25 ms·

Mistakes to avoid when asking for a raise

142 points by ohjeez 9y ago

eric24234 9y ago
Former HPE employee. Manager asked if i have any offer letters when asked for raise. Actually my manager really was a kind of guy who can not lie or cover so much. I understood immediately this is a standard thing and also it made sense. From an employer stand point only about 20 % might have an offer letter from another org and the rest 80 % are too lazy to go to interviews and get offer letters. It works for them. TLDR; Quit every 3 years or so if you want raise.
giarc 9y ago
I was talking about this with some co-workers the other day. This article focuses on salary, but consider that sometimes what you want may be extra vacation time or personal days. They may be more acceptable to some managers.
- switch007 9y ago
  That feels like a consolation prize. And it does not seem like good currency when you change jobs (especially for companies that demand current salary information).
  - nicoburns 9y ago
    Really? I'd far prefer an extra 10 days holiday over a little higher pay. More difficult to get though I suspect.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      I have tried without success. HR didn't even understand the idea.
    - switch007 9y ago
      Yes I guess it's highly subjective. And being from the UK where we have 28 days by law, for me personally, each extra day is probably worth less in comparison
    - ohjeez 9y ago
      I was told, years ago, that when you are negotiating salary for a new job, and they say, "Sorry, $x is the most we can offer," you should ask for another week of vacation. At that point it seems (to them) cheap to say No, so you have a relatively good chance of getting it. I'd think it would apply equally to asking for a raise, though I haven't tried it.
      - BeetleB 9y ago
        This is the "standard" advice. However, I recently heard something that does the exact opposite. Make a list of nontangibles. As a reference, look up the benefits people get (by law) in countries like Sweden, France, Denmark, etc. Stuff like minimum 4-5 weeks vacation, 6 months paid medical leave when you have a kid, etc. Then ask for one or two of them. Don't be a jerk about it. Just say it would be really important for you to have it. Mildly make it a problematic point (i.e. don't say "yes" to the offer - just keep asking). They most likely are not going to give you them (in the US). Since these are hard to give, but not unreasonable (so many countries give them), they will not get offended. After a few back and forths, they may come to you and say "Look, I'm sorry we cannot give you X, but would you be willing to accept an increase in pay as a substitute?" So don't ask for a salary and settle for vacation (unless that's what you really want). Ask for a lot of vacation, and settle for more money.
        ohjeez 9y ago
        That sounds like a win either way!
  - achompas 9y ago
    I don't agree. If you want to negotiate more PTO at your new job, it's easy to point at your current PTO arrangement and have them match.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - el_benhameen 9y ago
    I don't necessarily disagree, but two small counter points: 1. It's now illegal in California for employers to ask for salary history. 2. Vacation days, if they're not unlimited, are compensation and must be paid out if you leave. That's not base salary with which you can negotiate a higher offer at another company, but it is money.
    - aknosis 9y ago
      #2 is not entirely true. It appears that in the U.S this is a state law that can vary by state. In Arizona it seems that they leave this up to the employer which means obviously they will choose not to pay out that balance.
    - PenguinCoder 9y ago
      #2 is why all the 'trendy' companies are starting to give out "unlimited PTO".
      - el_benhameen 9y ago
        Yeah, I've wondered (figured) if that's part of the motivation. That and they can just shame people into taking none. Not a fan unless the company is super trustworthy, which is hard to gauge.
        mackey 9y ago
        Totally, even within the same company it can vary. I worked some place where engineering was really good about encouraging people to take time off and lots of upper management set a good example with unlimited PTO. However, I had heard that sales and consulting weren't as encouraged.
        saryant 9y ago
        It can work well, but I think it comes down more to the your manager/org than the overall company (assuming we're talking about a large enough company for there to be disparate orgs). We have unlimited PTO and I think I took 7-8ish weeks last year—including spending pretty much all of November in New Zealand. Nobody had an issue with it. OTOH, I know of people in the company who struggle to take more than two weeks. During my last job search I would point-blank ask the hiring manager how much PTO they and their reports took in the last year.
  - JustSomeNobody 9y ago
    Don't give them current salary. If they won't hire you, you're better off. Instead, add a (reasonable) raise to your current salary, then add another X percentage just in case you don't get a raise for a couple years. Hand the hiring company that figure. Edit for clarity
  - giarc 9y ago
    I would say that unless you are underpaid for your position, then extra time off is the prize. Most research shows that time is happiness, not money. Having extra time off to spend with family/friends is what is going to make you happy in life. An extra $10K/year isn't going to make a difference if you don't have time to spend it.
- foreigner 9y ago
  Depends on the company. At giant megacorps your manager probably has much more flexibility on your salary than they do on non-standard benefits.
  - GordonS 9y ago
    At some giant mega-corps. Others operate a 'grade' system, where there is a hard limit on salary for each grade, and you will need to be promoted before a raise is possible.
- btbuildem 9y ago
  One vacation day translates roughly to a 2% raise. I've been looking at this recently - I'm overdue for a raise, and I might just ask for Freedom Fridays instead of a salary bump.
  - btbuildem 9y ago
    Oops meant "one week of vacation"
genzoman 9y ago
I worked for HP during the HP/E split. Number one tip: don't work at HP (if you want to actually get the raise).
- fetus8 9y ago
  I just got laid off from HPE in October, and my next position had more than a 20% salary increase, so I have to second this HARD. Also I would really hesitate to take advice from HPE...
  - crispyambulance 9y ago
    Ironically, the author of the article is best known as a humorist (a really good one too). They perhaps could not find someone in-house to write an HPE-career-advice article with a straight face, so they had to outsource it?
scalesolved 9y ago
