How do you ask for a big, fat raise?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been at my current job almost a year, and my evaluation is coming up soon. I’d like a 20% raise, but I don’t know how to ask for it. I realize 20% is a huge, huge, huge raise.

I feel like I’m a bit underpaid for what I do, but in my industry its pretty standard to start people on the low side of the scale while the employer gets adjusted to their skills and qualifications. I went to salary.com and plugged in all the necessary information, and it said I was making 30% less than I should be. So I’m not even asking for the full amount salary.com says I’m worth.

So how do I ask for a raise without seeming cocky/ungrateful for what I have?

Do bosses and manager types look at a request for a 20% raise with contempt? Are they going to laugh about my request behind my back?

Is it possible that asking for a significant raise like this could produce… um… “not good” results?

2

Just ask.

Years ago I worked for a family owned company…hated the job, but every time I went in to quit, they gave me a raise. 5 times in less than 4 months. Once the woman next to me overhear that I had gotten “a” raise, and she told me she had worked there for over 6 years and had never gotten a single raise. I told her to go ask.

Half an hour later she came back.

She was happy, and pissed off at the same time.

She asked for a 15% raise and they gave it to her on the spot and one of the owners said, “we were wondering when you would ask.”

So - just ask for it. If they raise an eyebrow, tell them that the salary you are asking for is below the average, and now that you have shown them what you can do, you think it is a fair salary for them and for you.

(As a back up option, you might consider a raise over time - perhaps XX% now and the remaining XX% in six months.)

3

It’s all supply and demand.
If your confident enough that:

  1. What you do demands that salary
  2. They won’t be able to find someone else who will do it for less than what your asking
  3. You can get that salary by going someplace else

then let them know that you will need that increase or you will take your skills elsewhere.

They will in turn do one of the following:

  1. Agree and give you the raise
  2. Disagree, not give you a raise, think you are bluffing and let you stay
  3. Disagree, say gooodbye to you, and find someone who will do it for the cheap rate
4

How I ‘asked’:

“Don, I’m going to quit and go work at (another agency) if I don’t get a raise of $6000 per year.”

Don: Okay. It’ll be on your next paycheque.

Thankfully, I was a pretty big fish in a not-so-big pond at the time.

5

Be prepared.

Talk to your manager about how you have benefited the company. Cite examples of your accomplishments. Watch and listen for cues that your manager either does or doesn’t recognize your value. If he or she does, then use that as the justification for a raise - namely, that you are valuable to the company.

If the manager doesn’t recognize your accomplishments, then look for a new job.

6

That right there is an abomination. Why should we have to ask?

Anyway, I’ll be asking for a 40% raise, that is long overdue, in a couple of hours. We’ll see how it goes.

7

The only certain way is to get a firm offer from another company at whatever salary you believe you’re worth.

Then take that job.

My experience is that once you are locked into the 3% per year mentality, you stay there for the duration of your stay with that company.

YMMV.

Regards,
Shodan

8

Sure, there are loads of stories about someone asking for a 20% or 30% raise, whereupon the employer graciously agrees, and then hustles down to the parking lot to wash their car for them.

And then there are most people. While you might be one of the above, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Being smart, being realistic, planning, and working hard will get you what you want, even if you aren’t living the fairie tale.

If you aren’t attached to your current job, and you’re worth that much in the marketplace, look around. You can always give your current employer the chance to match any offers. If you really want to be where you are, you can ask for a promotion, or just for more responsibility. These things justify an increase of that size. Unless you are in a very small company, your boss has to go to upper management and make a case for something beyond merit or cost of living increases. Not an easy sell.

9

Ask for it. The answer is always “No” until you do.

Print out the salary.com data and show them that they are still getting a bargain.

10

Well, I asked for 40%, they wanted to give me 17%. I pushed for more, and got 27.77%. I patted myself on the back for even pushing the issue, because I’m not the best when it comes to these things. You know, selling yourself…

When ever I have asked for a raise, I always try to aim high, even if it sounds rediculous. So if you feel you deserve around 20%, ask for 40%. They may try to hustle you down, but in your mind, that’s what you kinda expected anyway. Where as if you just flat out ask for 20%, they may try to hustle you down with that number as well. And now you’re kinda getting cheated if you’re really worth more. All they’ll really do is say no (unless their some kind of nazis, I’ve never come across anyone who has been fired or repremanded for asking for a sizable raise). But if you plead a small case for yourself, and you’re worth your pay in your occupation, you may also end up with a little more. Good luck.

