Salary negotiation aka Career Limiting Post #13

Here is the hard truth boys and girls. If you don't ask for a raise, you won't get one or you won't get an appropriate one.

Asking for a raise is one of the hardest things you can do within an organization. Anything to do with salaries and money just becomes awkward (exception: any sales organization). And whilst I've been ripped off myself in the past, I won't pass judgement because for a manager, it is hard to give good raises.

In most organizations, this is how it works. A manager with direct staff will be proportioned $N of his budget to be allocated to merit increases and bonuses. That $N is often a tiny percentage of the total existing salary of the group. He has to then divide this up amongst everyone in a fair manner. That $N is fixed. So in order to give you a higher bonus/salary increase, he needs to give someone else a crappier bonus/salary increase. The excuse 'My team performed brilliantly, we deserve a bigger pool to distribute' doesn't typically work.

A manager's job is hard enough as it is. Knowing exactly why you deserve a bigger increase than 'Bob' can be very hard. Two things, particularly in software. Working more hours doesn't mean anything. Results are all that matter. Secondly, results are STILL hard to compare. If you have a project manager who met their results and a tester who met their results, who deserves more?

You deserve more.

That's the purpose of this post. I want to show you how. To prove to you I'm not making up random hypothetical nonsense, here's my story. I enjoyed my previous roles, but I felt underpaid and this was becoming a problem (Read about Herzberg Motivation Theory to understand why). My wonderful coach (separate concept to my manager) gave me the confidence to go make this right. I got a 25% change in my salary and I'll show you how in three easy(sort of) steps.

1. Market value.

At the end of the day, you need to get paid market value for your skills. If you love your job, market value is fine. The market value for the vast majority of jobs is really easy to find out.

1.1. Online salary information

Visit glassdoor.com, payscale.com or salary.com and fill in enough information to give you an approximation of what you're worth for a particular role, with X experience and in a particular location.

1.2. Ask a recruiter.

Recruiters can be scum, but some recruiters are honest, professional and clued into the market. Treasure and look after the good ones. Ask 3-4 recruiters what someone with your experience and skill set will collect in the open market with current conditions. Write down the dollar value, the recruiter's name, date contacted and their phone number. You'll need this for later. Have a one page document with the market information from online and the recruiter.

2. Achievements to date.

You're probably asking yourself why bother doing this? If you're under market rate, surely your boss will adjust you to market rate and if he doesn't you can just get a job elsewhere right?

Wrong!

Your best move isn't to leave. Leaving has significant costs outside of the job hunt which I won't go into here. Your best move is to remind your boss why you are important to this division.

In a single A4 page (no more, managers are busy), write down:

• How you're going above and beyond your contract.
• What are the significant accomplishments you have achieved.
• What are the skills/knowledge only YOU have.
• This one is often missed, but it is important. What are the key relationships you own? If you are the account manager for a key business or that developer who everyone on the team loves, you leaving can cause that account to move with you, or that team's morale to plummet.

If you are struggling to fill in the above, guess what? You actually don't deserve that pay adjustment to market rate. What the hell have you been doing all this time? You have been just doing your job, not kicking-ass in your role.

3. Talk to the functional manager in charge.

Not to HR, not to your PM if you're in a matrix organization, but your functional/line manager.

However, I will say this. If you have a good working relationship with the manager ABOVE your line manager AND you know your line manager isn't capable of improving your situation, you CAN attempt going to that senior manager/director. Yes thats what I did and yes there were consequences good and bad (let's not go into that here).

• Book an meeting (at least two days away) with the two page document attached with a friendly "Hi John, I want to discuss my current renumeration with you, could you spare 15mins to go over this document?", or something to that effect. No hint of "I'm going to leave if I don't get my raise". It's unprofessional and no-one is impressed.
• That said, you did include the recruiters' information right? This is your most subtle way of saying, "I'm taking this seriously and I hope you do as well."
• Have the discussion. At this point you've done all you can. Hold firm, but play nice. You will get plenty of excuses. You just want them to say they'll try something for you. You won't get that increase in this meeting. Normally management has to wait till the next review cycle or if it's really urgent (you need to be a star), they'll put in an emergency request with their boss.

Hopefully you'll get an pleasant surprise within a few weeks. If you don't and you are below market rates and you have many accomplishments, you need to seriously consider if your current job is right for you. I hope this information has been useful to you.

Good luck!