"Are there some extra responsibilities I can take on to advance my career here?" - That seems a good way to get a lot of extra work with no benefits and a loose date where management will 'revise' whether you are fulfilling it or whether the raise date needs to be bumped further out (the latter usually occurs). I found the 4 tips on what not to do well written and useful for people earlier in their career. I didn't get a lot from this article for when you find pushback against raises (very common) especially when we're in an industry that fully rewards job hopping and has a wholly broken promotion/retention eco-system.
- dang 9y ago
  Taking the liberty of removing the superlatives, I think this is very true, and arguably more interesting than the article: > rewards job hopping and has a broken promotion/retention system Has anybody seen something successfully done about this? I mean, we know about vesting and we know that interesting work keeps good people, etc., but I'm curious what there is that isn't widely known which has been seen to shift this issue.
  - trowawee 9y ago
    Basecamp appears to be successfully managing this. If you look at their "About Us"[1] page, you see a lot of people who've been there for quite a while. Their solution appears to be: 1. Pay a lot of money: "Our target is to pay everyone at the company in the 95th percentile, or top 5%, of the market, regardless of their role."[2] Previously that was benchmarked to Chicago prices; as of late 2017, that's benchmarked to San Francisco prices.[3] 2. Offer an excellent benefits package that actually benefits people (i.e. isn't just an unused ping-pong table/game console and the promise of "great culture!").[4] Something specifically noticeable is that they offer the kind of benefits that maybe aren't big selling points when you're younger, but that become increasingly enticing as you get older, and especially if you have kids - a fantastic parental leave policy, good retirement policy, short summer weeks. 3. Respect your employees and treat them like adults. Harder to quantify, but if you click around their handbook[5], you see a lot of things that boil down to "We trust you to do the right thing, even in a very independent setting. We won't be looking over your shoulder constantly." I think that's a really scary idea for some people, and a really attractive proposition for others. If you find people who are in that latter group in your hiring process, I suspect it makes it easier to keep them around when most other jobs are not going to involve that level of trust. The idea of "interesting work keeps good people" - I dunno about that. It's hard to say what's interesting work. It's easy to say "adding new endpoints to a CRUD app" is not interesting, but for some people it might be, or at least it might be "sufficiently interesting" to make a career of it. I have friends in FinTech for whom tracking the market actually brings them joy, and I'm happy for them, but when I try to watch their screen while they tell me about what they're doing, my eyes start to glaze over. I don't know if what Basecamp does counts as "interesting work" for most people, but it seems like it's interesting enough, and the other parts of the company are good enough, for a lot of people to want to stay there for quite some time. [1]: https://basecamp.com/about/team https://basecamp.com/about/team [2]: https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp-f1d04f4f194b https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp-f1d... [3]: https://m.signalvnoise.com/basecamp-doesnt-employ-anyone-in-san-francisco-but-now-we-pay-everyone-as-though-all-did-3ee87013cfc2 https://m.signalvnoise.com/basecamp-doesnt-employ-anyone-in-... [4]: https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/benefits-and-perks.md https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/benefits-an... [5]: https://github.com/basecamp/handbook https://github.com/basecamp/handbook
zepolen 9y ago
Step 1. Be valuable Step 2. Ask for your value Step 3. Walk if you don't get it
- cema 9y ago
  Step 2 is not easy for everyone, plenty of people in our profession are shy. Step 3 is a big one, too.
  - zepolen 9y ago
    That's why all 3 steps are necessary, I know plenty of people who fill step 1 and step 3 but never do step 2 - so they just end up leaving instead of getting a raise.
    - cema 9y ago
      Right. Well, sometimes leaving is good -- for instance, when the new company is so exciting, or when the old one, uh, isn't.
  - switch007 9y ago
    Step 0: go to interviews? to aid step 2 and 3?
- mgkimsal 9y ago
  Knowing your "value" is arguably the toughest one, because for many people, it's hard to quantify.
  - zepolen 9y ago
    It's easy to quantify - look for another job - if you're getting offers for a certain salary - that's your minimum value. Now ask for more. When the offers stop, you've found your value. Likewise - you are more valuable to your current company as you have domain knowledge whereas a new hire will require training, keep that in mind.
  - paulcole 9y ago
LandR 9y ago
If you want a pay rise find a job offer with a higher salary. Go to your current manager and ask them to match. If they don't leave and go to the higher paying job. I think that's the only way to get a pay rise nowadays, aside from small yearly raises like 2-3% If you don't have another offer and aren't willing to walk away, you really have no leverage to ask for more money.
- crispyambulance 9y ago
  I am sure that some people in some industries have success with this but there's always the risk that whoever asks for a raise in this way is going to get targeted for a staff-cut, months later, after the alternative opportunity has been passed up. The way to do it is to look for another job and then just take that opportunity or aim for a promotion/pay-raise/departmental-shift like everyone else.
  - aqme28 9y ago
    Higher-paid employees are always the targets for a staff-cut. It's still worth it to get a raise.
    - crispyambulance 9y ago
      That depends on how much one is risking by putting their boss on the spot for an out-of-band/ultimatum raise. People can get very vindictive in response to being forced by aggressive moves like that. If they're paying you so low that you must have a thick raise, it is probably better to go elsewhere.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
        It doesn't have to be aggressive, at all. "Hey, Tom. ZipCo offered me a great position with a AB% raise. I really like the new role, but I'd prefer to stay here if we can make it work. What can we do to bridge the gap? Oh, by the way, they'd like an answer by Friday, but I'm sure I can put them off for another week." That makes it clear that you have an offer, but would stay if the current company can match or exceed it without being too "in your face" about it. It's just business, most managers are not going to take it personally.
martinko 9y ago
Feels like an article that I would expect to see shared on linkedin, not here.
Benjammer 9y ago
