I am a British citizen who, through a long strong of unlikely events, have found myself married to an American and living in New Mexico. I gained my right to work last year but had absolutely no luck finding a job in New Mexico, literally nobody would hire me, not Walmart, not McDonalds, nobody. I suspect a combination of factors such as a lack of US work history and references, a lack of credit and an increasing length of unemployment (it took around 6 months just to get the right to work in the US) caused this. In January I was able to finally find work doing general admin and at the time I made no mention of salary requirements because I just wanted a job, any job, I felt I had absolutely no negotiating power.
The job was a 13 week temp to hire position and I have been repeatedly assured by my boss and their boss, both of whom I work with fairly closely, that I am absolutely amazing and they fully intend to keep me. In about two weeks we'll be meeting to discuss the job offer. It is at this time that I want to suggest they up my salary.
I worked through university in the United Kingdom, graduated with a good degree from a good university, worked for a year after graduating and then came to the US in early 2014. My job did not previously require a degree, experience in the field (which I had from the UK) and any IT computer skills (which I have) and the pay was based around the minimal requirements of the job. Since I've been here I have been aggressively expanding the responsibilities of the job using my IT skills to replace and update antiquated systems, both within my department and as favours to other departments on the behalf of the CEO. I've learned the job very quickly at a time of great transition for our business and become so efficient at it that I've been able to take about 30 hours a week of workload off of the rest of my team, both due to better practices and greater computer literacy. My department is billing twice what it was last year and rather than admin being a bottleneck we're leading the charge.
I think the pay they offered me when they hired me was fine as a speculative move on their part. At the time I was an unknown, a foreigner with no US work history or references who just interviewed well for the job. I don't especially resent them for it, they gave me a job when nobody else would and I am very grateful for that, giving them 3 months of underpaid work isn't a huge price to pay for that. However now I'm looking at staying here for a few years I want to make the case that they bump my salary to at least 150% of the current amount which is still lower than my experience ought to demand but is also probably more than the previous occupant of my position (who absolutely sucked) made. I feel I can make a case for it based upon my demonstrated commitment to the job, the amount of use they're getting out of a skillset they are not currently compensating me for, the increased workload of my job now vs the job they initially hired me for and how well our department is billing vs how well it was before. I'm fine with the low hiring pay as a speculative rate but I feel I now represent proven value and can justify a higher rate. However equally I'm three months in, I owe them and I'm asking for a huge bump.
Any advice regarding salary negotiations would be appreciated. I'm on good terms with my boss, great terms with his boss and the team adore me but I also don't have much in the way of other options.