senior archaeologist. Ooh, tell me more. Senior archaeologist.
00:42:33
Speaker
For one company, it's completely different than a senior archaeologist in another company. So do not get swayed by titles. And don't even look at when you're looking at titles and even these mid to senior level. I mean, like I was reading right before we are going to start this, I'm looking at, you know, what they're expecting from mid to senior level. I mean, it's so all over the place.
00:42:58
Speaker
So when I'm thinking mid to senior level, that's not just they've been working for eight years or 10 years or whatever. Mid to senior level, I'm looking at these are the tasks that I need a mid to senior level person to do, and do they have enough experience to either they've already done it and they're ready, they're already done, they can just shift over horizontally, or they have enough skills that they can be trained into that level.
00:43:24
Speaker
That's what I'm looking at. So, you know, and then principal investigator, right? You say principal investigator. For some people, principal investigator only means I didn't use principal investigator as a title until very recently when I just needed to say I was a principal investigator because that's what the lead agency requires you to call yourself. So when I email people, it depends. I changed my signature block. It just depends on what
00:43:54
Speaker
I'm looking at, I read the room professionally. Yeah. That's super smart. I just want to break in for a second and say like, what a smart little thing to do. Change your signature, you know, for those groups because they'll see that and they'll go, Oh, you're the person. Right. And sometimes, you know, I'm the cultural practice director for a company. Right. So I'm the director and the top person for archaeology for the company I work for.
00:44:20
Speaker
Sometimes I might actually put that in my block. It depends. Sometimes the client needs to know they're working with the director. And sometimes
00:44:29
Speaker
That's not a smart thing to add. So I'll just put principal investigator because let's say I'm working with a lead agency and I'm just going to put down that this is what they need. This is, let's say a NEPA project. They need that language of principal investigator. What does that mean? Or sometimes you didn't say SOI qualified because what one person calls principal investigator is not what the other person calls.
00:44:52
Speaker
So you have to understand also, if you say you're a principal investigator, anybody who comes out with an MA at a graduate school or a PhD at a graduate school with zero experience, or I shouldn't say zero experience at the professional level of managing and everything, and maybe they've worked for a couple of years, they've monitored, they can actually say they're SOI qualified.
00:45:18
Speaker
They can actually say they're a principal investigator. They can sign on a report. Are they qualified or capable of writing a full report? Nope. But they can call themselves a principal investigator. So don't get hung up on the titles. You have to know what, and that's where it's important. And you need to, you know, like you're not always going to be able to have the ability to work for a company that has a rubric, because you do. And some of them don't even have correct ones. But
00:45:45
Speaker
You do want to have at least a company that's working in that direction or aim to work for a company that is putting some time and effort into quantifying, qualifying these roles.
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I got one, one last question. I know we're like over time, but it's like, so we've done the like kind of 30 to 60 K a year sort of thing, the entry level. We kind of had 60 to 80, which is what we've just been talking about on the flip side. We had the super high end. My last question is if I wanted to make like six figures, if I wanted to make like a hundred grand a year, like, like what, what do I do in CRM? Where, where does that put me?
00:46:23
Speaker
But good question. Good question. You change jobs. No, no, no, no. And seriously, that's a strategy. Yeah. Sorry. And when I say change jobs, not as like you change out of archeology, but like as in you, if you're wanting to do that, yeah, you, you're looking at the jobs.
Earning Six-Figures in CRM
00:46:42
Speaker
You're constantly keeping an eye out for what's out there. Of course. And I don't know if we have enough time to cover this in that last two minutes, but like there's a lot of strategies there, but you are. I just want to know what I'm aiming. Like, what is that entail? What is that job? And I understand I'm going to move around.
00:47:02
Speaker
Are you talking like a hundred thousand like California dollars? I just want to break 100 K. You know, I want I want to see that that the IRS sees that I make 110 a year a year or something like that. So, yeah, like Heather, like what's at last?
00:47:18
Speaker
So there's a huge variety, a huge between 100 and I'd say 175. Right. So you just want to break that 100,000. I do. Yes. You could, in California, you could break that 100,000 by somebody who is a lower level project manager.