This advice is pretty ridiculous for someone with in-demand talents. I get it if you are in some highly-replaceable role, or you are looking to swing the work-life balance more towards life and you want to just play by the rules and keep your head down. But if you are a talented contributor and you believe in the value you add, you probably shouldn't listen to any of these points, they are heavily "company-centric" in focus. >1. Don't make it all about you Unless I have a significant equity stake, this literally IS just about me and my employment arrangement with the company. It's frustrating to be told that my salary is dependent on equity value increasing - which I won't see any piece of. Shouldn't it be dependent on my value to the company and not the value of the company itself? >2. Don't compare yourself to your co-workers Why the fuck not? This is standard corp-speak for "don't rock the boat, man." They also describe looking at coworker salaries in the HR system (they say "use" not "hack" or "break into" the system) as "illicit." This is the same old nonsense about not discussing salaries to keep the power with the company. >3. Don't make promises you can't (or don't want to) keep This is condescending and basically amounts to "don't threaten to quit because that's not professional." How about we start looking at why people are being pushed to a point where they feel like threatening to quit is their only option? >4. Don't ask too soon Bullshit. As soon as you feel that your value has measurably increased you should ask to be compensated for it. You shouldn't have to work 1.5 times the hours/workload for 2 years or some shit just to be considered for a raise/promotion. There's also a compounding effect over time here, each delay in a raise for you is going to delay the _next_ raise as well. Obviously this is within reason, you can't walk in the door of a company, fresh out of school, and then demand a raise 3 months in. But there are similar scenarios later on when you have experience where you might walk into a new job and you realize within 3 months that you were hoodwinked about the workload when you interviewed. It's perfectly fine to at least discuss an increase in comp to match what you now understand the job requirements to be.
- jamisteven 9y ago
  Couldnt agree with this more! The power needs to be put back into the hands of the employee, this article is basically telling you to act like f*cking boyscout, with that being the exact type of behavior that got most of us into these situations.
JOnAgain 9y ago
Threatening to quit is one of the best pieces of advice. Just be prepared to follow through or swallow it and shut up if it doesn't go your way. But for lots of bigger companies, they can't or won't without a thread like this.
- ryanbrunner 9y ago
  The biggest danger in threatening to quit is that you only really get to use it once with a particular company, and even then you should really think about how your company would respond. I've worked with management teams that were quick to put someone into the "unreliable" bucket as soon as they threatened to quit, avoiding placing them on critical projects and focusing on making them redundant. Even in some cases with non-malicious intentions.
  - foreigner 9y ago
    "I love this team but I just can't afford to stay with the job market the way it is right now."
  - gowld 9y ago
    Companies that manage away their best talent don't last long
    - borplk 9y ago
      Not really true. Lots of terrible companies manage to continue to exist just fine. Maybe in the very long term it will eventually catch up with them. But then who cares?
  - mianos 9y ago
    The only people left would be the 'reliable' people. Never mind the people of who can actually do the job. Oh, and the managers. This sounds exactly like the real hpe.
- troels 9y ago
  There's a lot of talk about this, including in the article. But I would suggest that it is somewhat distasteful to outright threaten to quit, when you can be more subtle about it. Diplomacy is about making sure both parties win. And in this scenario, remember that your boss and the company are two separate entities, with differing agendas.
esoteric_nonces 9y ago
Achieve some level of financial security (say 6-12 months savings), then just do whatever you want. The hard part is the former. Once you've done that the negotiation bit is trivial because you don't really need to care - you can just take it as a given that eventually you'll be paid more (unless you're taken ill and stop/slow down working).
heisenbit 9y ago
This was written by an external marketing person that was asked by HPE to write articles that position HPE in a certain way. This gentleman has written about: - salary rises - IoT basics in articles "how to / pitfalls", "how and how not to", "30+ conferences", "7 tips". I'm a bit puzzled they employing others to do this type of positioning. Blogs were once about speaking with your voice. Dave and Hewlett were hands on and straight. As an ex HPL I don't want to think what they would say about this.
southphillyman 9y ago
Hate to say it but I think if you have to ask for a raise you're probably not going to get it (or won't get as much as you want). I've seen companies let bonafide rockstars with the most domain knowledge in the group walk over money. I just don't get it. It's like someone in the HR industry made up this rule and bad companies stick to it for whatever reason. I'd go as far as saying the majority of the attrition I've seen has been money related, and all of my decisions to bounce have been motivated by money. Companies will spend $100k+ on Christmas parties, sport box suites, and other marketing/sales related things but won't give a critical piece of the team an extra $25k or whatever? Just mind boggling.
- aknosis 9y ago
  This is spot on. The argument is probably that the 100k will benefit "everyone" where as the raise only benefits that one person. Where in reality that raise most likely has a much better ROI.
- scalesolved 9y ago
  The thing that makes me think the system is broken is how they'll avoid larger raises at all costs even if it means losing great engineers with lots of domain knowledge. The cost of replacing this is immense to an organisation, even if they can hire a similarly skilled engineer they've: 1. Had to absorb hiring costs 2. Search in a competitive market for talent 3. Distract team members with another round of interviews 4. On-boarding costs whilst the engineer absorbs all the lost domain knowledge. (This is the big one). Once all that is taken into account it's probably getting close to a full yearly salary of the engineer they just let walk. I still feel it takes a good 3-6 months for an engineer on complex domain projects to really feel comfortable regardless of their seniority.
  - trowawee 9y ago