11

First, just ask. A business is always a business first, and most won’t give more money out than they have to in order to keep the majority of their already-complacent employees around. Be prepared, however, with answers to any questions your boss might ask in an attempt to get you to justify your request. Know all of your numbers: big cases you’ve handled successfully, billable hours, procedures mastered, creative ideas implemented, customers helped, big sales, deadlines made, etc.

If that doesn’t work, start job hunting, get an offer or two, and then tell your boss the truth: that you’re going to leave unless they pay you more. If you still don’t get what you want, leave.

Also keep in mind that few things make their way up the office gossip ladder faster than a copy of a resume accidentally left in the community copy machine. Though this may get the ball rolling on a more serious conversation about a raise, it will just as easily get you replaced, so proceed with caution.

12

Raises in my company are normally based on a department wide average increase (a small percent) adjusted up or down a few percentage points for merit. No way to get any big increase out of our annual raises. Anyone who wants to give a great employee more than the standard pittance has to go through a million hurdles and get sign offs from people who really don’t care. It just doesn’t happen.

However, I did manage to get a big “raise” by changing my position title to that of one above me. That was allowed because it was considered a “salary adjustment” for the new position. Those are allowed. To do that, I made a case that my responsibilities had increased since I’d been hired. I was no longer doing the same job I 'd been hired to–I’d moved up without technically being promoted. I provided lots of documentation showing that I was already doing the job of someone in that position and doing it well. I was surprised how agreeable they were to my request once I made it in such a way they could fulfill it without having to jump through approval hoops.

I also timed the conversation with my boss so it was right before they went into budgeting. Having the conversation shortly before my annual review would have done no good. Department-wide budget requests are already submitted and approved at that point, so there’s little management can do. Once they start working on our reviews, they’re determining how big a slice of the raise pie they can give to each of us. The time to get a request in is before they decide how big that raise pie is.

13

This can work as long as you’re as big a fish as you think. I’ve seen this backfire more often than I’ve seen it work with the response: “Well, I’ll get your stuff packed for you, you can pick it up in the morning and head on over to (another agency).” As the employee starts to back-peddle, having had their bluff called, the boss comes back with, “You’ve already shown me that you can be bought away, why would I give you pay you more now just so you can try & leverage me again?”

Depending on the nature of your job & how easy you are to replace the employer could take the attitude of a husband who’s been given the conditions under which a wife will remain faithful. And you have to be honest about this–is it possible to fire you and hire TWO people to do your job, and pay each of them half the salary you’re requesting? From an employer’s perspective this is not always such a bad thing because I can count on each of the new people getting as good as you were, and if not I can pick from one of them AFTER I’ve seen them at work as opposed to trying to hire a total stranger. That you are difficult to replace can be a dangerous assumption.

Play that card only after you’ve done as Shodan has suggested and gotten an OFFER from another employer, and then be prepared to try & rebuild a lot of trust with the boss because man, you can BET they’ll be looking for someone who is willing to not threaten them.

14

I’m certainly not planning on threatening them. My plan is to print out the salary.com report and list a bunch of reasons why I think I’m worth more than I’m making, including things I’ve done for the company and commitees I’m on to keep doing good things for the company.

I’m not in the market for a new job… I quite like it here and have no plans to leave anytime soon, but that shouldn’t mean I don’t deserve to get paid a salary more in line with where I think I’m at.

For some real-life numbers, I currently make $31K/year and salary.com says I’m worth in the $42K range and I plan to ask for $37ish. I can list many ways in which I’ve saved the company $6K in my year here.

Anyway, my hope was that I could approach this subject with my boss in a way that won’t sound threatening (IE “I’m outta here if I don’t make $37K”), or that won’t make me look like an ungrateful ass. I’m hoping it won’t reflect poorly on me as an employee. The vibe I’m getting is that it’s not possible… is that true?

15

Salary.com doesn’t have my job listed.

