Is It Time For You To Ask For a Salary Raise or Salary Increase?

There is such a thing as the pay scale index that allows people to track how salaries are trending by location, industry and job category. It monitors changes in pay and can be a great reference for anyone who wants to work abroad or for somebody who just wants to benchmark their current salary grade.PayScale recently released the Q3 2011 PayScale Index. This is just the thing for you. It will tell you when it's time for your salary increase because everyone else around the world is getting the same increase - this will keep your job at the level where it should be (if you're unhappy of course)

Everything you'll see below is in dollars, and if you're working in Cebu or anywhere else in the Philippines you may feel like you can't relate. But really given the rise of globalization, what are the chances that you won't end up working abroad some time in the future? Or that you'll probably get hired by a BPO company here in Cebu and you'll have to figure out what your value will be. Make sure you price yourself right as well

Here's the article from Payscale.com

 

 

Three Key Factors That Change Your Market Price

Your desire for a raise may be simple, "My rent has gone up; I need $200 more per month." However, your needs and wants have little to do with whether your employer will give you a raise, unless you work for a family member or yourself. :-)
While your boss's perception of your value and effectiveness will clearly be important, there are some objective factors that will impact your pay. The first question to answer is, are you worth more in the market today than you were a year ago?
There are three factors that change the market value of you doing your job:

1. Changes in market supply and demand for your job
   1. Are there more people willing to work than jobs available? When this happens, like construction workers in Las Vegas, wages can actually go down.
   2. Is there a shortage of workers in your specialty? A career that has weathered the recession well is physical therapist. This job requires an advanced degree, and aging baby boomers are creating strong demand.
2. Increased duties/efficiency/competency in your job
   1. These are all the characteristics of your qualifications and job that go on your resume.
   2. Are you managing a team of 10 now, when you started the year with only two?
   3. Did you learn a valuable new skill, or get a new certification, in the last year?
   4. Are you simply better at your job because of what you have learned in the last year?
3. General price inflation
   1. Inflation is when the government prints more money to buy the same goods and services.
   2. The consumer price index (CPI) for goods has risen about 3.8% over the last year.
   3. The CPI isn't exactly the right inflation; it is the rate of inflation of the price of goods, not employees, but is close enough.
   4. Inflation was a large factor (>10 percent/year in late 70's), but the lower inflation now (0 to 4 percent over the last few years depending on gas prices) makes this less important.

How to Figure Two Raise Factors: The PayScale Index

So you understand the three objective factors that go into any raise discussion. Now you need the data to make the case.
The PayScale Index answers two of the questions. By tracking the changes in wages with all employer, qualification, and responsibility factors held constant (not changing with time), The PayScale Index tracks the changes in market supply and demand for jobs and inflation together.
Strictly speaking, The PayScale Index tracks the nominal (actual dollar) changes in wages. This is made up of two parts: the real (if there were no price inflation) changes in wages, together with the effect of inflation. Hence, it tells for sets of jobs what is happening with factors one and three of the previous section.
As an example, The PayScale Index for the construction trade jobs, like carpenters, plumbers, and electricians, has dropped 1 percent in the last year. During the same time period, inflation has been risen 3.8 percent. Thus, real (inflation adjusted) wages for construction trades nationally are down 4.8 percent (1 + 3.8), because of an over supply of workers given the very weak demand.
Real wages dropping nearly 5 percent in a year is huge - people are not wrong when they say construction is in a depression, not a recession, in many parts of the country.
So find the location, job category, or industry The PayScale Index that most closely match your situation, and use that to set the first and third factors for a raise.

The Last Factor in a Raise: How You Have Changed

The last factor you need to determine if you are due for a raise based on market forces is to decide how much more able you, and how much more responsibility you have, at work.
If you are doing basically the same job, with the same proficiency, for the same employer this year as last, then the answer is you marketable skills have not change, and you are not due any bump for factor two.
However, if you have been in your career for 10 years or less, you are likely stll growing in proficiency, and that is recognized in your market price. For example, wages for a software developer nationally grow from about $50,000 per year to over $80,000 after 10 years, even without a promotion.

Avoid These Top 5 Pitfalls in Job Negotiation

So you've gone through the examinations and the interviews. You finally have a job offer in the works. And the company wants to know what will it take to get you in the door.

This great article on Monster.com outlines some very clear DO NOT DO items as not to endanger your chances of getting hired and getting the best possible offer for yourself. Avoid the following pitfalls

1) Initiating Negotiations Too Soon

Timing is important here. The appropriate time to negotiate is when a formal offer has been made. If the offer meets your needs, by all means accept it. It's a mistake to negotiate just for the sake of negotiating, but don't assume you can't negotiate at all. There's nothing wrong with asking for time to consider the offer or outright asking if the offer is negotiable.

2) Only Negotiating Salary

While money is the most frequently negotiated piece of the compensation package, it's not the only one. It's also true that many employers have benefits such as vacation time and health insurance coverage that are established by company policy and are therefore nonnegotiable.

But other parts of the package may be negotiable. They include signing bonuses, unpaid leave, relocation expenses, flextime, severance, and predetermined timeframes for salary reviews.

In the end, it's important to maintain some salary flexibility until you've seen the whole package, including benefits. For instance, the job you're seeking may have a built-in profit-sharing plan, a great company-funded health insurance program, or a bonus or incentive program, which all have real dollar value.

3) Mistrusting the System

Many job seekers operate under the assumption that employers will, without exception, try to lowball them, no matter how well-qualified they are for a position. While there are employers who pay employees below industry standard, you should never enter a negotiation with a them-versus-me mentality. And don't assume that just because you've researched a job's market value, you'll get an offer within that range. While market averages are good barometers of pay averages, they're just that -- averages.

The fact is, many companies have a predetermined budget for every position and have pay ranges and benefit packages based on their established compensation hierarchies. An offer may boil down to a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, only because that's all the budget allows for the position, not because the employer is trying to take advantage of you.

4) Assuming Your Degree Entitles You to a Higher Starting Salary

Increasingly, having an advanced education is nothing more than a threshold requirement that enables prospective employers to narrow down the pool of applicants to a manageable size. If you have relatively little real-world work experience, your degree may keep you in the running, but it won't entitle you to a higher salary.

Also, don't assume your degree is all you have to offer the employer. Having significant work experience will probably carry more weight than a degree alone. There's a major difference between job-performance potential, which a degree can suggest, and past job performance, which indicates previous work experience and achievements.

5) Believing Every Negotiation Will End in Your Favor

No matter what you bring to the negotiating table, it's naive to assume you'll always get what you want. Negotiating isn't a win-lose proposition; it's a compromise, and you should expect that going into discussions. Very few of us are in such demand that we can write our own tickets. That doesn't mean you should settle for any offer that comes your way, but sometimes an agreement won't be made. And accepting a job just for the sake of a paycheck could lead to mutual dissatisfaction. Ultimately, it could be better for you to continue your job search.