I got hired by a company right out of school, been here a couple of months, still pretty fresh, but i definitely picked up things quick. I work with a small team 5, 6 including our manager. Now 3 of us work on something fairly specialized, and 2 others work in another area, but we are essentially the same team. Of the 3 of us working in one area, 2 of the guys are leaving, both senior with tons of experience, leaving me and my manager. Myself, i am still green, and my manager doesn’t know the technical all too well as he got transferred over from another department. The situation is a bit of a cluster fuck. Now when i got hired, my salary wasn’t much, i suppose your average salary for a business undergrad. With all these things happening, HR approached me and gave me a 12% raise. At the same time, i have a very good hook up at another company that’s hiring for a similar role that’s offering a salary that would jump me about 25% from my current one before my 12% increase. Should i ask for more at my current employer? I honestly don’t want to leave this place, especially since they gave me a shot, and now that they are in a very tight situation. I just want more money since i will be essentially doing the same work as the 2 senior guys who are leaving, just without the “experience”.
I would advise you to tell your current manager that you were offered a job with a higher salary, but would like to stay with the firm. drop some hints and see where it goes.
You should ask Hobbes for advice, he was able to negotiate 75K for a back office job out of college.
If you are happy with your current employer, you could make a strong argument foreither staying at your current salary or attempting to negotiate higher. The only advice I would give you is tread carefully. Many employers will make a counteroffer if you hint that you are considering leaving. In most cases, this counteroffer is made in good faith, but in some cases, it is a stall tactic to get you to stay long enough for them to find your replacement. What it all boils down to is your own assessment of the risk/reward matrix…
While I agree with gangrel that you should tread carefully, I also agree with aza’s approach. I’m a manager in a field where it’s sometimes difficult to get good market information about compensation. If someone speaks up and makes a decent case for a salary increase, I never hold it against them, as long as they did it in good faith and professionally.
2 freaking months and you want a raise? I would send you packing if I were your boss. You agreed to work at a certain amount. It was very generous that they have you a 12% raise so quickly. Pay your dues! Do you really want to put on a resume that you worked some place for 2 freaking months? That will cost you much more down the road. It shows a lack of committment and a lack of integrity. And if you think you can merely leave that little 2 month job off the resume, you will be nailed in a background check and blackballed. I know it sucks making little money with no experience. However, you have to pay your dues in this industry unless you have a $100k education. I made crap for 5 years, and then my income started increasing by multiples. I made senior PM in 6 years. Employers started calling me weekly even though I wasn’t looking. I padded my resume, added valuable experience, and those 5 years will now pay off my entire career. Look at the big picture not your next paycheck.
JWS Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 2 freaking months and you want a raise? I would > send you packing if I were your boss. You agreed > to work at a certain amount. It was very generous > that they have you a 12% raise so quickly. Pay > your dues! Do you really want to put on a resume > that you worked some place for 2 freaking months? > That will cost you much more down the road. It > shows a lack of committment and a lack of > integrity. > > And if you think you can merely leave that little > 2 month job off the resume, you will be nailed in > a background check and blackballed. I know it > sucks making little money with no experience. > However, you have to pay your dues in this > industry unless you have a $100k education. > > I made crap for 5 years, and then my income > started increasing by multiples. I made senior PM > in 6 years. Employers started calling me weekly > even though I wasn’t looking. I padded my resume, > added valuable experience, and those 5 years will > now pay off my entire career. Look at the big > picture not your next paycheck. i think that response is a little over the top, if hes getting offers from other employers but wants to stay with the current one what harm is it in letting his current employer know about it so they can work somehting out?
Story: I interned at my current firm before my senior year. After I graduated I worked from May-Septemeber and I asked for a raise at the end of September. I squeezed 10k out of them. Two people have either been quit or fired since then. I am 25 and I am the most senior (by time here…not by age) and I am 100% certain they cant run the place without me. So I negotiated them to pay my monthly car lease (on a new infiniti g35x) and I am currently working on getting them to foot my blackberry bill. Working for an indendent with no HR does have its benefits…
JB, how did you manage to bring the car lease thing up?
"Do you really want to put on a resume that you worked some place for 2 freaking months? That will cost you much more down the road. It shows a lack of committment and a lack of integrity. " Thats a blanket statement and one see people making a lot around here. The bottom line is that having only 2 months looks bad IF you don’t have a sound reason why you left. In this case, the salary increase at the new employer after the 12% boost would only be about 12%, which is not big enough to justify a move in my opinion. However, if you were offerd 25% or 30% more then you should make the move. What the hell do people think a company is going to do if after your 2 months on the job they run into trouble and have to lay people off? They are sure not going to say “gee, maybe we should hang on to these people for a few more months because it looks really bad to axe people who just started.”