    It's definitely broken. It doesn't help that a lot of the cost of hiring is born in externalities - it's difficult to measure the cost of the time spent screening and interviewing and thinking about prospects, or the cost of the extra 15 or 30 or 60 minutes of Googling/reading the codebase/chasing bad ideas that the rest of the team has to do to replace having that knowledge sitting next to them in the form of a person, or the technical debt accrued when the next thing you build is implemented in a slightly worse form than it could be.
tenpoundhammer 9y ago
Funny story, while working for a large company in 2012, that may or may not have written this article. I followed these exact steps on the advice (via podcast) of Merlin Mann who talked about how a sane person gets a raise and keeps their dignity and job. I didn't get the raise. Two months later I took a better paying job at a different company. Upon putting in my two weeks notice, the management came to me and asked "Why didn't you bring a competing offer, we would have given you a raise if you did?" and then offered to give me a raise in order to stay on. They also said it was common in the industry. I was happy to leave after this. I wouldn't change anything I did, leaving was the best thing I've ever done for my career. If you feel like you are providing more value than your employer is paying you for and they won't give you a raise. Then apply at other companies and ask for the rate you want. If you are worth what you think you're worth you will get a job offer close to that rate, otherwise you won't and you'll learn the value that the market places on your skills.
- phibz 9y ago
  > If you feel like you are providing more value than your employer is paying you for and they won't give you a raise. Then apply at other companies and ask for the rate you want. If you are worth what you think you're worth you will get a job offer close to that rate, otherwise you won't and you'll learn the value that the market places on your skills. This has matched with my experience every single time. At almost every job I've worked at in the last 20 years it's been: * get hired at X because it was MN% higher than what I last had * learn new skills * get promoted without a pay increase or with a < 2% pay increase * ask for a raise stating my accomplishments and promotion * get pissed off and leave for MN% increase * repeat At this point in my life I've just stopped asking for raises altogether. It's simpler and easier to just go elsewhere.
walshemj 9y ago
""If every staff member met with their boss simply for a chat and received a raise as a result, there would be a lot of high-paid salaries and complacency among staff," says Steve Pritchard, an HR consultant for Cuuver" Well to quote Mandy Rice Davies well "he would say that wouldn't he" Just Paroting the HR line is not that helpful for an employee looking fro a raise.
pktgen 9y ago
> Company management may accept with varying levels of ease employees voluntarily sharing salary info with each other. May accept? No, in the US, they have to accept it (unless the employees are supervisors or working for one of the few exempt industries such as railroads or airlines; even then, other laws may apply). See https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employee-rights https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employee-rights.
naasking 9y ago
> Finally, don't lead with how long it's been since your last raise, says Valerie Streif, a senior advisor at Thementat.com, a San Francisco-based organization for job seekers. "This starts off the conversation with a tone of entitlement and shifts the focus away from your achievements. Instead, it reveals that you expect the raise solely due to the amount of time you've been in your position." Right, because experience has no impact on your expected value in the job market. I think managers should read some articles on how to not lose valuable employees.
- ohjeez 9y ago
  There's an old saying about a programmer who has 8 years of experience: The same year, 8 times over. I think we have all worked with that person, at one time or another. Does that individual deserve a raise for the accomplishment of not being fired?
  - mulletbum 9y ago
    From my experience, these people always tend to be the one talking about raises or becoming management the most. Can barely do their job, 6 years in, still barely can do their job, but think they deserve the world.
pimmen 9y ago
"Don't compare yourself to your co-workers" I don't agree, I think you should. You're selling your labor, you need to know what the market price is. The article says that you don't know why the other employees are earning more, and that's a valid point. Only way to know what it is that your employer values more in other people? Ask your employer about it. If it's something tangible, like education, certificates, landing an important account, good deliveries on time or something like that you know what you need to get a raise. If your employer comes up short with reasons for why you're paid less than your peers you have the perfect argument for a raise. It could be that I'm Swedish though because it's rather common and not taboo to do this research before asking for a raise. Why do you think we're way ahead of the US in income equality between genders?
purplezooey 9y ago
Another one is trying to use leverage. Like, "this such and such would be screwed without me.". Fast track to pissing people off.
munchbunny 9y ago
My problem with the article is that if you try to follow all of that advice, you are left with no real leverage to work with, and the sad reality of the vast majority of jobs is that you will not get a raise unless you have leverage. If I had to compile my own advice, which is inevitably incomplete but I think gives more actionable advice than the article, I'd say: 1. Don't openly criticize your colleagues. Word tends to get around and it erodes their trust in you. 2. Don't threaten. That makes your manager defensive, which is counterproductive. You can imply your dissatisfaction and your manager will infer the risk of losing you, but threatening to leave tends to get a defensive reaction. 3. If you are trying to be less underpaid, then approach it from a perspective of fair compensation for the work that you do. Do not hide that you think it's unfair, but also make sure that you're well-justified in thinking it's unfair. 4. If you are trying to get paid more despite being fairly compensated, then have a discussion about where you have to up your game to earn more.
CapitalistCartr 9y ago
Job hop. I've had one time in my life when I got a raise as good as changing jobs. The way to manage your career is to see each job as a step. Companies are full of management from junior to executive, who are good at making problems someone else's. Not actually solving them. They love to make their financials improve on the backs of the rank and file, rather than their own skill, then compensate for lower pay will with guilt trip fantasies about loyalties. Then treat people: employees, contractors, customers, vendors, doesn't matter, like toilet paper. Your real boss is you.

