I just received an email from a well-known recruitment company announcing an on-site freelance gig for an Associate Creative Director at what was described as one of the largest agencies in New York. The rate? $45-55/hour! And the ad specified that they're looking for professionals with several years of experience and a killer online book.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know any seasoned pro at that level who would work for less than $600/day. Period. Usually it's more like $800/day. Hell, we can't even hire a decent, experienced, freelance art director for less than $550/day, let alone an ACD.

I realize that maybe their client is nuts, or being unreasonable (although, if their client is really one of the largest agencies in New York, they should know better). But I've seen this type of thing before. When I was freelancing a few years ago, one agency kept calling and calling me with jobs that paid $30/hour. And when I'd tell them my day rate, they'd try to tell me that wasn't the prevailing, market rate, when the fact was, I knew it was more than reasonable.

What bothers me, though, is that there are freelancers who will take these rates. And then it puts pressure on the rest of us. Instead, we should take the stand that the freelancers at an agency in Washington, D.C. did: a friend of mine was brought down to freelance there and was being paid $700/day. The rest of the freelance staff were on at $750. So they took her aside and told her to demand a raise, because otherwise, they felt the company would start to put pressure on them to lower their rates. She did, the company agreed to pay her more, and everyone was happy. Well, everyone except finance.