Electrical Engineering: Disappointingly low starting salary

How come you didn't manage to secure a graduate scheme?

I have also recently graduated from Leeds uni with a 2.2 BEng and no relevant work experience. I've manage to secure 3 prestigious graduate schemes in my field. And I know many engineering graduates from Bradford uni, which is considered much lower ranking uni, in some awesome graduate programmes.

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I applied for several but never got past the interview stage.

Do you mean you've made it through to the assessment centre? As for graduate schemes, you only get interviewed on the assessment day. If this is the case you need to work on your teamwork and social skills. If you haven't made it to the assessment centre, my first advice would be ignore advice given by the girls from engineering career centre. My experience with them is rather bad and they have no clue what they are doing.

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Lol, it's true. 4 out of 5 of the engineering careers people at my uni were ladies.

I didn't mean to say ladies are not good enough career advisors. What I meant was the girls at Leeds uni engineering career centre are specifically incompetent.

TL;DR: Electrical Eng Masters graduate recently graduated, no work experience. Been offered a job at a local SME. I like the sound of what kind of work I would be doing but the pay is much less than I have come to expect as an Electrical Engineering Masters graduate (£14,000). He was non-specific when I asked him about how my salary could increase after the first year or two. Does this sound like they are trying to take advantage of me?
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Hi there. I have a Masters degree from Leeds Uni with 1st Class hons.

So I just had a job interview in response to a speculative application I made at a local power engineering SME in the Midlands (about 20-30 employees). During the interview I was shown a few technical schematics of various high-voltage protection relay circuits and other switchgear. I was very unfamiliar with the conventions with which they drew them, with many symbols having never come up during my Masters degree at Leeds Uni - so I was unable to make much sense of them. And although I know what relays are for, I am completely unfamiliar with their inner workings. Though I graduate with high marks, I also didn't manage to get any work experience while at uni (graduate schemes are very competitive)

Besides the "what can you bring to the company", I received absolutely no generic interview type questions I expected, like: "where do you see yourself in 5 years", "describe a challenging project" or "describe how you overcame a problem or work difficult situation". It was just technical discussions of the schematics

So he seemed to have a point when he said he couldn't offer me anywhere near the "early twenties" I was hoping for. I was expecting, due to my lack of work experience and this being a small firm, for him to bring me down to 18-19,000. But instead, right off the bat he said he could only offer around 13-14 grand initially, during the first year or two with training and familiarisation with the industry - mentioning ex-employees that entered as fresh graduates then left, despite the company investing in them, after a couple of years of training for "better opportunities". After I asked what kind of salary could I expect after that, he just said it would depend on what I could bring to the company. So a lack of a clear answer concerned me.

We discussed a bit about what kind of work I would be doing, which to be honest I really liked the sound of. This is the first (possible) job offer I've ever had, so I know next to nothing about what I should be expecting. This company does the kind of electrical engineering work that I really like. And I have done some brief calculations and it seems doable for me to support myself and live fairly comfortably if I got the cheapest accommodation possible in Loughborough and commuted in from there.

But I am thinking to myself, £14000 a year is like, less than minimum wage if I work full time hours. Shouldn't I be expecting better for spending 4 years in higher education and racking up £50,000+ in student debt? His reason for paying me less made sense, but i don't know for sure. Does this sound like they are taking advantage of me? Where else can I go for advice on this, as I know TSR isn't known for its many combined years of knowledge and experience in the electrical engineering industry.