142 points by ohjeez 9y ago

Former HPE employee. Manager asked if i have any offer letters when asked for raise. Actually my manager really was a kind of guy who can not lie or cover so much. I understood immediately this is a standard thing and also it made sense. From an employer stand point only about 20 % might have an offer letter from another org and the rest 80 % are too lazy to go to interviews and get offer letters. It works for them. TLDR; Quit every 3 years or so if you want raise.

giarc 9y ago

I was talking about this with some co-workers the other day. This article focuses on salary, but consider that sometimes what you want may be extra vacation time or personal days. They may be more acceptable to some managers.

switch007 9y ago
That feels like a consolation prize. And it does not seem like good currency when you change jobs (especially for companies that demand current salary information).
- nicoburns 9y ago
  Really? I'd far prefer an extra 10 days holiday over a little higher pay. More difficult to get though I suspect.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    I have tried without success. HR didn't even understand the idea.
  - switch007 9y ago
    Yes I guess it's highly subjective. And being from the UK where we have 28 days by law, for me personally, each extra day is probably worth less in comparison
  - ohjeez 9y ago
    I was told, years ago, that when you are negotiating salary for a new job, and they say, "Sorry, $x is the most we can offer," you should ask for another week of vacation. At that point it seems (to them) cheap to say No, so you have a relatively good chance of getting it. I'd think it would apply equally to asking for a raise, though I haven't tried it.
    - BeetleB 9y ago
      This is the "standard" advice. However, I recently heard something that does the exact opposite. Make a list of nontangibles. As a reference, look up the benefits people get (by law) in countries like Sweden, France, Denmark, etc. Stuff like minimum 4-5 weeks vacation, 6 months paid medical leave when you have a kid, etc. Then ask for one or two of them. Don't be a jerk about it. Just say it would be really important for you to have it. Mildly make it a problematic point (i.e. don't say "yes" to the offer - just keep asking). They most likely are not going to give you them (in the US). Since these are hard to give, but not unreasonable (so many countries give them), they will not get offended. After a few back and forths, they may come to you and say "Look, I'm sorry we cannot give you X, but would you be willing to accept an increase in pay as a substitute?" So don't ask for a salary and settle for vacation (unless that's what you really want). Ask for a lot of vacation, and settle for more money.
      - ohjeez 9y ago
        That sounds like a win either way!
- achompas 9y ago
  I don't agree. If you want to negotiate more PTO at your new job, it's easy to point at your current PTO arrangement and have them match.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- el_benhameen 9y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree, but two small counter points: 1. It's now illegal in California for employers to ask for salary history. 2. Vacation days, if they're not unlimited, are compensation and must be paid out if you leave. That's not base salary with which you can negotiate a higher offer at another company, but it is money.
  - aknosis 9y ago
    #2 is not entirely true. It appears that in the U.S this is a state law that can vary by state. In Arizona it seems that they leave this up to the employer which means obviously they will choose not to pay out that balance.
  - PenguinCoder 9y ago
    #2 is why all the 'trendy' companies are starting to give out "unlimited PTO".
    - el_benhameen 9y ago
      Yeah, I've wondered (figured) if that's part of the motivation. That and they can just shame people into taking none. Not a fan unless the company is super trustworthy, which is hard to gauge.
      - mackey 9y ago
        Totally, even within the same company it can vary. I worked some place where engineering was really good about encouraging people to take time off and lots of upper management set a good example with unlimited PTO. However, I had heard that sales and consulting weren't as encouraged.
      - saryant 9y ago
        It can work well, but I think it comes down more to the your manager/org than the overall company (assuming we're talking about a large enough company for there to be disparate orgs). We have unlimited PTO and I think I took 7-8ish weeks last year—including spending pretty much all of November in New Zealand. Nobody had an issue with it. OTOH, I know of people in the company who struggle to take more than two weeks. During my last job search I would point-blank ask the hiring manager how much PTO they and their reports took in the last year.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Don't give them current salary. If they won't hire you, you're better off. Instead, add a (reasonable) raise to your current salary, then add another X percentage just in case you don't get a raise for a couple years. Hand the hiring company that figure. Edit for clarity
- giarc 9y ago
  I would say that unless you are underpaid for your position, then extra time off is the prize. Most research shows that time is happiness, not money. Having extra time off to spend with family/friends is what is going to make you happy in life. An extra $10K/year isn't going to make a difference if you don't have time to spend it.
foreigner 9y ago
Depends on the company. At giant megacorps your manager probably has much more flexibility on your salary than they do on non-standard benefits.
- GordonS 9y ago
  At some giant mega-corps. Others operate a 'grade' system, where there is a hard limit on salary for each grade, and you will need to be promoted before a raise is possible.
btbuildem 9y ago
One vacation day translates roughly to a 2% raise. I've been looking at this recently - I'm overdue for a raise, and I might just ask for Freedom Fridays instead of a salary bump.
- btbuildem 9y ago
  Oops meant "one week of vacation"

genzoman 9y ago

I worked for HP during the HP/E split. Number one tip: don't work at HP (if you want to actually get the raise).

fetus8 9y ago
I just got laid off from HPE in October, and my next position had more than a 20% salary increase, so I have to second this HARD. Also I would really hesitate to take advice from HPE...
- crispyambulance 9y ago
  Ironically, the author of the article is best known as a humorist (a really good one too). They perhaps could not find someone in-house to write an HPE-career-advice article with a straight face, so they had to outsource it?

