[lovegardening]

I am a landscape designer with 4+ years in design and construction. What's the reasonable pay for a experience designer/sales in Boise area?
Thanks.

[agla]

It is not that simple a question. There are a lot more people who would like to be landscape designers than there are landscape design positions available. That is true anywhere. You have 4 years experience, that puts you in a small minority of those wanting a landscape design position, so that is good.

Pay, in my opinion as someone who has worked as a designer for various companies (including one in Idaho as I write this with a U Idaho sweatshirt on), is determined by the company's position in the market as much as it has to do with your skills as a designer. That means that a company that is well known and sought out for landscape design and/or construction has a ton of inqueries from prospective customers to generate work from. That actually devalues the designers because their function is much more limited to producing plans which is a much narrower skill set than if the designer has generate leads and follow through for a company trying to gain a position in the market. It is skill set that most of those designers looking for work do not have -to go out find propspects, generate interest, sell the prospect on the need for a plan, then to follow through with the design and sale of the install, and most of all - beating out the other designers/sales people that have been contacted by that prospect that is most valued.

You have to compete with designers that have landscape architecture degrees who can draw plans that are absolutely works of art on paper, with gardener types who know plants inside and out, with people who have been building landscapes for decades, with professional sales people who have learned enough about drafting and landscape design to be competitive, and all sorts of other folks who want to pursue their love of plants.

I hate to say it, but you are worth very little to some people and more to others. The thing you have to do is find the people who first place a value on this position. Then you have to hope that no one fits the position better than you.

Also, be careful because not a lot of landscape companies are big enough to sustain a designer as a full time year 'round position. If you are not looking to be a working foreman that also does designing, you'll be very limited as to who you can give you that. The supply and demand makes it an employers market just about anywhere.

[lovegardening]

Agla,
Thanks for the advice. I have a degree in landscape design and during past 4+ years I have been doing design, sales, and lead the crews...etc. I work with my previous employee when I was fresh out the college and accept the wages they were offering to me. I am relocat to Boise, Idaho in few weeks and need to know the wages in the area for my interview. Can you or anyone here give me some wage idea which fits someone who can draw plan and do sales. Thank you.

[agla]

I think that you will find that wages are all over the place no matter where you go.

I spoke with a landscape architect friend of mine in Boise last summer. He told me that he was very concerned because he went from very busy to very slow last spring. I have not talked to him since, so I don't know if that was a glitch or a trend.

Where did you get your degree?