Author Topic: Promotions and raises  (Read 3983 times)

tracipam

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Promotions and raises
« on: November 07, 2013, 04:33:07 PM »

Ok, all!

Backstory: Just finished graduate school about a year and a half ago, have been working as a scientist at a contract research/manufacturing company for just over a year.  Just got called into my super-senior-management's office today and was told: "Congratulations! We're giving you a raise and a promotion!"  Which, mind you, is lovely, 'specially a year out of school.  They'd kinda been hinting as much, but I didn't figure it would happen quite so soon. 

Only problem is now I'm trying to figure out (after the fact...) how much of a raise should go along with a promotion?  Should I have tried to counter for more (answer: probably), and how does one go about doing that politely?  If it had been my manager, whom I feel more comfortable with, I might have given it a shot but with the bigwigs I felt rather nervous. 

I got a 6.3% 'blended' raise, apparently meaning it combines what my yearly COL/'merit' raise would have been with my promotion raise, and an extra percent of potential bonus.  I kinda thought it would have been a bit higher, but again.... I don't really have the experience to know. 

Anyone have any input on how to counter for more raises and what sorts of increases promotions generally run?  Better late than never, right?!? Ammo for the future and all that...

Thanks!

Tracy

chasesfish

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Re: Promotions and raises
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2013, 04:55:40 PM »
Is always a sticky situation to negotiate with you current employer, and it really takes working for a good manager.

Do you have any goals or responsibility that increases with this promotion?  Are you being recruited by other firms?

These all play into account when considering how hard to negotiate

gooki

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Re: Promotions and raises
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2013, 06:08:18 PM »
If the roles responsibility haven't changed much, then that's ok going. I'd personally expect closer to 8-10% blended though.

If you now have significantly greater responsibilities I would have gunned for close to 15-20%.

dcheesi

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Re: Promotions and raises
« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2013, 06:02:12 AM »
I don't know if the general rules of thumb for promotions necessarily apply to your first one. That first raise/promotion out of school may simply represent them normalizing your status after an initial trial period.

There's always a risk that a new grad will look good on paper, but turn out not to be well suited to the 9-5 corporate working world. So employers sometimes low-ball offers and/or grant entry-level titles to new grads to hedge their bets a little. When the first annual review rolls around, you decide if you want to keep that person, and if so you bump them up to the normal title & pay for their role.

Cashflow

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Re: Promotions and raises
« Reply #4 on: December 11, 2013, 07:43:55 AM »
I have just done this myself. I have completed my grad school and have been at this job little over a year. I went in to negotiate my raise which will be announced within 2 weeks along with massive title change. I expect 40k+ raise and I was surprised how easy it really was. I did spend about $50 for a course of udemy

https://www.udemy.com/how-to-negotiate-salary-the-negotiation-mindset/ This is Free
https://www.udemy.com/how-to-negotiate-salary-negotiating-a-raise-or-promotion/ This is $200 but if you google retailmenot and coupon for udemy I got it for $100.

Here's the gist of the method you use their sale sample PowerPoint presentation which was Social Media one and add all your great accomplishments. Show next years goals and then degree with grades and any certifications. Ask for higher title with more responsibility which they will give you as you already mentioned. Go to salary.com and search that job title and choose the closest geographic area to you. Use the Excel sheet they give you to add in your salary numbers from salary.com info. After they agree to the title you show them your research on what you are worth and what the going rate for your title is. Explain where you got the data so they could manually confirm.

Be confident and respectful but firm and never name your price just show them the research and ask them what is fair compensation based on this research for both of us.

FYI I took the PowerPoint and excel file and saved as pdf and then as I sat with them I went opened the PDF on my iPad which made it informal than a projector but so much more professional than anyone else.

FYI I went from Manager to a C Title with this exact process.

But honestly I worked my butt off and documented everything I achieved, I am an overachiever in my field and certifications a mile long with almost perfect GPA and I proved how I saved the company money and working on their business instead of in it.