scalesolved 9y ago

"Are there some extra responsibilities I can take on to advance my career here?" - That seems a good way to get a lot of extra work with no benefits and a loose date where management will 'revise' whether you are fulfilling it or whether the raise date needs to be bumped further out (the latter usually occurs). I found the 4 tips on what not to do well written and useful for people earlier in their career. I didn't get a lot from this article for when you find pushback against raises (very common) especially when we're in an industry that fully rewards job hopping and has a wholly broken promotion/retention eco-system.

dang 9y ago
Taking the liberty of removing the superlatives, I think this is very true, and arguably more interesting than the article: > rewards job hopping and has a broken promotion/retention system Has anybody seen something successfully done about this? I mean, we know about vesting and we know that interesting work keeps good people, etc., but I'm curious what there is that isn't widely known which has been seen to shift this issue.
- trowawee 9y ago
  Basecamp appears to be successfully managing this. If you look at their "About Us"[1] page, you see a lot of people who've been there for quite a while. Their solution appears to be: 1. Pay a lot of money: "Our target is to pay everyone at the company in the 95th percentile, or top 5%, of the market, regardless of their role."[2] Previously that was benchmarked to Chicago prices; as of late 2017, that's benchmarked to San Francisco prices.[3] 2. Offer an excellent benefits package that actually benefits people (i.e. isn't just an unused ping-pong table/game console and the promise of "great culture!").[4] Something specifically noticeable is that they offer the kind of benefits that maybe aren't big selling points when you're younger, but that become increasingly enticing as you get older, and especially if you have kids - a fantastic parental leave policy, good retirement policy, short summer weeks. 3. Respect your employees and treat them like adults. Harder to quantify, but if you click around their handbook[5], you see a lot of things that boil down to "We trust you to do the right thing, even in a very independent setting. We won't be looking over your shoulder constantly." I think that's a really scary idea for some people, and a really attractive proposition for others. If you find people who are in that latter group in your hiring process, I suspect it makes it easier to keep them around when most other jobs are not going to involve that level of trust. The idea of "interesting work keeps good people" - I dunno about that. It's hard to say what's interesting work. It's easy to say "adding new endpoints to a CRUD app" is not interesting, but for some people it might be, or at least it might be "sufficiently interesting" to make a career of it. I have friends in FinTech for whom tracking the market actually brings them joy, and I'm happy for them, but when I try to watch their screen while they tell me about what they're doing, my eyes start to glaze over. I don't know if what Basecamp does counts as "interesting work" for most people, but it seems like it's interesting enough, and the other parts of the company are good enough, for a lot of people to want to stay there for quite some time. [1]: https://basecamp.com/about/team https://basecamp.com/about/team [2]: https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp-f1d04f4f194b https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp-f1d... [3]: https://m.signalvnoise.com/basecamp-doesnt-employ-anyone-in-san-francisco-but-now-we-pay-everyone-as-though-all-did-3ee87013cfc2 https://m.signalvnoise.com/basecamp-doesnt-employ-anyone-in-... [4]: https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/benefits-and-perks.md https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/benefits-an... [5]: https://github.com/basecamp/handbook https://github.com/basecamp/handbook

zepolen 9y ago

Step 1. Be valuable Step 2. Ask for your value Step 3. Walk if you don't get it

cema 9y ago
Step 2 is not easy for everyone, plenty of people in our profession are shy. Step 3 is a big one, too.
- zepolen 9y ago
  That's why all 3 steps are necessary, I know plenty of people who fill step 1 and step 3 but never do step 2 - so they just end up leaving instead of getting a raise.
  - cema 9y ago
    Right. Well, sometimes leaving is good -- for instance, when the new company is so exciting, or when the old one, uh, isn't.
- switch007 9y ago
  Step 0: go to interviews? to aid step 2 and 3?
mgkimsal 9y ago
Knowing your "value" is arguably the toughest one, because for many people, it's hard to quantify.
- zepolen 9y ago
  It's easy to quantify - look for another job - if you're getting offers for a certain salary - that's your minimum value. Now ask for more. When the offers stop, you've found your value. Likewise - you are more valuable to your current company as you have domain knowledge whereas a new hire will require training, keep that in mind.
- paulcole 9y ago

LandR 9y ago

If you want a pay rise find a job offer with a higher salary. Go to your current manager and ask them to match. If they don't leave and go to the higher paying job. I think that's the only way to get a pay rise nowadays, aside from small yearly raises like 2-3% If you don't have another offer and aren't willing to walk away, you really have no leverage to ask for more money.

crispyambulance 9y ago
I am sure that some people in some industries have success with this but there's always the risk that whoever asks for a raise in this way is going to get targeted for a staff-cut, months later, after the alternative opportunity has been passed up. The way to do it is to look for another job and then just take that opportunity or aim for a promotion/pay-raise/departmental-shift like everyone else.
- aqme28 9y ago
  Higher-paid employees are always the targets for a staff-cut. It's still worth it to get a raise.
  - crispyambulance 9y ago
    That depends on how much one is risking by putting their boss on the spot for an out-of-band/ultimatum raise. People can get very vindictive in response to being forced by aggressive moves like that. If they're paying you so low that you must have a thick raise, it is probably better to go elsewhere.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 9y ago
      It doesn't have to be aggressive, at all. "Hey, Tom. ZipCo offered me a great position with a AB% raise. I really like the new role, but I'd prefer to stay here if we can make it work. What can we do to bridge the gap? Oh, by the way, they'd like an answer by Friday, but I'm sure I can put them off for another week." That makes it clear that you have an offer, but would stay if the current company can match or exceed it without being too "in your face" about it. It's just business, most managers are not going to take it personally.

martinko 9y ago

Feels like an article that I would expect to see shared on linkedin, not here.