Re: Salary negotiation new Posted by: mni (IP Logged) [hide posts from this user] Date: August 31, 2007 09:12AM JB, how did you manage to bring the car lease thing up? I pretty much told them that I know exactly where I want to be in five years from now and that I can see myself taking a big role in the company and eventually buying one of the owner’s equity stake (as he is a few yrs from retirement)-but I told them that I have to go where the money is and where the perks are. They know I can go to NYC and pull 6 fugures and they know I have some good contacts that would make it happen quick. So they told me straight up…we will step our game up and make it hard for you not to stay. We have a client who owns one of the biggest car dealerships in NY state…I think they did it as much to throw business to him (they refer ppl to him all the time) as they did to pls me…but thats cool with me cause ive never had a really nice car before.
bad move…take your 12% and at year end or whenever you would hypothetically recieve yournext raise…tell them then you had another offer previous of 25%. Turn the heat up on the pot slowly, don’t throw the frog into the boiling pot
Alexandrov, I think it depends on what your long term goals are and how your current job fits into that. My experience has been that finance is a very small world, and someone’s reputation gets around quickly. There are a lot of factors that I don’t know about the industry and your situation. Are you already on your career track that you want for life? Assuming that you are getting started and stilll have a lot to learn (as we all do), I suggest you might consider focusing on long term knowledge / skills that you will need. Knowing that another company is hiring and being offered a job are two very different things. If you can do your current work with your eyes closed, then I’d go for it. One question though - Do you think the new firm would be delighted to pay a lot of money (at least 25% more than your 12% raise) to someone to find out they are “a little green” Your employer already understands you’re a flight risk (12% raise) - maybe instead of cash you can negotiate non-cash compensation - a rotational program / mentoring relationship . . . etc. Good luck.
If you like where you are currently (and it sounds like you do), I would suggest you stay put with your 12% raise. Look at the big picture. You will be getting better experience at your current job than you would if you moved to the other company and remained in a junior role. Next time a salary negotiation is appropriate, like an annual review or some such thing, you can casually mention that you were offered more money elsewhere but decided to stay because you knew you would be getting better experience and trusted them to reward you down the road. Perhaps you can even swing a promotion if the senior guys you are filling in for have a better title or something. Down the road when you are looking at a much bigger bump in pay you will be happier to have the experience. Think about what you said, you aren’t making very much money right now. I’ll ballpark it and say 40k. So a 25% raise on that is a little more than 5k more than the 12% raise. When you look for your next job or renegotiate at the current place, I am willing to bet the experience is worth far more than a few grand.
Is the Infiniti G a coupe? 
okay, let’s review the facts of the case. 1. you make a “your average salary for a business undergrad”. Let’s call it 50k to make it easy. 2. you were offered a 12% raise (6k), in a group that you just started. You’re “still green” just out of college, so you’re replaceable. it can’t be rocket science if you’ve picked it up this quickly. 3. two senior people in your group left. 4. you were not made an offer, but hear that you could make 25% more (another 6K, 4K after taxes). Assuming a few things…you like your boss, you like the current firm, hours are similar to the other job, location, you could actually get the other job, etc. My vote would be to continue with the same firm. Bird-in-the hand. stick around for a while longer. wait until you really have the intellectual advantage in your position and you are indespensible. at the other firm, would you be just another guy in their big group? it sounds like you have good potential at the current firm. at this stage of your career, you shouldn’t threaten leaving a firm for 6k or even 20k. if you are taking over the process in this group, it is a tremendous opportunity. here is my point, think longer term. best of luck.
Re: Salary negotiation new Posted by: recentcornellgrad (IP Logged) [hide posts from this user] Date: August 31, 2007 09:50AM Is the Infiniti G a coupe? No…four door sedan. Cherry Red. I like to roll with a group of ppl…kind of like vincent chase…w/o the maserati…ha Cornell eh?? B-school or undergrad…?? I went to undergrad about 30 mins from Cornell. Ithaca is a pretty solid place. I may look into B-school there after I get the charter.
one other follow up point. I’d ask your boss why the two senior people left. make sure you’re not missing a potential problem. if you are, maybe you should jump. if not, then you boss will think highly of you to stick around in a hairy situation, when other weaker hands decided to fold. not to mention, you’ll gain valuable experience and move up faster.
I either have poor negotiating skills or my bosses are very inflexible. I can’t remember the last time we met in the middle about anything. I am very valuable to the firm, so that’s not the issue. Playing hardball seems futile. It always seems like it has to be a zero sum game with them. “We’ll give you x, but you have to give up y.” If some of the opportunities in front of me don’t materialize, I think I know what I need to do… /rant
You gotta stick to your guns and make it known how valuable you are to the firm. If they know how much value you add…they shouldnt have any problem paying up. I told the two owners of my firm…point blank…if I am not making 100k by the time I am 28…then I am either not doing enough on my part and you should fire me…or I need to move on to a firm that is happy to pay me. Its probably different in a smaller firm. I know exactly how much money the partners make. Its not too hard to figure out…just take 1% of the assets we manage and subtract costs. That being said…when we bag a client for $5 mil…i know that generates 50k in fees and costs havent gone up as a result of one more client. So I have a bargaining chip to play. Trickle down economics…i better see some of that sweet cheddar or i walk.