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corkskroo
Sep 10, 2004

Jobs like yours not existing where you live impacts your market value, unfortunately. Ask for what you think you deserve but you're probably not getting close to 37.5 at your current job. Make sure you make the case based on market research and your value to the company and not anything personal. But yeah it's gonna be tough getting up there. a 10% raise without leaving a role is a pretty good figure, I think.

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Doctor Malaver
May 23, 2007

Ce qui s'est passé t'a rendu plus fort

Dwight Eisenhower posted:

This thread's about salary negotiation, the keyword being negotiation. Look over Kalenn's early post in this thread about Best Alternative to a Negotiated Alternative.

Reading your post, it looks like the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Alternative is you continue to work for your present employer at your present salary. If your employer knows this too, then you can rely on nothing but their kindness to continue receiving raises.

This is a bad place to be in! However, you do not have any immediate ticking clock, so don't panic, don't feel discouraged, and don't feel guilty. If you're like most Americans, noone taught you how to play this game and now you're trying to learn, that's the first step.

You absolutely are not going to get a 37.5% increase in pay by demanding it without viable leverage. You might get that kind of raise, but almost certainly only by your manager's discretion. In this case you have to ask nicely and hope he or she is having a good day. This is about the best advice anyone can give you.

If you want to go in with the ability to demand, you need leverage. If you absolutely cannot relocate, you can do two things:

- Go out and talk to people looking for your skillset in your industry regardless of location, and find your market price. You can still get offers and get pricing info even if you are not accepting those positions due to location. You can try and bluff your way into a raise with this information. Your employer might call your bluff. If they do, in the future you'll have even less leverage.
- Do the work to find another opportunity that uses your skills and lets you telecommute. It will be hard work to do this. Who said getting a 37.5% raise would be easy? However now you have real leverage.

Finally you need to get realistic about your overall life structure. You say you "cannot relocate", which means you cannot practice your chosen profession where you currently reside. If your present employer went out of business today, what would you do? Could you relocate then? If you could make 2x what you make now, would you move for that?

This exercise is a good way to think about exactly what your present residence is worth. If you can find circumstances where you would move, you now understand how much you actually feel where you live now is worth. Does this number make sense to you when you identify it?

corkskroo posted:

Jobs like yours not existing where you live impacts your market value, unfortunately. Ask for what you think you deserve but you're probably not getting close to 37.5 at your current job. Make sure you make the case based on market research and your value to the company and not anything personal. But yeah it's gonna be tough getting up there. a 10% raise without leaving a role is a pretty good figure, I think.

Thanks a lot! I started writing an elaborate reply to explain how my situation is special and why most of that stuff doesn't apply to me, but then I realized that I'm mostly looking for excuses. Whatever I do, I would only benefit from putting an effort into examining my market value. I'm resisting that idea because :effort: - I'll update my CV and send it out to a handful of companies and I won't get any interest. It'll make me depressed and bored and I'll give up and in the end I won't ask for any kind of raise (although I feel I could get 12.5% tomorrow.) That's bad, that's weak and I have to do better. Even if after a lot of effort I still don't get good job offers, at least I'll know that I'm capped at my current position and that I'll have to change careers to make significantly more.

corkskroo
Sep 10, 2004

A 12.5% raise is a great raise. If you think you can reasonably get it then shoot for 20% and see what happens. But you could always explore other areas or other careers or whatever. Effort is the name of the game but if you put enough of it into what you want to do you can do it (or something like it.) I got some advice once from an exec that was along the lines of "you are the only one standing in your way." It sounded trite and fortune cookie - until at some point I realized it's actually true. Sure, there's luck and there're headstarts that some people have over others and there's unfairness, but on a day to day basis you are in control of how hard you work towards what you want.

Dwight Eisenhower
Jan 24, 2006

Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

Doctor Malaver posted:

Thanks a lot! I started writing an elaborate reply to explain how my situation is special and why most of that stuff doesn't apply to me, but then I realized that I'm mostly looking for excuses. Whatever I do, I would only benefit from putting an effort into examining my market value. I'm resisting that idea because :effort: - I'll update my CV and send it out to a handful of companies and I won't get any interest. It'll make me depressed and bored and I'll give up and in the end I won't ask for any kind of raise (although I feel I could get 12.5% tomorrow.) That's bad, that's weak and I have to do better. Even if after a lot of effort I still don't get good job offers, at least I'll know that I'm capped at my current position and that I'll have to change careers to make significantly more.

