5 Tips for Your Next Promotion or Salary Raise
Published on Feb 3, 2021 (updated Feb 5, 2024), filed under management (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)
How do you approach promotions and salary raises? Are these tied to an annual meeting with your manager, to other cyclical events like performance reviews, or do they depend on your own initiative? Do you invest into building your case, or do you wing it? Do you go for nuance, or do you, âjust in case,â ask for the moon?
Iâve sat on both sides of the table, successfully and unsuccessfully, and will here sketch my main ideas on what can help your chances of getting that promotion, or getting that raise.
Contents
1. Prepare Your Case
The most important thing is to prepare: You may be convinced that you should get a promotion or a raiseâbut even for yourself it can be useful to lay out why exactly. Think about that, set up a document, write it down. Write it to be shared. Make it easy for your manager or the committee, in your own best interest.
Once you wrote down the arguments why you should get a promotion, review and question them. Are these all reasons? Are these good reasons? Whatâs missing, what can be added? Whatâs superfluous? Edit and refine your list.
2. Use Metrics
Try to argue with metrics. What demonstrates, what proves your performance? How many tickets did you take care of (that can be useful data), how much code have you committed, how did you score on individual and team goals, how do other metrics for your work look like, what did you contribute to the success of the organization, and, if you can present it in a friendly way, how does this compare to others on your team, in other teams, or in the field?
Make it easy. Make it measurable.
If you donât have any metrics to work with or your metrics donât look good, stop. Do you simply not have enough data yet, and need to collect more? Or⊠is your performance not as strong as you thought? Even if this probably isnât what you wanted to hear, this may actually be good for you. It could be a smart move to delay the promotion or raise, and to step it up, get more data, and build a new and stronger case.
3. Avoid Positional Bargaining
This one is dear to me: Donât go for positional bargaining. Whatâs that? The common but questionable (and well backfiring) way of making an outrageous demand in the hope that you meet in the middle.
Itâs the style people learn on markets and bazaars: You see an art piece, the price tag says â$100,â you offer $50, or just $20 (and donât see what a move that is). The seller is offended, you get nervous, and you both start haggling: âI can give it to you for $90,â âno, $30,â âthatâs ridiculous, but I can offer it for $80,â âno, $35 is my last offer,â until the merchant gets you kicked out or you give up, disappointed that your negotiation strategy didnât work. (Or it did, and you didnât care about the disrespect you or both parties showed each other.)
The point is, positional bargaining aims for the opposite of what you want to accomplish in a negotiation: a win/win. Thatâs the goal, and it requires respecting and understanding the other side. It comes with a strategy and it informs tactics, like focusing on the relationship and making the pie bigger for everyone involved.
If you aim for a win/win, you recognize that thereâs much more in professional relationships that promotions and raises: There are bonuses, there are special responsibilities, there are privileges, there are titles, there are vacation days and work hours and and andâand you have seen it all, most people only go for the promotion, or the raise, and then it has to happen, now.
Call me overconfident, but read that last paragraph again. This is the situation in many if not most workplaces. It doesnât have to be as sad and ineffective. Before we move on, the best book I can recommend about negotiating is Stuart Diamondâs Getting More; Fisherâs and Uryâs Getting to Yes is pretty good, too.
Now work with the document you created, and enter your promotion or salary conversations with it. Communicate the document as a sketch, as a basis for discussion. This is a huge one, then, especially if youâre not in a work culture where people are used to prepare that much. This kind of preparation, if itâs humble and fact-focused, may leave a big, positive impression.
4. Give Yourself Time
Whether youâre looking at promotions and raises in general or you just prepared (or perhaps presented) your case, it can be useful to be patient. That may not sound enticing, especially when you already feel undervalued or underpaid, or when itâs been a long time that you were shown some form of recognition, however patience can be smart. Why?
First, you donât necessarily âloseâ anything. A premature promotion attempt can be much costlier for you, not only from a monetary but also a clout side, than taking the time to build a stronger case.
Second, a strong case should be the priority, not a fast case. Yes, you can be lucky and happen to pack all the right gear for a trip through the Antarctica, but most of the time a little prep work helps you make that trip more effective and comfortable. Itâs similar for our careers.
Third, it reduces everyoneâs stress levels. You can focus on the package; if youâve already started the process it may give your manager time to support and strengthen your case; and after a promotion or raise itâs also easier to focus on your next goals if youâgive yourself time to do so.
5. Ask
The last tip is toâask: Ask whatâs needed for your promotion, ask whatâs needed for your raise. Now, yes, you may have a competency or some other framework in place that gives you concrete guidance, but even then, and also even after a âlostâ case you can stillâask.
Isnât this obvious? I think it isnât. I still miss this; I see others regularly miss this. But itâs generally a sound and at the same time humble thing to ask, your manager, about their view and about any advice they can give you on not just promotions and raises but about anything related to your work.
Now, you may have a manager who for whatever good or bad reason doesnât give you useful advice. But still ask them. Work with them. Manage up.
â§ These are five tips on your next promotion or raise. If you were to adopt only one, pick the last one and ask. For two, scrap positional bargainingâeven if you had some lucky results with it, itâs a terrible, condescending negotiation tactic. Three? Prepare. And four? Measure. And if you do want to follow all five, then absolutely, cultivate some patience. That may generally be a nice trait to own.
Assuming you do good work these should all serve you well. I wish you much success!
About Me
Iâm Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and Iâm a web developer, manager, and author. Iâve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies youâve never heard of and companies you use every day, Iâm an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for OâReilly and Frontend Dogma.
I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)