Has asking for a raise ever ruined your relationship with your employer?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10051698

by dm03514 • 11 years ago

14 14 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Has asking for a raise ever ruined your relationship with an employer? I have a good job, generous benefits, stock options, lots of PTO. I have 5 years experience in open source technologies. I believe in the company I work for, its management team and its product. That being said, many engineers have been leaving. I have been at the company for 7 months and am happy, but it's clear that right now they need senior developers and I'm not sure there could be a better time to ask for a raise. If they denied me a raise I would stay there (dont tell them). What I'm concerned about is the small???? chance that it ruins my relationship with my employer. I have a newborn and my partner quit her job to stay at home. I earn 80k and am Extremely grateful to have such a good job, but at the same time I believe with a small amount of work I could earn more.

I would feel like a complete idiot if I tried to capitalize on lack of ability to retain people at my current position.

Has anyone had negative experiences from asking for a raise??

dm03514• 11 years ago

I would feel like a complete idiot if I tried to capitalize on lack of ability to retain people at my current position AND it backfired

bbcbasic• 11 years ago

Go to some interviews. This will give you some idea of what you could get elsewhere. If you get an offer that is more ammo, even if you don't decide to disclose it will boost your confidence to ask for more.

Not sure how experienced you are but no matter how much you love your job it is pretty much dog eat dog.

They wont hesitate to fire you if they need to downsize, even if they are downsizing for the wrong reasons. Your good boss could be replaced with a bad one, or the company as a whole decides to stack rank, or pressurize everyone with too much work etc. Let alone they sell to another company, decide to float, or whatever. This can happen in the future and change how much you love this job.

So don't be scared to change jobs to get what you want, if you have to. The grass may be greener, or less green. You can always change again.

socceroos• 11 years ago

It really depends on your employer. You need to understand a bit about how your boss works and the current position he/she is in.

1. Find out (loosely) if your employer can afford the raise you're looking for. Nothing worse than putting your boss in a position where he/she can't actually help you.

2. ALWAYS give your employer a 1 page document detailing why you're looking for a raise. No need to talk about your cancerous dog, but certainly talk about your achievements, your worth and your vision for yourself in a 'more senior' position.

3. Give a number you're looking for. Don't just ask for a raise or your employer will give you maybe 2K more per year and you'll feel ripped off. And then, if you complain then he/she will feel hurt.

4. Be positive. Be truthful. Your employer wants to hear that you love your job. Your employer wants to hear that you want to take on more responsibility. They'll respond well to that.

I did this with my last employer and was able to secure a $25k raise. YMMV

mtmail• 11 years ago

$25k is a lot. Congrats!

I would add not to compare your salary to your co-workers (if you happen to know their salary) when you talk to your boss. It can back-fire because you steer the discussion to somebody else's salary which you have no idea about past history or what other factors played into that.

coldtea• 11 years ago

If it did, you didn't have any relationship to begin with.

kelukelugames• 11 years ago

Your company knows you had a baby and you are grateful. They take advantage of it by paying you a non-competitive wage.

redmaverick• 11 years ago

I read Ashlee Vance's "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future" a while back. His personal assistant (for 12 years) Mary Beth Brown asks Elon for a raise. He asks her to take a 2 week break so he can assess for himself how difficult her job really was.

She was let go after the break.

jgamman• 11 years ago

Seems to say more about Elon Musk than Ms Brown.

hinkley• 11 years ago

Generally I tell people if they feel undervalued, take a long vacation (at least a week). People will either miss you terribly or you'll know where you stand.

Just don't tell anyone that's why you're doing it if you don't want to be like Mrs Brown.

mcmenon• 11 years ago

I would never ask for a raise unless I had an option I was willing to walk to. Even if you're happy at your current job go talk to other companies and see what's out there. This will better inform you what you're worth as well.

jasonkester• 11 years ago

Yeah, money ruins everything eventually.

My first true dev gig was for a really fun company. I was self taught at my previous engineering job, and the Web was happening so I took a junior position for $X/year.

Then I got better fast. Turns out I wasn't actually all that junior to start with, but soon it was apparent that I was shipping things a lot faster than anybody else on the team. After a good year of this I took a look around the market and figured out where I would probably fit in it. I asked the company to bring me up to $2X to get me closer to where I belonged.

They debated, scraped, and eventually found a way to offer me $1.3X. I was gutted. This was a really fun job, with fun people. But they were not planning to pay market rates, so in the end it was an easy decision.

I sent off a couple emails, and a week later accepted another really fun job, with even more fun people, for a little more than $2X.

So yeah, a nice relationship soured because fun is fun but at the end of the day, it's not worth leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table for. Especially when there's plenty of fun to be had elsewhere that doesn't ask you to make that tradeoff.

brudgers• 11 years ago

There are people who can walk in, demand a raise and get what they want. I know I ain't one of them. There are people who can play it close to the vest and go home with someone else's shirt, boots, and wallet. Maybe that's you.

What is your company's policy on employee reviews?

Do they conduct them according to schedule?

Seeing as you've been there about six months, an informal review is the way to gain information for when the formal review happens. Find out how your boss is coping with turnover...maybe it's intentional, maybe not. Find out how he perceives the motivations of the people who left. If it's framed as disloyalty, that's a bad thing. If it's framed as natural progression, then that suggests how much leverage you have in regard to framing compensation to future growth. Negotiations are all about information.

Maybe your boss thinks you're underpaid but can't give you a raise until you ask. Maybe your boss can only give raises at reviews and according to a formula...that formality is actually good so long as the process is reasonably fair (and if it's not reasonably fair then the formality isn't worse).

Even if you are the demand a raise and get it type, more information doesn't hurt. But you can't demand unless you're ready to walk. Don't fool yourself into believing that your boss hasn't already read the tells that you are happy and unlikely to leave even without a raise.

Good luck. Good luck.

alain94040• 11 years ago

I never got burned by asking for a raise. So do it. However, I recommend you read the details of how to do it properly, I wrote about it here: https://medium.com/@colunchers/how-to-negotiate-a-raise-9166...

The key is to honestly measure your market worth, and not threaten at all to quit. If you can convince your boss that other companies would like to pay you more, but you prefer your current company (which is what you say), then it's a solid approach.

jseeff• 11 years ago

you have only been there 7 months. Unless you agreed, when joining, to review salary after X months, I would probably avoid asking for a raise right now. What I WOULD do, is ask for a chat with your boss or bosses and explain to them: 1) you feel you have performed well and exceeded expectations by X, Y and Z; 2) you know lots of people are leaving and you want to take on more responsibility; 3) you know you have only been there 7 months; and 4) you want them to think about giving you a significant raise in 5 months' time.

Then ask them for their thoughts and what you need to do in order to make that happen.

It shows them you are committed, not trying to squeeze every penny just when they are hurting because of departures and makes it VERY hard for them not to give you a raise at the 1 year mark.

At that point if you don't get what you are looking for, you move away.

Good luck!

Has asking for a raise ever ruined your relationship with your employer?

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