I didn't want to beat you over the head with this, but reading every one of your posts prior to your admission made it pretty clear that you were looking for reasons that you were not going to be able to negotiate. It's good to embrace that reality.

You have not in the past put in the appropriate effort to have good negotiating leverage in the present, and that's unfortunate.
Even if you do the work, you might not be able to use the results immediately with your present employer, as they may only evaluate you for raises once a year, also unfortunate.

But this isn't a reason to neglect figuring out what you're worth.

One useful mental exercise I've found is to do your absolute level best to avoid saying no. Some things I will say "no" to flatly on moral grounds, but otherwise you should try and find "yes if". Can you relocate? "Yes, if they'll pay me $80k a year." You can make the "if" wildly unrealistic, but just doing the exercise gets you into a mindset of thinking about what certain things are worthwhile doing, and prevents you from closing off mental avenues worth exploring.

burnsep
Jul 3, 2005

Deadite posted:

Alright Ike, after reading this thread I decided to see what I'm worth since I feel like I might be underpaid in my job. I like my job, and it would take a lot to make me leave my job, but I figure it can't hurt to know what I'm worth.

So now next week I have an interview with a company I don't really want to work for, for a job I don't really want, and I'm wondering what I should do if they ask about salary expectations. Should I just ask for as much as I can? Should I let them offer an amount? How did you come to the number you wanted on the offer letters you then used to get a raise at job you already had?

I hope this post was clear, it's been a long day.

I asked this in another thread, but I guess this thread is more directly related:

What are good resources to check what actual market value for your skillset/what the job should be paying/company reputations etc? I know about GlassDoor.com, but I'm sure there are other useful references. What's recommended?

EugeneJ
Feb 5, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

burnsep posted:

I asked this in another thread, but I guess this thread is more directly related:

What are good resources to check what actual market value for your skillset/what the job should be paying/company reputations etc? I know about GlassDoor.com, but I'm sure there are other useful references. What's recommended?

Seconding this - is there like a Kelly Blue Book of average salaries?

LorneReams
Jun 27, 2003
I'm bizarre
Indeed can give you somewhat of an idea, but the best way is to go out and get an offer as that would be your TRUE market value.

antiga
Jan 16, 2013

LorneReams posted:

Indeed can give you somewhat of an idea, but the best way is to go out and get an offer as that would be your TRUE market value.

I feel like this is sort of extreme unless you'd seriously consider the offer at any salary or if you feel you need it for leverage. Huge investment of time compared to internet research and you're getting one data point, with potentially huge variance unless it's an IDENTICAL role. Not to mention the interviewer's time that you're wasting.

Dwight Eisenhower
Jan 24, 2006

Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

antiga posted:

I feel like this is sort of extreme unless you'd seriously consider the offer at any salary or if you feel you need it for leverage. Huge investment of time compared to internet research and you're getting one data point, with potentially huge variance unless it's an IDENTICAL role. Not to mention the interviewer's time that you're wasting.

It's the only way to get realistic pricing data for your skills and experience, and it's not a waste of time. If you find out you're worth more than you are getting paid you get potentially thousands of additional dollars compounded every year for the rest of your career. If a company finds your skills extremely valuable now they have the opportunity to gain your employment that they would not have otherwise had.

Interviewing with other employers is never a waste of anyone's time, it's a chance to find out about other opportunities and for both sides to find out pricing information (employers can also learn that they're consistently undershooting the market, for example).

The role doesn't need to be identical; you are being compensated for your time and you deserve to find out what the most valuable way to spend that time is, and to be compensated commensurately.

Vilgan
Dec 30, 2012

So, last year I don't think I acted optimally from a raise perspective although it ended up okay. I'd like to avoid that next year, and would love some guidance/recommendations on how to approach this.

Last year: Got hired in at a fairly low number (70k) but really wanted to work for this company and the team was experimental and wasn't profitable yet. The year went well, the team is in a much better spot, and my reviews were all great. On the flipside, I was very passive about expectations until the initial raise offer was made (77k + 7k bonus). I think I negotiated from there in an effective and respectful way where everyone came out pretty happy and it ended up at 85k + 7k bonus + 5k additional raise in 3 months once I finish a certain cert they need.