:frowning:

16

When I was a manager, an employee came to me and asked for 20%. She’d been to salary.com, too. What she didn’t know is that salary.com’s data can be skewed because it didn’t take into account the unique economic factors at play in this particular market. This is a town where 60% of the jobs are public employer jobs: you work for the state, county or city or you work in retail or the service industry. So the private-employer job salaries are determined by what the market will bear. Because most of the jobs in this town are low-paying government jobs… (The State of Florida is notorious for being one of the lowest paying employers of all the 50 state governments.) the private industry positions pay much less than they would in any other comparably-sized city. I could have doubled my salary if I’d just moved back home to Cleveland. (Not enough money on the planet for me to live in snow again!)

Besides, companies have procedures. There are budgets to be concerned about. I had a standard process in which all employees were evaluated and an increase awarded, based on performance, of anywhere from 2-6% depending on how good a year the company was having. I couldn’t very well blow my salary budget – for which her request could have funded 3 or 4 other people’s raises – to give her 20% more cash, when I didn’t get 20% more performance out of her than out of anyone else. I couldn’t even blow my budget. There was no mechanism for me to be able to award her or anyone else that much of an increase, even if she did work circles around everybody else. I was promoted and I only got about 11% – that was going from team leader to team manager. She was at entry level and did not say she would take on more work, or a tougher assignment or anything. She cited studies that showed she was underpaid and she promised to be more loyal and stay longer than if I didn’t give her the raise. :rolleyes:

And, so, yeah, I laughed at her innocence behind her back. She knew how the company’s salary increase system works. She heard me go on and on about how tight the budgets were, that I couldn’t deviate from hardly anything we’d planned in the previous year. It was a sort of stupid assumption that I had that much authority, or that the company would allow any one manager to step so far outside established policy. How much you’ve saved the company doesn’t matter at all. Your employer wants to know, *but what have you done for me, lately?[/]

So, you may very well be underpaid by 30%, but showing some web page isn’t going to earn it for you. I think Shodan is right: you’re better off finding another job at a company who agrees that you’re worth the salary you think you are.

Furthermore, my advice applies to your basic corporate/office job with more than 50 employees. The larger the company, the more difficult it would be to get management approval for something that doesn’t really sound warranted to me. Ask yourself this: in what way do you produce 20% more than everyone else that you deserve a raise that nobody else is going to get – including the people who have been there 20 years or more vs. your “just less than a year”? Would that 20% increase put you way out of the established, published salary range for your position? You have checked with HR to find out what the established, published salary is for your position, right? Tip: If the raise would put you in the “fourth quartile” just at your first year, you will never see that much money. They can’t have you making more than your boss… or someone who’s been in a similar position as yours for years longer than you.

Why don’t you consider giving yourself a little time to pay your dues before you bolt straight up the corporate ladder? The instant gratification thing doesn’t really apply in white collar jobs, as many young professionals seem to think. I don’t know where people read or hear that you should just march right in and ask. (I think it’ll make you appear to be an ungrateful, demanding PIMA – pain in my ass – with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.) I guess if it’s a small mom n pop or some other non-white-collar-corporate-office type of job, maybe the protocols are different. Perhaps this tactic works in restaurants or hotels or some places like that…

17

Yes, we all know employers actively encourage the expenditure of funds. :rolleyes: :smiley:

18

Unfortunately, I think Dogzilla is hitting this nail directly on the head.

19

I’m really not trying to sound like a smart ass here, but if I can answer this question to my boss, do you think its worth trying for a 20% raise?

That’s another tricky part. I’m the first guy to work this position (and currently the only guy). It was a brand new job created just before I stepped in to fill it. I feel like I’ve already gotten a little too specific and don’t want to throw out any more details about my job or my company.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read/reply to my little dilemma. It gave me a lot to think about and consider, although it didn’t completely discourage me (even though I know that was the point).

20

Ask for a promotion. Show that you’re willing to step up to both more responsibility as well as more cash.

Salary.com is all well and good but where the rubber meets the road is how you interact with your company. If you are doing good things for them and commit to taking on the responsiblility of doing even cooler things in the future then it is easier for them to invest more in you.

Enjoy,
Steven