14 DAY TRIAL // Let every huge Internet company expansion start now! The way Google and Facebook are going after computer science grads looks like a race. I think there was also a gunshot start, as they started at the same time. The jobs offered are dreamy for a fresh-out-of-university student and the salaries are also there, in that "dreamy" area.
Stanford is for the two companies what Mecca is for Muslims. That's where the job offers started pouring first, and compared to last year, the two companies are doing a thorough job with testing and interviewing. The more experience, the better, the higher the starting salary. One of those being offered a job there commented at TechCrunch's Michael Arrington's article on the matter and said that the pay is somewhere between 80 and 100 thousand dollars.
The average salary for last year's grads was somewhere around $70,000, and the increase offered now is pointing to how important it is to the companies to have the best of the best. One might think that they hire people just so the competition wouldn't get them. After an exact number about Facebook's offer was leaked ($92,000), Google upped its sum just to top Zuckeberg's and is said to be offering up to $95,000 per year.
Microsoft and Yahoo are in this race as well, although numbers about their offers weren't made public, but you know that they want the fresh minds in order to attempt to overthrow the others. It must be a good feeling to know that the biggest companies on the Internet are all checking you out.
That is a reason to start thinking seriously about whether you want to have your kid go to Berkeley or Stanford. You want him to be where the money is, and you can easily see that the latter is the place to go for that.