00:47:38
Speaker
Okay. So you're a project manager, which means you were in charge of a project, several projects, but for one project, what does that mean? That means that you are taking that project from start to finish. Yeah. Whether you're doing it, and that means you're managing everybody that is
00:47:55
Speaker
a part of getting that final product out the door. You are also part of providing services after that product is out the door. What does that mean? That means you're dealing with the lead agency, you're dealing with questions that happen from tribes. So that would be you're breaking that 100,000. Yeah, depending on the company, you also still might be out there like leading field work as well.
00:48:20
Speaker
If you're, well, of course, if you're, let's say it depends on what kind of fieldwork, not a survey, like every now and then you're going to put somebody out there for that. But for a data recovery, of course, you need somebody. There are many instances, many environments where you must have that principal investigator that the lead agency trusts is taking it from start to finish. They have to be on site. In fact, I just had one where I was working from the truck, writing the report while the crew was working because
00:48:50
Speaker
I had to be on site or they would not allow it to happen. Yes, you're right. You are going to might always be in the field. And I think that's a good thing. People need to they need to always keep their feet in the field or otherwise they lose their perspective. I think no matter what level you need to have some kind of field experience over the year. I truly believe that now. Totally.
00:49:12
Speaker
If you, there is another echelon in there, like that's over the 100,000 is going up to like 120, right? Now you have something where you are not only managing your own projects, but you are overseeing people who are managing projects. Okay. What's that called?
00:49:29
Speaker
So that I know questions that would be maybe a senior project manager. There you go. Okay. And this is just a, you know, regional manager or an office. I wouldn't call it a regional manager. It depends on what kind of, yeah. It depends on the company. It depends on the size of it. Right. Yeah. I'll tell you how many different, how many different titles. This is how you know how many different titles there are in this business. Yeah.
00:50:00
Speaker
go into and find out how many CRM companies exist in California. Let's say it's 80 CRM companies. You have 80 different titles. You totally know. Yeah. See, that's why that was my probably about like 120 companies will have multiple titles. I'm talking about you have 80 titles for that same levels. What I'm saying, right? I'm exaggerating a little bit.
00:50:27
Speaker
But you're not. You are. Get the joke. Like, that's what I wanted. That's what I cared about. My third of this podcast, I was like, I want to know, OK, what do people make and what are the levels? And I know it's a terrible question because there's so much variety. So I think.
00:50:44
Speaker
Senior, I think it's a fair question, the senior level project manager. Now, senior level project manager is managing other people who are managing projects. What does that mean? That means you're reviewing projects deliverables. That means you are training people to you're training people up. You are looking in the big picture. You are trying to make sure that you have a team that can handle the work. You need to you need to manage the in and outflow of work.
00:51:11
Speaker
You need to hire people you need you're also doing business development I mean there's right right, but you're doing it maybe on a smaller scale than the people above you in levels and That is gonna bring you between 130 and 180 Okay 130 175 right that's gonna bring you back we've closed the traverse Well, then the rest of it cuz like it's such a huge range like so I've just I've just done some quick calculations to adjust
00:51:41
Speaker
So these are based off of, you know, real job postings, real amounts. But like, if you're looking at that sort of mid-level, that, that project manager, you know, taking projects all the way through, like the range is between like 35,000 and 135,000. Like across the country. Yeah, but that's the thing. It's like, it's a bit tough, but like, yeah, wages are so variable across the country that like,
00:52:10
Speaker
you could seriously be making a lot more as a field tech than someone that has a ton more responsibility than you do. And that can be even in the same state as well. I think we're falling into, are there outliers where you're making terribly low money? Yes. But there's nobody, it's a difference between somebody who worked for a small CRM firm
00:52:36
Speaker
And somebody who works for a larger environmental firm and the amount of pressure that is coming, like,
00:52:45
Speaker
I'm just telling you, it's a completely different experience and it requires a completely different set of skills and mindsets in your mind and your willingness to work. It's very different. So to call somebody a senior project manager because they have one or two or maybe they have 10 projects, not even 10 projects over a year's time in a small CRM company, that is so different. Just to give you a perspective,
00:53:14
Speaker
The last company I was at, I was basically involved and like intimately involved in 70 projects at one time. No joke. And I was involved in that many, I would say maybe take it down to 50. So I would at one point at any time in the year have 50 different projects that I was involved in.
00:53:37
Speaker
And that, and at, you know, several years ago, that was the case several years ago. So that's very different than somebody who's working for a small CRM firm and has a few projects. So yeah, there's so many, so complex. If we could say is you can't like, I know what you're asking there, Andrew, I guess like if you were to get the range in there, like the mid manager would be like between like 50 and 70 across the US.
