A friend wants to re-negotiate his base salary to be within the range of peers in his field. We looked at a salary survey website and found that he is quite underpaid. Can a person re-negotiate their salary? Is it better to quit and then get re-hired?
Certainly, anyone can negotiate a pay increase at any time in their career. I often recommend people start considering how they would approach their employers for their pay increase.
Of course, if you just accepted a job offer, it is not a good time to ask for more money, but once you have some time and accomplishments behind you, you should look to salary negotiation. If you just accepted the offer, you did so fair and square. That is why it is important to know your value before accepting any job offer.
Salary is not the only means of increasing your compensation package. You can also consider things like extra vacation, time off in lieu of overtime worked, and stock options as extra ways to add value to your compensation, and make it more easy for the employer to accept.
Prior to asking for a pay increase you should do make sure to take a number of steps.
1) Research and have confidence in your value in the job market. Make sure you have multiple sources for this information. Many salary sites are based on anonymous reports by unqualified individuals. Surveys conducted by market research firms are far more reliable when they go to the HR sources in the region.
2) Your value-add is a very powerful salary negotiation tool. You should be aware of all the ways you add value to the business and prepare to communicate it effectively to the boss.
3) Get yourself ready to discuss this with your employer. You may need to educate them that you are below the salary range. Either way, you will let them know that you know what the market is.
4) Each person ultimately falls within a certain percentage on the salary scale. Are you a peak performer with lots of years in the industry? You’ll need to agree with your employer where you fit within the performance range. Can you command the top salary within your range?
There are many factors to consider. I recommend doing a lot of research. One thing is for sure, you will not likely get the raise as quickly or necessarily as much as you were hoping for without mastering your skills in salary negotiation.
My preference would be to negotiate salary in a job that I was happy with rather than go through the effort of finding a new job in hopes of a higher salary.
Either way one strategy that helps in negotiation is to have another job offer in hand. With that in your back pocket you will have more leverage with you salary negotiation.