I'd expect that if i take the passive approach again this year, I'd probably receive a 5-7k raise next review cycle. I'd like to get out in front of that a bit if possible and drive for a 10k bump to a 100k base salary. I've heard from a few people that letting them know what you are expecting going into reviews makes it a lot more likely they'll meet your expectations but I'm not sure how to approach it. My boss is great and we get along really well, just not sure how to bring "btw, I'm expecting my next compensation bump to hit 100k" into the discussion in a way which is effective without seeming greedy/other negative things.

100k should be very feasible from their end, but I'd expect they'd prefer to aim lower if possible and I'd like to make sure they don't.

Dwight Eisenhower
Jan 24, 2006

Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

Vilgan posted:

I'd expect that if i take the passive approach again this year, I'd probably receive a 5-7k raise next review cycle. I'd like to get out in front of that a bit if possible and drive for a 10k bump to a 100k base salary. I've heard from a few people that letting them know what you are expecting going into reviews makes it a lot more likely they'll meet your expectations but I'm not sure how to approach it. My boss is great and we get along really well, just not sure how to bring "btw, I'm expecting my next compensation bump to hit 100k" into the discussion in a way which is effective without seeming greedy/other negative things.
I think you described all of your problem right here in bold. So it's time to get real. What's real? Answer some questions for yourself:

If your company suddenly had a funding problem, what kind of sacrifices do you expect they'd make to avoid having to let you go? Would you manager take a pay cut? Would equity holders be willing to take a negative dividend? How loyal is your employer?

You can come to this thread and (mostly anonymously) discuss your expectations about compensation and clearly articulate what your expectations are. Why should this be more difficult with your manager?

You spend 40+ hours of your life every week doing things to make these people money. Why should discussing your share of the money made be awkward?

It's actually really simple:

"Hey boss, how's it going?"
"Not bad."
"I know my yearly review is coming up, could we chat about it very briefly?"
"Sure."
"Ok, I just wanted to let you know that given my performance over the last year, the success of the company, and my professional growth, I'm expecting an increase to 100k."
"Thanks for the heads up!"

This isn't greedy. Greedy is getting a generous offer above your concrete desire, and trying to negotiate it up to see how much further you can go. And that's not even exceptionally greedy.

This is you communicating your expectations for the valuable work you give your employer.

Vilgan posted:

100k should be very feasible from their end, but I'd expect they'd prefer to aim lower if possible and I'd like to make sure they don't.

The way you do this is you get negotiating leverage. And the way you get negotiating leverage is you have an alternative to your present employment. One such alternative is an offer from another company.

antiga
Jan 16, 2013

Dwight Eisenhower posted:

It's the only way to get realistic pricing data for your skills and experience, and it's not a waste of time. If you find out you're worth more than you are getting paid you get potentially thousands of additional dollars compounded every year for the rest of your career. If a company finds your skills extremely valuable now they have the opportunity to gain your employment that they would not have otherwise had.

Interviewing with other employers is never a waste of anyone's time, it's a chance to find out about other opportunities and for both sides to find out pricing information (employers can also learn that they're consistently undershooting the market, for example).

The role doesn't need to be identical; you are being compensated for your time and you deserve to find out what the most valuable way to spend that time is, and to be compensated commensurately.

I disagree with your first paragraph (I could get very realistic data by asking professional contacts. It might not be easy socially, but it would be accurate and less investment of time than an application/interview process). I think it is inappropriate to interview for the sole purpose of gaining leverage over a current employer, but not so if the applicant would consider a competitive/extraordinary offer.

That being said, I had not considered the sentence bold. A good point to be sure so thanks for the insight.

antiga fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Mar 29, 2014

null gallagher
Jan 1, 2014
My company (first job post-college, been here for about a year) does performance reviews in Feb/March. I got an absolutely glowing performance review, but a pretty crappy raise of around 2%. I told my manager I was pretty disappointed with that, and he said something about corporate bureaucracy and how "real raises" come with promotions, and I'll be up for one soon.

Looking back, I realize that's total crap since I got a 10% raise out of nowhere back in July. Worse, I get the feeling I lost a good bit of bargaining power because I didn't press him on it, and now management is going to get the impression they can lowball me for the rest of my time here. Can I recover by getting a competing offer and bringing it in along with doing the "Since I've been performing so well, I'm expecting a raise of about 15% when I get promoted" thing Dwight mentioned a few posts back, or am I most likely out of options aside finding a new job?

null gallagher fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Apr 9, 2014

Dwight Eisenhower
Jan 24, 2006

Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

null gallagher posted:

My company (first job post-college, been here for about a year) does performance reviews in Feb/March. I got an absolutely glowing performance review, but a pretty crappy raise of around 2%. I told my manager I was pretty disappointed with that, and he said something about corporate bureaucracy and how "real raises" come with promotions, and I'll be up for one soon.