00:54:06
Speaker
is more typical than those extremes, but it's so variable and it's, but in terms of work and in terms of pay that like, of course, I think it's understood that you could just say like, Oh, you're going to take these steps to get here. Yeah. Cause again, a lot of it like to make the money.
00:54:25
Speaker
You might just look out. It might actually have nothing to do with your archaeological skills. It has more to do with your business skills. Yes. Something we've touched on a lot, you know, that people that people in archaeology classically suck at. Right. You cannot expect this is this is if you I know I want to end with this. You absolutely can make good money in archaeology. You can.
00:54:48
Speaker
Yes. You and must have a business acumen. And it does not mean that you have to be gifted with business knowledge. It means that you are pursuing that aspect of this business. You must look at it from a business perspective or you won't make money in this. So it's not just about putting the years in. People say, I've got 30 years behind my belt. Yes, but you've been doing the same thing for 30 years. Are you able to
00:55:17
Speaker
to identify things really well in one region or in multiple regions of this country. Yes, that's great. But you aren't generating wealth. You're not generating business development. You're not doing it. And so that is where the money comes. And that's not a sellout. You can be both. I consider myself a business person and an archaeologist. Exactly. Look at you. That's exactly. It's like that's what we preach forever and ever.
00:55:47
Speaker
And this is what, I mean, what Heather said is like, yeah, I think this is also, you can make good money in archeology and this is applicable to pretty much everything. Like, yeah. I, you know, everyone's always like, oh, lawyers and doctors. I know lawyers and doctors who actually make less than archeologists. You know, there's, there's more averages and distributions and it's more likely that you're going to make money, but like any profession you can make money in, any profession you can live at below poverty wages.
00:56:16
Speaker
there's different factors that affect that. And it's not necessarily the factors that some of it's luck and some of it, most of it has to do with your business acumen, not necessarily your archaeological skills.
00:56:30
Speaker
I think we all between us figured out basically five positions in CRM. It was basically a tech, which I would say is from 30 to 60 K, a sort of mid-level manager or supervisor kind of person, which is about 60 to 80 project manager from 80 to around 120 senior project manager from around 120 to 175 and owner at 175 and above.
00:56:55
Speaker
Does that sound basically right? Owner or senior manager? Oh, owner, senior manager, yes. Yes. Senior project manager. Senior manager. Like director or regional director, that kind of thing, yes. Huge aspects on the owner.
00:57:12
Speaker
Cause you know, you can, you can, owners could be making, you know, several hundred thousand. I mean, you can be losing money. Like an owner, you can lose money. It's a bigger gamble. It's a much bigger gamble.
00:57:30
Speaker
So that's actually one place where you can... I know I said you can actually have negative wages, but really as an owner, yeah, you can end up bankrupt and with negative wages. Well, that's because you have lots of people that go into archaeology thinking they can go on their own because they want to have the flexibility of having their own business. And it starts growing and they're, let's say, a DBE, Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, and so they're getting some maybe federal contracts, but they've never been told the business side of things.
00:58:00
Speaker
So if you are interested in going into your own business, just a little word of advice from me, take for what it's worth, make sure that you get some some experience from a business perspective. Either you've gotten it somewhere outside the world in other aspects or you have worked for a larger company and then decide to go on your own. But don't do it straight out of graduate school. That's for the most part a mistake, in my opinion.
00:58:22
Speaker
Anyway, so thanks for listening all. Hopefully the extra time was worth it to get some hard numbers, Andrew. Thank you. I think so. Yes, on track and making sure that we actually did give you hard numbers and hard numbers. Yes. And you know, I think we are going to be doing some follow up podcasts on this, but at least it wets the whistle and gives everybody some broad ranges to work from. So thank you everybody for listening and we'll see you next time.
00:59:00
Speaker
See you guys later
00:59:15
Speaker
or just email chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. Support the show and the network at archpodnet.com slash members. Get some swag and extra content while you're there. Send us show suggestions and interview suggestions. We want this to be a resource for field technicians everywhere, and we want to know what you want to know about. Thanks to everyone for joining us this week. Thanks also to the listeners for tuning in, and we'll see you in the field. Goodbye.
00:59:43
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archapodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.