Asking for a Raise

[BParsons]

I've never had to ask for a raise before and was hoping for a little input on the best way to handle it.

Thanks in advance,
Brad

 

[shetlandbob]

Try to foresee any questions that your boss will ask, did they ever agree to a review/raise in the past.

e.g. questions:
Why do you deserve a raise? - examples of work well done/on/ahead schedule/budget/spec........
What effect on your work will it have?
Are you on a salary scale? How would this affect it?


Be confident, and make sure you anticipate the questions, prepare answers, and lead the discussion the way you want it to go!

Good luck!

Robert Cumming

http://www.consultantengineer.co.uk

 

[MDXer]

Have an accomplishments list of high level items that you played a pvotal role in accomplishing and any excessive hurdles encountered for them.

Project: Optimized existing Sales OLTP system

Importance: Mission Critical

Issue: Exisitng Sales Transactional System would Slow down when the Sales Analysts began performing period to date reports. This inturn affected the ability of the Sales staff to submit new orders in a timely fashion.

Resolution: Created a smal set of summary tables that preaggregated the sales data being utilized by the Analysts.

Obstecles: Time (was given 2 weeks), Lack of resources (was sole person on the project), Lack of input by analysts (took 4 days of the 2 weeks just to recieve their requirements). Took an additional 2 days to get the DBAs to grant the required permissions.

Result: Project completed on time with approval from the analysts the following week.

Also include any extras that you do that benefit the company such as Mentoring the more jr development staff members. Seeking out projects that benefit the company. Any projects you have played a pivotal role that had savings impact on money spent (Developed Datawarehouse that illustrated advertising was being directed to the wrong market segment resulting in a 45K annaual savings in marketing costs). Along with cost savings include ROI. TOtal development costs for the Data warehouse was 20K resulting in a 25K savings the first year based soley on the marketing savings total ROI after 2 years would be ~70K.

The key is to show what you have done in the company above and beyond what you have been expected to do. Then also have figures for Current Market rates in your area for a person with you skillset and experience. This both demonstrates the level at which your under paid as well as the potential cost of replacing you with an equal.

If a raise isn't offered request that you and your manager map out a plan of what it will take to get you to the level you feel you deserve (be realistic). When comming up with what you feel you deserve take into account all factors. Example for me current avg Salary for my skills is 77K which is far more than I could expect to obtain on my next raise because of the following:

1) THe size of the company. I work for a relatively small company.
2) Current salary. Gone are the IT Boom days of annual 20 percent raises most people are lucky to get the 3% Cost of Living
3) Job Market I am in a highly specialize niche with few jobs in this area.
4) The inverse f 3 is Available Talent. There a relatively few people with a proven record with my skillset in this area. While this helps me get a bit more it could be a negative in places like Dallas NYC or the Bay Area.

HTH

Good Luck

Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!
- Daffy Duck

 

[nissan240zx]

Hello Brad,
This is a very tough question..Asking for a Raise...

First ask yourself.
- Is my job that I am doing easily replaceable.
- Can the company hire someone to do my job for a cheaper price.
- Do I really deserve a raise, have I done anything special lately towards the companies growth or something that has done any good impact atleast in a dept level
- Or I just need a raise as I been working in the company for a long long time and never got a raise and I need it to balance the increasing cost in the ecomony.

Once you get answers to these simple questions..you should be able to decide if you want to ask for a raise.

Also try to study your supervisor well before asking this. Know his behavior, anticipate his reaction.
Its also nice to practice the conversion with someone else..more like a mock interview..this will help you test yourself and improve the strategy..

Good luck my friend..