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Steps in Asking for a Pay Raise
Want more money than you're currently making? If your goal is to stay in your
current job working for your present employer, you'll need to ask for a raise.
Planning and preparation are key when you ask for a raise. So are timing, your
employer's pay practices, and the market-based pay rates for your job.

Steps in Asking for a Pay Raise - Research an Appropriate Pay Raise
Your goal at this step in asking for a raise is to know your employer's pay
practices and the market pay rate for your job.

1. Familiarize yourself with your employer's pay practices. If the standard
practice is to offer salary increases once a year after an annual review, you
are unlikely to receive a raise at any other time.

2. If your company offers more frequent increases, you'll have more luck
asking for a raise. Listen to your employer. If the employer announces that the
pay increases will be four percent across the board, you are unlikely to
negotiate more money.

3. Research the market pay rates for your job. Getting information has never
been easier, although you'll want to take care with online projections and
salary calculators. They rarely reflect your local market conditions including
the number of open positions in your area. If you are already paid above your
market pay rate, negotiating a pay raise can be difficult.

4. Read your employee handbook. The handbook may present the process whereby
salary increases are granted. If a policy or a process exists, your best bet
when asking for a pay raise, is to follow the process exactly.

5. Network with other employees in similar jobs in similar industries to
determine your salary competitiveness. Professional associations also do salary
surveys and provide networking opportunities with people in similar jobs.

Steps in Asking for a Pay Raise - Prepare Your Presentation for the "Ask for a
Raise" Meeting

Once you've done your pay research in the above steps, you should have a good
idea about how competitive your pay is in your industry. Next, you need to look
at your work contributions to determine how you will present the request for a
pay raise to your boss.

Or perhaps you've determined that your pay is competitive. Ask yourself why
you deserve more pay because you will need good data to support your request for
a pay raise.

Determine whether the topic of the meeting you schedule is to ask for a pay
raise. Maybe it's smarter to ask your boss what you need to do to qualify for
the highest possible raises and bonuses in the future, if you cannot justify a
higher salary now.

1. Make a list of the goals you have accomplished for the company. Determine
how their accomplishment has helped the company. Document costs savings,
productivity improvement, superior staff development, important projects
achieved, above-the-call customer service, and ways in which you have
contributed more than your job required. Documented, these accomplishments may
justify a pay increase.

2. Make a list of any additional responsibilities you have added to your job.
An increase in responsibility, more employees supervised, or special projects
are often grounds for an increase, if you ask.

3. Set a pay increase goal, in your mind, that appears to reward the
contributions and additional responsibilities you have documented.

4. Learn about negotiation from books, resources, networking, and friends who
have successfully negotiated a pay raise.

5. Set up a meeting with your immediate supervisor to discuss your
compensation. You will not want to ambush your supervisor. If the supervisor is
unprepared to discuss an increase with you, nothing will happen at the meeting.
Your boss will also want to do his research with the Human Resources staff and
his own industry sources.

Steps in Asking for a Pay Raise - Ask for a Pay Raise Tips
A successful negotiation for a pay raise is always based on your merit and
accomplishments. A successful negotiation for a pay raise is never based on why
you need additional money. While your employer may care about you, providing
additional money to fund your chosen lifestyle is not their responsibility.

1. Be straightforward in addressing your request for a pay raise to your
supervisor. Tell the supervisor you are asking for a pay raise at this time
because of the accomplishments and contributions you have made, and the
additional responsibilities you have taken on. Be prepared with your
documentation.

2. Tell your boss the specific pay raise you'd like to see. Be prepared to
present your research that supports your request for a pay raise.

3. If the boss tells you he cannot provide a pay raise currently, ask what you
need to do to make yourself eligible as soon as pay raises are available.
Remember that a difference exists between an employee who is performing the job
as expected from a superior performer and an employee who is truly giving the
employer superior performance. Pay raises are based on the second.

4. If you are using an offer from another employer to negotiate a pay raise
with your current employer, be prepared to fail. Plus, in your negotiation, the
employer learns that you're looking and career development, training, plum
assignments, and other opportunities may cease to come your way. This can occur
even if you receive the requested pay raise. The employer hates to be held
hostage - and the employer will remember. It's a vicious cycle, once begun.

5. Likewise, threatening to quit if you don't receive a pay raise is
counterproductive and unprofessional. Plus, the employer may take you up on your
offer. Instead, quietly and professionally go about your job search, if you have
determined a pay raise merits changing employers.

6. Asking for a pay raise, when you have planned and prepared, can still be
somewhat scary. Asking for a pay raise without planning and preparation is a
crap shoot. And, you've wasted your best shot. Your boss isn't going to want to
have that pay raise conversation with you again unless something changes at
work.

Asking for a pay raise gets easier as you learn to plan and prepare. A
successful negotiation or two helps, too. You build your confidence that asking
for a pay raise is a task you can do. And, you increase the possibility that you
will achieve your maximum income potential in your chosen field.