4 ms·
Ask HN: how do I ask for a raise in my salary?
I have an engineering degree, and I was offered a job after a few months of searching. They offered me $45,000 and I took it knowing that I would have to do a bit of training to get acquainted with the sector. I adjusted a lot faster than expected. It has almost been a year, and I was poking around our network and found the job descriptions for the company. Low and behold my title and job description gave a salary range of $55-70,000. I have been doing my job as well as helping to automate a lot of the procedures and tasks, improving the speed and efficiency of all the members of a team that I manage, who all have more experience in the sector than I have been alive.
My title is Analyst but I am also our tech expert/support and team leader of 4 others.
I feel I far exceed my job description and would like to renegotiate my salary to the base of the specturm ($55,000) plus a %10 raise for exceptional work for the past year.
Is that too much to ask, and how do I go about it without seeming like a self-righteous/greedy ass?
- NonEUCitizen 14y ago1. Go interview and get a competing offer. 2. "It's been a year since I've started working here and I'd like a raise to bring my salary in line with market rates, please." Note that #1 will give you a more accurate sense of market rates.
- bking 14y agoBase pay for engineers is around $55,000. I took the $45,000 because the economy sucks and I was scared about the job market. I should have negotiated better, but that is more or less my fault.
- dllthomas 14y agoAlso, the $10k could be said in part to be compensating them for the risk they took in taking you on, given their uncertainty about your abilities. That uncertainty should now be cleared up.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- yashchandra 14y agoBefore we get into the discussion about what you should be worth., pure numbers show that you are asking to go from 45,000 to 55,000+10% = 60,500. That is almost 35% raise from your current base. I have been in your situation before and it is very unlikely in the US to get that kind of a raise usually. Having said that, if you really feel that you are worth that much, have a talk with you boss. But most likely, you might have to look outside your current company and even then, a 35% raise is very tough to negotiate in current market.
- bking 14y agoI have had this discussion with a few people, and that seems to be the typical response from anyone who works in a larger corperation. I definitely don't disagree.
- yashchandra 14y agoWhat you can do is to start looking outside first. Try and negotiate the raise with the new potential employer. The chances of getting it outside are higher than your current employer agreeing to that kind of a raise.
- bking 14y agoI will definitely think about it. Thanks.
- ImprovedSilence 14y agoI disagree. Especially because his pay is so low compared to market rates. I managed to interview for with a new company, get an offer at 15% up from my current pay, threaten to leave, and get a counter offer from my current company at 5k above my outstanding offer. They are taking huge advantage of you at 45k. They know this. If you have other offers in hand, or even make it known you are looking around, your current company will try to give you incentive to stay (in $$$). If they don't, they probably are not worth staying with anyway.
- pasbesoin 14y ago
- jwynia 14y agoThe best way to get paid $55,000 is to prove to them that you make or save them $110,000 a year. Asking for a raise makes it all about you. If you can make it all about THEM, and what THEY get from your continuing to work there, it's amazing how many "rules" can be made to disappear.
- bking 14y agothe unfortunate side of things is that I am not privy to the knowledge of the money they make off their contracts. There isn't very much transparency. What I can say is that I took a project that was about to sink and would take the better part of a year to do and turned it into 2 months of work and removed most of the human error elements. All this while working on two other full time projects.
- ImprovedSilence 14y agoAre you a contractor? If so, you can be sure they are charging the client at least 2x your current cost to them, probably more if they pay you so little. This multiple they use also gives them room to pay you more. As someone state above, it might be tough to just ask for a raise, but it's much easier negotiate when you have better offers in hand. Also, have you had your yearly review/raise yet? If not, I'd wait until after that happens, and see how it goes, to make some noise/moves. Maybe they are planning a big raise after the first year (my company did), and if you complain now/ask for too little, you may hurt your ability to negotiate after the fact.
- bking 14y agoI am a salary worker, and my company is a mix of consulting and deliverables to address our customers needs. I definitely understand how the charging works (my father is a cunsultant elsewhere and I grew up at least partially understanding that side). I had quarterly reviews, and each of them has been glowing and pushing me into more responsibility. The timing is off for my year end because my old manager is now a consultant and my new manager has only been here for a month, although I am pretty sure he would die if I weren't here. The quarterly review system was a product of my old manager, so I think those are over with now. My company is small (<50) and I have not seen any formal raise system like most big box companies, where if you get the highest rating you might get a %20 raise and on down. I am at a loss for when I should expect my year end if at all, because everyone else I know outside the company has already had theirs over the past month.
- dllthomas 14y agoI think that if your self assessment is accurate, they should be happy to pay you the higher rate; the alternative is training up someone else, who they'd likely have to pay more anyway.
- rynes 14y agoOne time I took a job at the offered salary. I was contacted by another company I had done some part time work for and they offered me a full time job at a considerably higher salary. I told my current boss and he said there was a company policy of max 15% increase in any year, but he gave me the 15%. I think the point is that you need to give your boss some numbers based on current rates at other companies. You don't have to give the company names unless he presses you very hard.