Furthering Your Career | How to Ask for and Negotiate a Raise at Work

If you follow along on my Instagram, you may have seen recently that I shared I asked for a raise at my full-time job and actually was able to get my desired compensation. While I still may be early on in my career, this is probably one of my proudest moments I’ve had, not only in my career but overall one of my proudest moments in life so far. Asking for a raise at work is NOT easy and can be very uncomfortable, and it takes a lot to gather the courage to, essentially, brag about yourself and your work ethic to your boss and to explain why you deserve more compensation for the work you do and the value you bring to the company.

I figured I’d start this off with a little bit of background into what I do and how I knew I deserved more compensation for the work I was doing at my job. I am a Marketing Specialist for a small financial marketing company where I have worked for close to a year and a half now. And when I say I work for a small business, I mean a team of under 5 employees. While working at a small business means wearing multiple hats and occasionally being responsible for things outside of your job title, it’s important to know the difference between that and taking on some more management-level responsibilities that are 100% worthy of higher compensation.

Ever since the beginning of the year, our company went through a couple of changes that would affect my work by giving me additional responsibilities to the work I had already been doing, including some management-level responsibilities. Ever since taking on these additional tasks at the start of the year, in addition to the work I was already responsible for, I immediately knew I needed to ask for more money. And while I knew I deserved more money from these added responsibilities, I had no idea where to even begin with how to ask for it.

What helped me out the most throughout this whole process was my boyfriend, Josh. He works in sales and recruiting and deals with things like this pretty much every single day at his job and I was able to learn so much from him and how to go about asking for a raise that I thought I’d share with you all reading in how to best go about asking for a raise at work and knowing your worth.

Tip #1: Consider Why You Deserve a Raise

Have you been taking on additional responsibilities at work that deserve higher compensation? Are you bringing value to the company? Have you completed a successful project for the company? These are all things to consider why you deserve a raise and to feel more confident when asking for it. Know your worth then act on it!

Tip #2: Research the Market Average for Your Position/Geographic Location

Do some research on Google or Glassdoor to find what the market average for your position in your geographic location is and act on it. After doing this, I actually discovered I was making under what the market average is throughout my geographic location, and that was another added talking point to bring into my meeting.

Tip #3: Prepare a List of Talking Points

This came in so helpful when it was time to have a meeting about my compensation. For a couple of days leading up to my meeting, I gathered my thoughts and wrote them down on paper in bullet point form almost like a script of how I wanted to bring it up and what I wanted to bring attention to of why I was deserving of a raise. I referred to it throughout the meeting to help keep me on track, and I really would have been lost without it!

Tip #4: Practice and Role Play

This was also incredibly helpful in the days leading up to my meeting. While it may seem silly to do, role-playing the discussion with Josh and thinking of possible ways my boss could respond really helped me out in creating my list of talking points, how I’d go about the discussion, etc. Highly recommend! Roleplay the discussion with a friend, family member, significant other, etc.

Tip #5: Ask for a Realistic Compensation Rate

At this point in my career, I have an idea of how much money I believe I deserve to be making (taking into consideration the cost of living in our area as well), however, taking into consideration what is actually realistic for a smaller business, I asked for a realistic rate that is doable for both me and the company to benefit from.

Pin this post to your Pinterest board to save for later: