Asking for a raise!

[Rightwinger]

I'll be with my current employer for a year soon, and I think I'm doing a bang up job. Everyone says so. I often stay late when needed to help one of our development teams make a deadline, and although I'm in a very technical position with no experience when I started, I've gained a lot of knowledge and I've picked up a lot in the past few months.

I visited salary.com and what I'm getting now is slightly off kilter to the national average.

Basically, I calcuated that I'll work 2400 hours this year. That puts me $5,000 under the national average for people with the same job title. Is that national average calculated on a 2000 hour year?

I figure that with all the extra time I put in, in combination with the national average - I'll need a $10,000 raise to bring me up to speed. Everyone at the office is super cool, and my boss is pretty good. I nearly burned down the office and he didnt even raise his voice when taking to me. Oddly enough, three days later I got a bonus from the president of the company. I was very amazed because I was only there for two months at the time! My boss is usually in a 100% business mode, so its hard to catch him when he has a free moment available to make small talk, so I'm wondering how I should play this.

This is kinda new for me, so if anyone would share their experiences in asking, that would be awesome.

 

[quakefiend420]

Originally posted by: Rightwinger
I'll be with my current employer for a year soon, and I think I'm doing a bang up job. Everyone says so. I often stay late when needed to help one of our development teams make a deadline, and although I'm in a very technical position with no experience when I started, I've gained a lot of knowledge and I've picked up a lot in the past few months.

I visited salary.com and what I'm getting now is slightly off kilter to the national average.

Basically, I calcuated that I'll work 2400 hours this year. That puts me $5,000 under the national average for people with the same job title. Is that national average calculated on a 2000 hour year?

I figure that with all the extra time I put in, in combination with the national average - I'll need a $10,000 raise to bring me up to speed. Everyone at the office is super cool, and my boss is pretty good. I nearly burned down the office and he didnt even raise his voice when taking to me. Oddly enough, three days later I got a bonus from the president of the company. I was very amazed because I was only there for two months at the time! My boss is usually in a 100% business mode, so its hard to catch him when he has a free moment available to make small talk, so I'm wondering how I should play this.

This is kinda new for me, so if anyone would share their experiences in asking, that would be awesome.

and you want a raise?

 

[Rightwinger]

I said I was sorry!

Three days later I got a bonus though! Looks like they forgave me!

 

[pyonir]

Originally posted by: quakefiend420

Originally posted by: Rightwinger
I'll be with my current employer for a year soon, and I think I'm doing a bang up job. Everyone says so. I often stay late when needed to help one of our development teams make a deadline, and although I'm in a very technical position with no experience when I started, I've gained a lot of knowledge and I've picked up a lot in the past few months.

I visited salary.com and what I'm getting now is slightly off kilter to the national average.

Basically, I calcuated that I'll work 2400 hours this year. That puts me $5,000 under the national average for people with the same job title. Is that national average calculated on a 2000 hour year?

I figure that with all the extra time I put in, in combination with the national average - I'll need a $10,000 raise to bring me up to speed. Everyone at the office is super cool, and my boss is pretty good. I nearly burned down the office and he didnt even raise his voice when taking to me. Oddly enough, three days later I got a bonus from the president of the company. I was very amazed because I was only there for two months at the time! My boss is usually in a 100% business mode, so its hard to catch him when he has a free moment available to make small talk, so I'm wondering how I should play this.

This is kinda new for me, so if anyone would share their experiences in asking, that would be awesome.

and you want a raise?

Kind of what i was thinking.

OP, are you a student? How old are you? Did you have any experience with the duties of this job before you were hired? Do you have a yearly review?

 

[tami]

just casually mention it to him. say that you believe your hard work should be repaid somehow. you're probably in for an annual bonus, but you can ask for more, too. just don't be blunt, but if they give facts, say that you're aware of competitors (using salary.com as that indicator) offering $XX,XXX for the same kind of work.

 

[Regs]

Hi boss, I pay $2.50 a Gallon on gas to drive my ass here. I would like a raise to compensate.

 

[DainBramaged]

Tell him that you want a raise or you will quit.

 

[tami]

rightwinger: i hate to say it, but you'll get maybe 1 serious answer out of 10 since most of the kids are online tonight. i don't have much experience with raise-asking, but i tried. if someone has a success story, hopefully they'll help. you may want to bump this for the morning/afternoon crew later on.

