IF YOU are a new graduate planning to do a postgraduate course in order to secure a higher starting salary in your first job, you might want to think again.

A survey on the salary expectations of 10,000 students conducted recently by gradireland.com, the website of Graduate Careers Ireland, showed that students considering postgraduate study expected the qualification to make a real difference to their immediate earning power. A third of respondents believe they would earn more than €5,000 above the standard graduate salary when they started work. Based on the average graduate starting salary of about €27,000, this represents a premium of nearly 20 per cent.

Employers are pouring cold water on these expectations, judging by an accompanying graduate salary survey of more than 200 graduate employers in the Republic and Northern Ireland.

The Graduate Salary Survey 2008, conducted by graduate careers information publisher GTI Ireland, shows that 40 per cent of respondents said they do not pay any more for PhD or Masters graduates, an increase of 5 per cent on the same survey in 2007. A postgraduate qualification affected salary in only a quarter of the companies surveyed.

Many firms said the decision whether to pay more than the standard graduate salary depends on the candidate. "There is a wide range of postgrad courses undertaken by students which are not necessarily progressions of their original qualification," said Dave Kilmartin, head of careers at DIT.

"This means they are entering into a new discipline area and as such could not expect to enter the labour market at a point higher than someone with several years' experience in the industry."

Robert Mac Giolla Phadraig, associate director with Sigmar Recruitment, says that the postgraduates most likely to achieve a higher starting salary are those who have a good general degree, such as engineering or science, with two or three years' industry experience under their belt, and who returned to college to do a course geared to the specific needs of their sector. "It makes them that bit more marketable," he said.

For those who do a postgraduate straight after their first degree, "my experience is that it just helps them to focus on a particular niche market and makes them more attractive to employers, but doesn't necessarily get them more money," said Mac Giolla Phadraig. Such candidates could rarely expect to achieve a 20 per cent salary premium over the standard starting grade, especially if it is a broad qualification, he said.

Achieving a higher starting salary also depends very much on what sector you want to work in, according to the survey. Not surprisingly, building and planning, science and engineering are the sectors where companies are most likely to pay more for a postgraduate recruit. But in the science and building/planning sectors, 50 per cent of those companies who would pay extra said they would pay their postgraduate recruits less than 10 per cent above the standard salary.

Companies in the IT sector were among the highest proportion of firms that will pay extra, but only if the candidate can meet "additional criteria", such as specific technology skills acquired from a specific course.

The companies least likely to grant a salary premium to those with postgraduate qualifications are those in retailing, sales and customer service; business, management and administration; and media, advertising, marketing, publishing and PR.

Graduates should be clear about their motivations, particularly in an economic downturn, says Caroline Kennedy, careers officer at the National College of Ireland. "The worst thing they can do is use a postgraduate as a way of delaying entry into the job market."