andyjorg said: If the first requirement for you to look at an assistant's job is the pay, than you are in the wrong business. The position itself should interest you enough to apply. You can ask about the pay in the interview.
I really hate when the first question out of someone's mouth is "what's the pay?". Are you even interested in working here, or just here for the money.
I've been thinking about your statement a lot. I definitely subscribe to this line of thought, but lately I've been wondering if I should change that. Maybe the most important thing to me would not be the pay or the specific job, but if I thought the superintendent would be a good mentor, not just a delegator. That may be a totally different topic entirely.
But, I don't think it woudl be fair to ask someone to make a decision about a job without knowing everything involved. Sure, you may not know everything (pay, vacation time, retirement, insurance, lunch break, etc) abotu the job before applying, but I wouldn't fault anyone for wanting to know those things before accepting a job offer. In fact, I might question a candidate's attention to detail if he doesn't ask me how he will be geting paid.
To get down to brass tacks, we're all working for money -- I don't know anyone who works a job just to get out of the house and doesn't care about the money. We can't ignore its importance and I won't fault anyone for wanting to be sure that he can support his family with his job.
Happy employees at home generally make for good employees at work.