 

[quakefiend420]

Originally posted by: DainBramaged
Tell him that you want a raise or you will burn the place down, for real this time.

fixed

 

[Regs]

Just ask. Is there a chance that I could have a raise? It's been x amount of time.

Don't fluff it. Don't try to beat around the bush. Any experienced manager or supervisor will see right through it.

 

[Rightwinger]

Originally posted by: pyonir

Originally posted by: quakefiend420

Originally posted by: Rightwinger
I'll be with my current employer for a year soon, and I think I'm doing a bang up job. Everyone says so. I often stay late when needed to help one of our development teams make a deadline, and although I'm in a very technical position with no experience when I started, I've gained a lot of knowledge and I've picked up a lot in the past few months.

I visited salary.com and what I'm getting now is slightly off kilter to the national average.

Basically, I calcuated that I'll work 2400 hours this year. That puts me $5,000 under the national average for people with the same job title. Is that national average calculated on a 2000 hour year?

I figure that with all the extra time I put in, in combination with the national average - I'll need a $10,000 raise to bring me up to speed. Everyone at the office is super cool, and my boss is pretty good. I nearly burned down the office and he didnt even raise his voice when taking to me. Oddly enough, three days later I got a bonus from the president of the company. I was very amazed because I was only there for two months at the time! My boss is usually in a 100% business mode, so its hard to catch him when he has a free moment available to make small talk, so I'm wondering how I should play this.

This is kinda new for me, so if anyone would share their experiences in asking, that would be awesome.

and you want a raise?

Kind of what i was thinking.

OP, are you a student? How old are you? Did you have any experience with the duties of this job before you were hired? Do you have a yearly review?

hi pyonir! I lurked here a lot and I remember you from a few years ago when you were more active!

I'm not a student, I was but I quit school to take a break and this gig fell into my lap. I was originally asked to take a position that basically involved being at the office 9-5 to be handling internal matters and solving logistical issues, but they moved me up to a technical position that I had no experience in. I basically had to learn by the seat of my pants and get my nose in a book. I used to be under constant supervision and had to have help with everything. Now I'm operating with no supervision and when I'm in over my head I just call people at home.

The company was supposed to give me a review after my first 90 days. That didnt happen.

They basically give out reviews when they feel like it, and they do everybody at the same time.

 

[Rightwinger]

Originally posted by: tami
rightwinger: i hate to say it, but you'll get maybe 1 serious answer out of 10 since most of the kids are online tonight. i don't have much experience with raise-asking, but i tried. if someone has a success story, hopefully they'll help. you may want to bump this for the morning/afternoon crew later on.

Yeah, I know.

Thanks for the useful advice though!

The problem with my job is that its so technical there's not many people that can replace me. I mean, they can't run an ad in the paper an fill my position with two weeks of training. It took me over 1000 hours of immersion in my position to learn enough to get dangerous. Nor can I open the paper and find something there that I'll be ready for.

Due to my position, I'm not easily replaceable, and I'm not easily re-employable is what I'm trying to say.

 

[lukatmyshu]

I successfully negotiated 20 percent raise this last year (taking me from slightly below average to way-above average for my experience). What I did was make a list of all the things (major) that I had done in the last year. I then printed out the expectations of what the company expected of a person in my salary/technical grade. I made an appointment with my director (who is in charge of the money) and presented her with this information. After talking about it for about 15 minutes she asked me what i thought would be fair.

If you're as invaluable as you say you are, and you're lucky enough to have contributed in some immediate recognizable way then this tactic (imho) works very well. Since we are technical in nature it's not easy for us to do stuff like "Brought in sales worth 10,000,000 last year". As such it's important to quantify your contributions in other ways. Good luck.

 

[Rightwinger]

anyone else?

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: DainBramaged
Tell him that you want a raise or you will quit.

Works for me!

Actually, it doesn't. My company has a company wide freeze this entire year. ZERO raises!

 

[sixone]

Just ask your boss when you should expect your annual review. You might mention that you've never had a 90-day review, but don't mention money at this point. Wait and see what they offer.

If you've earned it, you'll get it.

 

[Rightwinger]

anyone else?

 

give him head