Question: How do you ask for a raise?

Answer: From what I am seeing and hearing, the practical answer is that you don’t.  Many employers are not even hiring on a full-time basis let alone giving raises.  Many have cut bonuses or have made them entirely discretionary.  If, despite the uncertain times and these hesitant practices on the part of employers, you want to broach the subject, consider this strategy:

(1)  Choose the timing to coincide with a highly favorable performance evaluation.  This is the best context for asking.  When your performance has been exemplary, any boss would consider increasing compensation … in a buoyant market.  However, even in this market, this timing is appropriate.  At the very least, it doesn’t raise questions about your judgment.

(2)  Do research.  Find out what comparable professionals at competitor organizations earn.  If you are in the not-for-proft sector, pull the 990’s, and get hard facts.  If you work for a business, find some way to get accurate comps.  Your competitors operate in this market, too.  If they pay a counterpart considerably more than you, this is just cause to ask for a raise.

(3)  Run interference before approaching your boss.  Consider checking with accounting to see what the organization’s finances are like.  You may also want to see if other employees at your level have been given raises or are thinking about asking.  If others receive raises and you do not, you may want to alter your thinking and quickly start the job search process.  If everyone is in the same no-raise boat, consider the politics of having a more general meeting to discuss salary options.  The positive side of this strategy is that the group acts in unison which eliminates the fear or reality of one-on-one retaliation from your employer.

Either way, you want to ask when the organization or business is in an “up” cycle.  If the finances look promising, ask without reservation.  If the finances look questionable, you can still ask.  However, expect lots of push-back or even a negative response.

(4)  Check yourself for gender-based thinking.  It still tends to be the case that many female professionals receive considerably less than males performing similar functions.  Reasons for this discrepancy historically include there being cultural biases toward paying men better.

Another reason for the discrepancy is that some professional women hesitate to demand their worth. So, if you are a female professional with misgivings about asking for your full worth, do coaching, preparation or whatever it takes to ask in a composed, professional, no-nonsense way.  If you don’t ask, you won’t get. Your own outstanding performance and value to your organization provides the appropriate framework for a sensible discussion.

————–

Contact Karen Alphonse at Karena@execSearches.com or visit ExecSearches.com for more information about our career coaching services.

#

Last updated on April 8th, 2010 at 06:34 am