Angela writes:
I recently read your article on Getting the Raise you Deserve. I thought I would ask your opinion on the situation I am in. I was recently hired at a rather large dry-cleaning company. This company has bought several small chains, and is in the process of merging them all under one name, and starting a re-branding. I was hired on as an administrative assistant for $10 an hour while I am working on my marketing degree.
Just recently the company’s marketing director was let go, and I was informed I was now the marketing director. I streamlined all of her tracking methods, and innovated new strategies to bring customers into the current stores. This is in addition to creating a logo for the new re-branding, maintaining the client email database and all the mailings, collaborating with the designer for the new website, creating new forms from scratch, designing letterhead, brochures, and door hangers, and much more.
My boss is very impressed with my work and responds by giving me more marketing responsibilities, which I don’t mind, as it’s my passion and what I love to do. However, I feel that this work I’m doing is worth much more than $10. With the work I am doing, in my location, the hourly rate for the tenth percentile is $16.51 an hour ($34,330 annually). The median is $35.46 an hour ($73,760 annually).
I was thinking asking for a raise to $15 an hour, or comparable salary, but the mere act of asking for a 50 percent pay increase before my three-month preliminary time is up feels wrong. At the same time I don’t want them to think they can take advantage of me.
Any advice you can give is very much appreciated.
The Career Doctor responds:
Wow. What an amazing opportunity for you — and it just shows how luck plays such a role sometimes in career advancement.
You are obviously a very sharp and gifted job-seeker AND marketer. To jump into the fire and achieve the rebranding and customer growth is amazing. And then to realize that if you are going to ask for a raise, you want to have research that backs up your salary increase request.
Should you request a pay increase? Of course. You should have really done so when you were given the marketing position, but you also have more ammunition to ask for even more now, so it’s ok.
Make a list of all your marketing accomplishments, including as many specific savings and sales numbers as possible - even if just for a one-month period. Add to this list your salary research. Then request a meeting. At the meeting you can propose one or two possibilities. One would be an immediate change in your pay to reflect your job status; the other would be to request a smaller pay bump now, with a guaranteed review in three months and a good-faith commitment to raise your salary again then if your success continues.
Check out this section of Quintessential Careers for other salary-related issues: Salary Negotiation and Job Offer Tools and Resources.