Benjammer 9y ago

This advice is pretty ridiculous for someone with in-demand talents. I get it if you are in some highly-replaceable role, or you are looking to swing the work-life balance more towards life and you want to just play by the rules and keep your head down. But if you are a talented contributor and you believe in the value you add, you probably shouldn't listen to any of these points, they are heavily "company-centric" in focus. >1. Don't make it all about you Unless I have a significant equity stake, this literally IS just about me and my employment arrangement with the company. It's frustrating to be told that my salary is dependent on equity value increasing - which I won't see any piece of. Shouldn't it be dependent on my value to the company and not the value of the company itself? >2. Don't compare yourself to your co-workers Why the fuck not? This is standard corp-speak for "don't rock the boat, man." They also describe looking at coworker salaries in the HR system (they say "use" not "hack" or "break into" the system) as "illicit." This is the same old nonsense about not discussing salaries to keep the power with the company. >3. Don't make promises you can't (or don't want to) keep This is condescending and basically amounts to "don't threaten to quit because that's not professional." How about we start looking at why people are being pushed to a point where they feel like threatening to quit is their only option? >4. Don't ask too soon Bullshit. As soon as you feel that your value has measurably increased you should ask to be compensated for it. You shouldn't have to work 1.5 times the hours/workload for 2 years or some shit just to be considered for a raise/promotion. There's also a compounding effect over time here, each delay in a raise for you is going to delay the _next_ raise as well. Obviously this is within reason, you can't walk in the door of a company, fresh out of school, and then demand a raise 3 months in. But there are similar scenarios later on when you have experience where you might walk into a new job and you realize within 3 months that you were hoodwinked about the workload when you interviewed. It's perfectly fine to at least discuss an increase in comp to match what you now understand the job requirements to be.

jamisteven 9y ago
Couldnt agree with this more! The power needs to be put back into the hands of the employee, this article is basically telling you to act like f*cking boyscout, with that being the exact type of behavior that got most of us into these situations.

JOnAgain 9y ago

Threatening to quit is one of the best pieces of advice. Just be prepared to follow through or swallow it and shut up if it doesn't go your way. But for lots of bigger companies, they can't or won't without a thread like this.

ryanbrunner 9y ago
The biggest danger in threatening to quit is that you only really get to use it once with a particular company, and even then you should really think about how your company would respond. I've worked with management teams that were quick to put someone into the "unreliable" bucket as soon as they threatened to quit, avoiding placing them on critical projects and focusing on making them redundant. Even in some cases with non-malicious intentions.
- foreigner 9y ago
  "I love this team but I just can't afford to stay with the job market the way it is right now."
- gowld 9y ago
  Companies that manage away their best talent don't last long
  - borplk 9y ago
    Not really true. Lots of terrible companies manage to continue to exist just fine. Maybe in the very long term it will eventually catch up with them. But then who cares?
- mianos 9y ago
  The only people left would be the 'reliable' people. Never mind the people of who can actually do the job. Oh, and the managers. This sounds exactly like the real hpe.
troels 9y ago
There's a lot of talk about this, including in the article. But I would suggest that it is somewhat distasteful to outright threaten to quit, when you can be more subtle about it. Diplomacy is about making sure both parties win. And in this scenario, remember that your boss and the company are two separate entities, with differing agendas.

esoteric_nonces 9y ago

Achieve some level of financial security (say 6-12 months savings), then just do whatever you want. The hard part is the former. Once you've done that the negotiation bit is trivial because you don't really need to care - you can just take it as a given that eventually you'll be paid more (unless you're taken ill and stop/slow down working).

heisenbit 9y ago

This was written by an external marketing person that was asked by HPE to write articles that position HPE in a certain way. This gentleman has written about: - salary rises - IoT basics in articles "how to / pitfalls", "how and how not to", "30+ conferences", "7 tips". I'm a bit puzzled they employing others to do this type of positioning. Blogs were once about speaking with your voice. Dave and Hewlett were hands on and straight. As an ex HPL I don't want to think what they would say about this.

southphillyman 9y ago

Hate to say it but I think if you have to ask for a raise you're probably not going to get it (or won't get as much as you want). I've seen companies let bonafide rockstars with the most domain knowledge in the group walk over money. I just don't get it. It's like someone in the HR industry made up this rule and bad companies stick to it for whatever reason. I'd go as far as saying the majority of the attrition I've seen has been money related, and all of my decisions to bounce have been motivated by money. Companies will spend $100k+ on Christmas parties, sport box suites, and other marketing/sales related things but won't give a critical piece of the team an extra $25k or whatever? Just mind boggling.

aknosis 9y ago
This is spot on. The argument is probably that the 100k will benefit "everyone" where as the raise only benefits that one person. Where in reality that raise most likely has a much better ROI.
scalesolved 9y ago
The thing that makes me think the system is broken is how they'll avoid larger raises at all costs even if it means losing great engineers with lots of domain knowledge. The cost of replacing this is immense to an organisation, even if they can hire a similarly skilled engineer they've: 1. Had to absorb hiring costs 2. Search in a competitive market for talent 3. Distract team members with another round of interviews 4. On-boarding costs whilst the engineer absorbs all the lost domain knowledge. (This is the big one). Once all that is taken into account it's probably getting close to a full yearly salary of the engineer they just let walk. I still feel it takes a good 3-6 months for an engineer on complex domain projects to really feel comfortable regardless of their seniority.
- trowawee 9y ago
  It's definitely broken. It doesn't help that a lot of the cost of hiring is born in externalities - it's difficult to measure the cost of the time spent screening and interviewing and thinking about prospects, or the cost of the extra 15 or 30 or 60 minutes of Googling/reading the codebase/chasing bad ideas that the rest of the team has to do to replace having that knowledge sitting next to them in the form of a person, or the technical debt accrued when the next thing you build is implemented in a slightly worse form than it could be.