Looking back, I realize that's total crap since I got a 10% raise out of nowhere back in July. Worse, I get the feeling I lost a good bit of bargaining power because I didn't press him on it, and now management is going to get the impression they can lowball me for the rest of my time here. Can I recover by getting a competing offer and bringing it in along with doing the "Since I've been performing so well, I'm expecting a raise of about 15% when I get promoted" thing Dwight mentioned a few posts back, or am I most likely out of options aside finding a new job?

You always have the option of finding a new job. But it sounds like you're not chomping at the bit to pursue that. So, here's some other things you can do:

- Revisit your 2% raise and talk about how you are still disappointed with it. Mention that this basically amounts to a cost of living adjustment. Tell your manager you do not consider that a reward for good performance. Ask your manager if a job well done should be well rewarded. Many young people are easily excited and angered, if this holds true for you, be very deliberate about not getting too emotionally wound up. Remember that while you want more money, the company that you and your manager work for also wants more money, and that your desires are at odds with each other.
- Emphasize that you're not prepared to consider this resolved. Emphasize that you're not satisfied to wait for a promotion.

If this doesn't have a favorable outcome, you need to escalate. Escalation, at this point, doesn't involve your present employer, or anyone who works for your present employer. It involves finding other employment opportunities and getting concrete numbers and potentially offers. If you get an offer you'll then have two options:

- Put a gun to your employers head, demand more money against the threat of walking. You'll generally get to pull this move once or twice, and then they'll decide that letting you walk is fine.
- Just walk.

9 times out of 10, your present situation is the consequence of either legitimate bureaucracy, or your manager not wanting to spend his budget on you and then blaming it on bureaucracy. If it's the former, threatening to walk probably won't resolve anything, if the latter, then your manager was lying to you. There's that 10th time where there's some interesting scenario that isn't ugly. But if this employer gives you a COLA for great performance, maybe up and leaving isn't that bad an idea.

FrozenVent
May 1, 2009

The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.

Dwight Eisenhower posted:

- Put a gun to your employers head, demand more money against the threat of walking. You'll generally get to pull this move once or twice, and then they'll decide that letting you walk is fine.

Note: Do not do this unless you're willing to actually walk if they tell you to pound sand.

Dwight Eisenhower
Jan 24, 2006

Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

FrozenVent posted:

Note: Do not do this unless you're willing to actually walk if they tell you to pound sand.

Correct. If you have a so-so offer that you think is leverage but you're not actually willing to take, you don't have leverage. You have a more convincing bluff.

If you threaten with a bluff and get called on it, you will never have leverage with this employer again.

null gallagher
Jan 1, 2014
Thanks, that seems like a pretty reasonable course of action. I brought up the COLA bit last time we spoke about this, and got the bureaucracy/promotion response.

I might be a little naive, but it seems to me like the only announcement I should make if I get a good offer is my two weeks notice. If I get stonewalled on the raise, I can't imagine that holding the leaving gun to their heads is gonna do anything but put me on management's shitlist. So it's not even worth pulling that, I should just turn down any new job offer I'm not 100% willing to take.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

I think you have to remember that once you are in it is very hard to actually get big raises without a promotion. I don't think your boss is bull making GBS threads too much really. The last 5 years or so a 2% raise has been great even for good performers. Many companies have held that line even if they are financially healthy (just like using less staff and expecting more hours). You also said you got a mid year 10% raise. If I was your boss I would say, look you got a year over year raise of 12% and that is pretty drat good. If you really feel you are worth more and under paid go find another job.

At some point does a boss just find an employee greedy and only caring about the money?

null gallagher
Jan 1, 2014
That's all true, but I'm a programmer in the NYC area. The job market's fairly healthy here for my field.

I started out at around $50K too, so if I get told to take a hike over asking for ~$5k, I'm gonna start looking at maps.

