This is my first time recruiting in the networking/IT field so I've been really busy studying as much as I can handle the last three days.

I've been given a great deal of information from a good friend of mine that is a network engineer who actually helped me completely edit my job posting and description; but I'm hung up on just one thing. Its the pay rate, of course.

Based on our old network guy, my boss has given me strict instruction on the pay rate being $20 per machine a month. Considering 3 days ago all I knew was blue cable is the Ethernet, I thought this was legit.

My good friend however said that no one is this desperate; especially since we only have somewhere about 40 computers/servers. Now that I'm searching around the internet, I don't see a "pay-by-machine" to be as common as my boss made it out to be.

So anyone with experience with pay/salary in the Network fields and/or advice on what to tell the boss, please help.

Thanks.