Dear Rachel,
Should I expect a pay cut shifting from traditional to online?-- Contemplating a Change

Dear Contemplating,
It's hard to make a broad generalization about the move from traditional to online. Your compensation is a function of your experience, among other things.

It also has a lot to do with what you are earning when you make the move.

"An AMD with a totally traditional background will probably need to take a step back financially to move over to digital, but a planner who's got a couple of years in the business may be able to make a bit more," says Kurt O’Hare, president of the New York recruiting firm O’Hare and Associates.

It's not hard to understand why.

An assistant media director, for example, is paid well for managing an entire process and a group of people. But going into a new field like online, that AMD can't expect to enjoy the management differential. In effect, that person is starting all over again, and their contribution will be less during that learning period especially.

But for a young planner who's still on his or her initial learning curve for all media, there is no such differential. In effect, they're simply jumping on a different learning curve, but as it happens one in a field where's there's a big demand for fresh talent.

Says O’Hare: "Given that digital planners generally earn more at the same title and experience levels that their general market counterparts, there is room to give a traditional person a raise but still bring them in and save money."

When making the decision to move to online, you have several factors to consider. Can you afford a pay cut now for something that may not benefit you immediately? How important do you think knowing online will be to the future of your career?

Also, consider whether you truly have a passion for online. If you are just in it because it's the trendy thing, or because you think you can make more money, don’t bother.

Online is very demanding, for one. You'd likely be working with multiple clients, many of them with misconceptions about the medium. So you would be teaching them as you learned, always a challenging endeavor.

Also, online undergoes constant change, day by day. You'd spend huge amounts of time simply staying up with the changes and weeding through the endless hype that comes with them.

You'd likely be doing it all, too. It's the nature of online that job functions tend to blur. You'd be strategist, planner, buyer, manager, and analyst of how the campaign served or did not serve the client's objectives.

You'd have to excel when it comes to attention to details. You’d have to have an open mind that's not afraid to undertake digesting a lot of new information very quickly. You'd have to be real good at numbers. And you'd have to be a solid communicator, explaining it all to clients and your supervisors--without a lot of wasted verbiage. You'd have to be a great negotiator.

If you have all these qualities, and you love online, by all means jump on over.

If not, stay where you are. Traditional media is not going anywhere. You'll have a job you are comfortable with, and you'll know you made the right choice.