I realize I'm underpaid for my field and location, but I like my job and I'm definitely contributing a lot, and it's getting acknowledged. If the higher-ups aren't willing to talk with me about a raise, or even a promotion, given that recognition, I don't have very high hopes for advancing here.

swenblack
Jan 14, 2004

null gallagher posted:

That's all true, but I'm a programmer in the NYC area. The job market's fairly healthy here for my field.

I started out at around $50K too, so if I get told to take a hike over asking for ~$5k, I'm gonna start looking at maps.

I realize I'm underpaid for my field and location, but I like my job and I'm definitely contributing a lot, and it's getting acknowledged. If the higher-ups aren't willing to talk with me about a raise, or even a promotion, given that recognition, I don't have very high hopes for advancing here.
Whether you're underpaid or not isn't something that we random people on the internet can tell you. We can give you general advice though. You're coming across as entitled. You're one year out of college and you've gotten two raises for a total of 12%. Most of us had to work longer with lovely jobs and lovely pay before we got promotions and significant raises. While it's generally true you need to change companies to get significantly better compensation, you're probably better off building a solid 3-5 years of experience first.

I'd start by sitting down with your boss and explaining to her where you want to be in 5 years and establishing milestones to help you know that you're on track with your goal at your company. Don't just make it about money, but experience as well, such as supervisory responsibility, training classes/certs, and high priority/visibility projects in addition to promotions. By baselining high expectations and working collaboratively, you can frame yourself in your boss's mind as a potential leader which will make it much easier to get more money.

swenblack
Jan 14, 2004

spwrozek posted:

At some point does a boss just find an employee greedy and only caring about the money?
Yes, when the employee is overpaid and still pulling that poo poo. Your boss knows how much everyone working for him makes, and if the employee really is underpaid, it generally doesn't reflect negatively on them to say they're underpaid. That being said, if one of my employees who was just a year out of college (underpaid or not) was complaining about only getting a 12% raise, I'd question their motivations and ask them why they accepted the offer in the first place a year ago.

FrozenVent
May 1, 2009

The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.

swenblack posted:

Yes, when the employee is overpaid and still pulling that poo poo. Your boss knows how much everyone working for him makes, and if the employee really is underpaid, it generally doesn't reflect negatively on them to say they're underpaid.

Keep in mind that the employer might have a different idea of what "underpaid" means than you do, and consider that you're already getting paid what you're worth or more. Tread carefully.

null gallagher
Jan 1, 2014

swenblack posted:

Whether you're underpaid or not isn't something that we random people on the internet can tell you. We can give you general advice though. You're coming across as entitled. You're one year out of college and you've gotten two raises for a total of 12%. Most of us had to work longer with lovely jobs and lovely pay before we got promotions and significant raises. While it's generally true you need to change companies to get significantly better compensation, you're probably better off building a solid 3-5 years of experience first.

I'd start by sitting down with your boss and explaining to her where you want to be in 5 years and establishing milestones to help you know that you're on track with your goal at your company. Don't just make it about money, but experience as well, such as supervisory responsibility, training classes/certs, and high priority/visibility projects in addition to promotions. By baselining high expectations and working collaboratively, you can frame yourself in your boss's mind as a potential leader which will make it much easier to get more money.

I admit I didn't really think about what my boss might think at me asking.

I'll schedule some time to sit down with my boss next week and say "hey, I know what my strengths are, and how to improve them, but I don't know my weaknesses so well. Can we talk about what they are and how I can work on them and start taking on bigger roles in projects?" My boss is kind of reluctant to say anything that might sound negative, so I really need to think of how to phrase it to get it across that I want to improve. I like my job and the people I work with, so I want to get that across and get to do more important stuff.

Dwight Eisenhower
Jan 24, 2006

Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
As a software developer with contacts in the NYC area, and with people frequently soliciting my services in the NYC area, you can do better.

You happen to work in a field where the capital expenditures to practice your skills are low and there's freely available mechanisms for publishing your work such as GitHub. If you're good then it is actually pretty straightforward to demonstrate how good you are in a way that clearly demonstrates your worth.

Your lack of experience will limit your opportunities in this field, but a year of tangible work is a good start.

A 12% annual raise on top of a grossly underpaid salary can still get you to a grossly underpaid salary. If you plug in "Software Developer" on Glassdoor for NYC salaries, the low end is $70k.

Frankly, I don't think anything that swenblack has told you is particularly useful. It's advice on how to be a better cog in the machine your employer is trying to run. This can end up getting you additional compensation, but is not going to pull you up to the market rates in NYC.

