Do you feel underpaid and deserving of a higher salary? Are you thinking about asking for a raise, but unsure how to go about it? Do you cringe at the thought of approaching your boss? In this article, adapted from Chapter 24 of my new Wiley-IEEE Press book, The Engineer’s Career Guide, I provide guidelines for making the task less intimidating. Following these guidelines will be maximize your chances for success — and hopefully get you the raise you want and deserve.

Following are the five basic steps to follow when asking for a raise [1]:

1. Do Your Research and Build Your Case
2. Prepare and Plan Your Presentation
3. Set the Meeting
4. Ask for the Raise
5. Be Prepared to Handle Rejection

Do Your Research and Build Your Case

Prior to asking for a raise, you need to conduct a lot of research. You need to build your case and clearly identify why you deserve one.

Bad Reasons - First of all, do you have the right reasons? If you are asking for a raise because you need the money and can’t pay your bills, you are asking for the wrong reason [2, 3]. If paying your bills is the justification for your raise, your boss is more than likely to tell you that you have a personal financial problem, not a reason for them to give you a raise. Giving you a raise is not the answer. Look at the situation from your employer's prospective and base your case on why they would consider you for a raise and what you can do for them.

Another mistaken justification for an increase is that others in your group are being paid more and you feel you performance is as good as theirs. This is not a good reason because you do not know all the experience and extra skills they have for which the company is willing to pay more. Managers know that if they give a raise for this reason and word gets out, your entire group will be in the boss’s office asking for a raise. This is a management nightmare, and for this reason, managers do not give raises just because an employee feels they are doing just as good a job as others.

Right Reasons - The only right reasons for deserving a raise is because your job performance is outstanding and that you are underpaid. You need both of these reasons to build a solid case.

Career Tip: Raises are justified on outstanding performance and establishing equal performance and being underpaid.

Underpaid- To build the case that you are underpaid, you will need to conduct some research. Here is research you should consider to establish the case that you are underpaid.

1. If you feel you are underpaid because others in the industry are getting considerably more, then research the salaries of others in the industry and show how your salary is below these. Several websites can provide salary benchmark data based on your job description, including IEEE-USA's salary service, www.engineringsalary.com and www.payscale.com. You can use the data provided by these and other sources to show how much your salary is under the norm.

2. If you feel you are underpaid on the basis of your company’s internal salary ranges, then you can build your case based on this. By checking with your Human Resources department, you can determine if you being paid for your level and the rating you received. For instance, if you are rated an E3 and have been consistently receiving a performance rating of excellent, but are only being paid at the E3 level for average performers, then you definitely have a case to ask for a raise.

Summary

There are just two basic reasons a company will give you a raise. The first is your performance is outstanding and the second is that you are getting underpaid. The wrong reason for asking for a raise is because you need money to pay your bills. If you follow these guidelines and present a compelling case, you are more than likely going to be successful. Set up a special one-on-one meeting with your boss and come prepared to present your case and handle objections. Look your boss directly in the eyes and speak with confidence about your desire for a raise. Do not have an emotional and bitter exchange with your boss, since it is only going to hurt your career. Be prepared for “no” and have a plan B just in case. To read entire article about asking for a raise go to the website at www.Careerdevelopmentcoaches.com.

The content in this article was adapted from Chapter 24 of John's new book, "The Engineer's Career Guide," from Wiley-IEEE Press. The material is reprinted here with permission from John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons.

John can be reached at info@careerdevelopmentcoaches.com