tenpoundhammer 9y ago

Funny story, while working for a large company in 2012, that may or may not have written this article. I followed these exact steps on the advice (via podcast) of Merlin Mann who talked about how a sane person gets a raise and keeps their dignity and job. I didn't get the raise. Two months later I took a better paying job at a different company. Upon putting in my two weeks notice, the management came to me and asked "Why didn't you bring a competing offer, we would have given you a raise if you did?" and then offered to give me a raise in order to stay on. They also said it was common in the industry. I was happy to leave after this. I wouldn't change anything I did, leaving was the best thing I've ever done for my career. If you feel like you are providing more value than your employer is paying you for and they won't give you a raise. Then apply at other companies and ask for the rate you want. If you are worth what you think you're worth you will get a job offer close to that rate, otherwise you won't and you'll learn the value that the market places on your skills.

phibz 9y ago
> If you feel like you are providing more value than your employer is paying you for and they won't give you a raise. Then apply at other companies and ask for the rate you want. If you are worth what you think you're worth you will get a job offer close to that rate, otherwise you won't and you'll learn the value that the market places on your skills. This has matched with my experience every single time. At almost every job I've worked at in the last 20 years it's been: * get hired at X because it was MN% higher than what I last had * learn new skills * get promoted without a pay increase or with a < 2% pay increase * ask for a raise stating my accomplishments and promotion * get pissed off and leave for MN% increase * repeat At this point in my life I've just stopped asking for raises altogether. It's simpler and easier to just go elsewhere.

walshemj 9y ago

""If every staff member met with their boss simply for a chat and received a raise as a result, there would be a lot of high-paid salaries and complacency among staff," says Steve Pritchard, an HR consultant for Cuuver" Well to quote Mandy Rice Davies well "he would say that wouldn't he" Just Paroting the HR line is not that helpful for an employee looking fro a raise.

pktgen 9y ago

> Company management may accept with varying levels of ease employees voluntarily sharing salary info with each other. May accept? No, in the US, they have to accept it (unless the employees are supervisors or working for one of the few exempt industries such as railroads or airlines; even then, other laws may apply). See https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employee-rights https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employee-rights.

naasking 9y ago

> Finally, don't lead with how long it's been since your last raise, says Valerie Streif, a senior advisor at Thementat.com, a San Francisco-based organization for job seekers. "This starts off the conversation with a tone of entitlement and shifts the focus away from your achievements. Instead, it reveals that you expect the raise solely due to the amount of time you've been in your position." Right, because experience has no impact on your expected value in the job market. I think managers should read some articles on how to not lose valuable employees.

ohjeez 9y ago
There's an old saying about a programmer who has 8 years of experience: The same year, 8 times over. I think we have all worked with that person, at one time or another. Does that individual deserve a raise for the accomplishment of not being fired?
- mulletbum 9y ago
  From my experience, these people always tend to be the one talking about raises or becoming management the most. Can barely do their job, 6 years in, still barely can do their job, but think they deserve the world.

pimmen 9y ago

"Don't compare yourself to your co-workers" I don't agree, I think you should. You're selling your labor, you need to know what the market price is. The article says that you don't know why the other employees are earning more, and that's a valid point. Only way to know what it is that your employer values more in other people? Ask your employer about it. If it's something tangible, like education, certificates, landing an important account, good deliveries on time or something like that you know what you need to get a raise. If your employer comes up short with reasons for why you're paid less than your peers you have the perfect argument for a raise. It could be that I'm Swedish though because it's rather common and not taboo to do this research before asking for a raise. Why do you think we're way ahead of the US in income equality between genders?

purplezooey 9y ago

Another one is trying to use leverage. Like, "this such and such would be screwed without me.". Fast track to pissing people off.

munchbunny 9y ago

My problem with the article is that if you try to follow all of that advice, you are left with no real leverage to work with, and the sad reality of the vast majority of jobs is that you will not get a raise unless you have leverage. If I had to compile my own advice, which is inevitably incomplete but I think gives more actionable advice than the article, I'd say: 1. Don't openly criticize your colleagues. Word tends to get around and it erodes their trust in you. 2. Don't threaten. That makes your manager defensive, which is counterproductive. You can imply your dissatisfaction and your manager will infer the risk of losing you, but threatening to leave tends to get a defensive reaction. 3. If you are trying to be less underpaid, then approach it from a perspective of fair compensation for the work that you do. Do not hide that you think it's unfair, but also make sure that you're well-justified in thinking it's unfair. 4. If you are trying to get paid more despite being fairly compensated, then have a discussion about where you have to up your game to earn more.

CapitalistCartr 9y ago

Job hop. I've had one time in my life when I got a raise as good as changing jobs. The way to manage your career is to see each job as a step. Companies are full of management from junior to executive, who are good at making problems someone else's. Not actually solving them. They love to make their financials improve on the backs of the rank and file, rather than their own skill, then compensate for lower pay will with guilt trip fantasies about loyalties. Then treat people: employees, contractors, customers, vendors, doesn't matter, like toilet paper. Your real boss is you.