If you're fortunate enough to work with Open Source tools for your job, then I suggest you start critically evaluating what you work with. If you find a problem where you wish something worked differently, make it happen. Many open source technologies are hosted on GitHub and have a significantly low barrier to participation. If you can identify a discrete and straightforward improvement, then:

1) Pull down the project source, and start reading through it.
2) Read and thoroughly understand the testing strategies of the project.
3) Create a test that demonstrates your desired improvement, and which fails.
4) Implement your improvement to make your new test pass.
5) Push your changes to a GitHub clone of the project.
6) Issue a pull request on the original project to incorporate your changes.

If it gets incorporated, you've now just made the world a better place! You also have an essentially indelible record of your work processes, critical thinking ability, and development discipline. You can take this and have concrete discussions about your skills and your work with potential employers, and this is very powerful in the software development field.

Don't get a chip on your shoulder at work and don't let your job hunt get in the way of producing valuable work, but do recognize that you're being underpaid and with some elbow grease you can correct that condition.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

I understand your point but he took the 'grossly under paid salary' to start with. Why did he start so low? Bad grades in school? An up and coming company that will pay out in the end? Maybe he just picked a bad company to work for?

A 12% raise is still a 12% raise. If he is in corporate America getting more in a year is pretty hard to accomplish without leaving jobs (to another company or via promotion). His boss basically told him already that if he wants more money get promoted or find it somewhere else.

If he likes the company and people then going to talk to his boss about weaknesses, more responsibility, and how to get promoted will get him the money.

If he wants the money now then leave.

Dwight Eisenhower
Jan 24, 2006

Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

spwrozek posted:

I understand your point but he took the 'grossly under paid salary' to start with. Why did he start so low? Bad grades in school? An up and coming company that will pay out in the end? Maybe he just picked a bad company to work for?

This is a good question. In my experience and that of many other people with CS degrees I know, it's not super easy to just transition into a dev job on graduation. Often you take the first thing you can get to get your foot in the door. I did exactly this.

spwrozek posted:

If he likes the company and people then going to talk to his boss about weaknesses, more responsibility, and how to get promoted will get him the money.

If he wants the money now then leave.

I agree; but getting to the market rate is going to entail a 40% raise. That seems unlikely with this employer without an offer elsewhere.

The process of obtaining another offer is also a good exercise. It gives you a feel for what you can get, the demand for your skills, and the only form of real leverage for negotiating a raise. I think it's the first step if you're dissatisfied with your present employment. Looking doesn't mean you have to leave, it just means you're looking.

swenblack
Jan 14, 2004

Dwight Eisenhower posted:

Frankly, I don't think anything that swenblack has told you is particularly useful. It's advice on how to be a better cog in the machine your employer is trying to run. This can end up getting you additional compensation, but is not going to pull you up to the market rates in NYC.
It seems you have a pretty good idea of what null gallagher's experience set is worth in his market, so I'll defer to your judgment in this particular situation.

However, I'd strongly caution other goons with next to no experience who think they're underpaid against playing hardball. Unless someone can immediately get a huge raise by jumping ship, working for another couple years to establish themselves in the industry is usually a better career move. In my particular industry (defense engineering), anything less than ~4 years of experience is still entry level. I'd have significant reservations against hiring someone with just one year of experience out of college shopping around for a new job.

I'd also be careful with telling people to shop around with so little experience. There is a down side, particularly for entry level people. A lot of organizations (mine included) spend a lot of time developing new talent. If I found out one of my new hires was unhappy and looking for new jobs, I would not be pleased. I probably wouldn't fire them on the spot, but I definitely wouldn't be giving them the best projects or backing their work at the corporate level.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

swenblack posted:

Whether you're underpaid or not isn't something that we random people on the internet can tell you. We can give you general advice though. You're coming across as entitled. You're one year out of college and you've gotten two raises for a total of 12%. Most of us had to work longer with lovely jobs and lovely pay before we got promotions and significant raises. While it's generally true you need to change companies to get significantly better compensation, you're probably better off building a solid 3-5 years of experience first.
50k * 1.12 is way underpaid for a coder in NYC unless the coder in question is unusually bad (and I don't just mean junior).

null gallagher, you may want to also ask for advice in another thread that's more focused on programmers, by which of course I mean this thread.

Doctor Malaver
May 23, 2007

Ce qui s'est passé t'a rendu plus fort

Doctor Malaver posted:

Thanks a lot! I started writing an elaborate reply to explain how my situation is special and why most of that stuff doesn't apply to me, but then I realized that I'm mostly looking for excuses. Whatever I do, I would only benefit from putting an effort into examining my market value. I'm resisting that idea because :effort: - I'll update my CV and send it out to a handful of companies and I won't get any interest. It'll make me depressed and bored and I'll give up and in the end I won't ask for any kind of raise (although I feel I could get 12.5% tomorrow.) That's bad, that's weak and I have to do better. Even if after a lot of effort I still don't get good job offers, at least I'll know that I'm capped at my current position and that I'll have to change careers to make significantly more.

After a couple of re-schedules I finally discussed this and got 12.5%, as I had anticipated. How are you supposed to act (during the meeting) when you get a raise, but less than you asked for? Equally content/courteous as if you got the full raise?

And can you usually start using it right away or do you wait until the next month? It's calculated hourly in my case and nobody mentioned whether it's effective now or from May 1st.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

You use money when it is in your bank account not before... Budgeting thread go!

Doctor Malaver
May 23, 2007

Ce qui s'est passé t'a rendu plus fort

spwrozek posted:

You use money when it is in your bank account not before... Budgeting thread go!

In case this is a real post, what I meant to ask is - when do you start calculating the new hourly wage? From that point on or do you wait until the 1st of next month?

FrozenVent
May 1, 2009

The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.
That's a very employer specific question, ask HR. Or whoever does payroll.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

Whoops! Sorry I miss understood when can I use the money.

But yeah just ask hr or your boss, it varies everywhere.

Rudager
Apr 29, 2008

Doctor Malaver posted:

In case this is a real post, what I meant to ask is - when do you start calculating the new hourly wage? From that point on or do you wait until the 1st of next month?

Your results may vary, but in my experience it's always the next pay cycle. So this next paycheck is the same, but the next one after that will have the extra.

Doctor Malaver
May 23, 2007

Ce qui s'est passé t'a rendu plus fort
Ok, it's important for me to know that asking for the raise to be effective immediately wouldn't be outrageous. Our company has a Choose Your Own Adventure culture, so I'll try that.

LorneReams
Jun 27, 2003
I'm bizarre

Doctor Malaver posted:

Ok, it's important for me to know that asking for the raise to be effective immediately wouldn't be outrageous. Our company has a Choose Your Own Adventure culture, so I'll try that.

Everytime I got a raise, it was from the time it was requested which was usually months before I got it or even knew about it, so I would always get a bit of retro pay along with the raise.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR
Apr 12, 2010



Runner-up, TRP Sack Race 2021/22
You should always be polite and courteous in a professional setting, whether you got what you wanted or not.

But yes, if your employer gives you more money, the customary thing is to indicate some level of appreciation in a relatively sincere fashion, unless it's extremely disappointing or is not in line with what was previously arranged.

FrozenVent
May 1, 2009

The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.

Doctor Malaver posted:

Our company has a Choose Your Own Adventure culture

What the gently caress?

Doctor Malaver
May 23, 2007

Ce qui s'est passé t'a rendu plus fort

FrozenVent posted:

What the gently caress?

In a sense that the rules aren't firmly written and that the outcome often depends on how you approach the situation. For instance, in this case I'll inform the accounting of my raise, ccing the boss. Whether the raise will start immediately or from the next month will largely depend on what I say. I don't think the boss will intervene either way.

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Bloody Queef
Mar 23, 2012

by zen death robot
I work in tax public accounting and have all but been guaranteed a promotion come August and with it a 12ish% pay bump. (when the official promotions come out) but I decided to shop myself around and just received an offer for a industry job at a huge company doing essentially what I do in public, but just a lot fewer hours. It's also at the same level as my promoted position would be. The offer was verbal for a 30% raise above what I have now.

If my current boss would match the offer I would totally stay in public. There's a decentish chance he might or might come close as we are understaffed, and I'm one of very few that is hybridized between two groups and I've bailed out a ton of scheduling conflicts because of my broad skillset.

The new company wants a verbal acceptance of their verbal offer before they give me a written offer letter. But I want a written letter before I chat with my boss, and if I gave my word on the offer from newco, I would not want to go back on it. It's a small world and I like to think I'm an honorable person.

Any thoughts?

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