Category: Get a Raise

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Earn More Find a side job Get a Raise Happiness Side Jobs

Don’t Quit Your Job Until You Make Some Money

To come to terms with opting out of your career, is primarily to come to terms with money. The first step toward leaning out is to get a raise. Maybe a side job. Also, max out your 401(k) and your Roth IRA. Fill up your emergency fund – and feel free to call it a “screw you” fund if it helps you contribute more. Because opting out? It’s best suited for those with money.

Our money paradigms  – often negative – say that those with a lot of it are undeserving, and came by it via luck (“the rich get richer”). And in times of enormous uncertainty, like now, we seem to be more comfortable leaving things up to chance. Things will work themselves out; everything happens for a reason. This sort of fatalistic thinking puts us in the depressing position of being in less and less control of our own lives. But we used to be a lot more self-reliant. We used to actively manage our lives.

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it,” said Thomas Jefferson. Luck used to be “perceived as something to be mastered, dominated, and controlled. It was not this weird external force that couldn’t be understood,” argues PayPal founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel. “Today’s default view is more Malcolm Gladwell than Thomas Jefferson; success, we are told, seems to stem as much from context as from personal attributes. You can’t control your destiny. Things have to combine just right. It’s all kind of an accident.”

Le sigh. A big reason I chose to “lean out,” was specifically to ensure that my life wouldn’t be left up to chance. And I spent a good two years preparing, long before my “Enough!” moment. The financial viability of taking a break, and exploring your options comes with a price tag. Mine includes a six-month emergency fund. Plus, I have side income and no debt. Even though I quit my job, I didn’t quit my side projects, which I actually enjoy. So my six-month fund will last much longer, more like a year. I also have a fiancé, and together, we split expenses. Practically, if I lived alone, I would probably spend less, but psychologically, his support makes taking risks easier.

Fewer than one in four Americans have enough money in their savings account to cover at least six months of expenses. And fifty percent have less than a three-month cushion, while twenty-seven percent had no savings at all. Several people in the last category have told me they want to leave their jobs since my last post. Why? If you hate your job now, if you are stressed and exhausted, it will only worsen when you are sitting watching daytime television and have nothing in your bank account.

Take care of yourself. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to make millions when you opt-out. You need to hustle enough to cover your expenses. And if you can’t hustle now, while in a job, by getting a side job, or asking for a raise, you will not be able to support yourself without the protection of an employer.

The first step is money. The first step is not to figure out what you want to do with your life. It’s not to discover your one true passion. It’s not to come up with a great idea.  Passions are fleeting. Most ideas aren’t very good. Learn how to make money. Start now. Build the habits. Money allows you to do great things. Money allows you to quit the job you hate, or keep the job you love. I’m not talking obscene wealth. I’m talking enough to provide for your later years, enough to make your current years nice, and enough to lean out if you so choose.

Luck, Thiel says, “defeats one’s ability to shape the future.” Don’t leave your life up to chance. Lots of things don’t happen for a reason, but many do, and for a very specific one – that is, because you made an intentional and deliberate choice. You showed up. You did the work. Don’t opt-out to live a romanticized artist’s or entrepreneur’s life with no money. Money does in fact buy happiness. Make some.

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Get a Raise

The Exact Words You Need to Negotiate Your Salary

Ever wish someone would tell you exactly what to do and say in awkward conversations? I do, all the time. Over at US News and World Report today, I share a simple, but effective script I’ve used over and over again to negotiate salary. Read it here.

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Get a Raise Management Negotiating Workplace

7 Reasons You Didn’t Get a Promotion

You didn’t get the promotion and are totally bummed. But were you worthy of a promotion in the first place? Over at US News and World Report today, I share the seven reasons you didn’t get the corner office (yet). Read it here.

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Career Get a Raise Negotiating

Get a raise in the recession

People are afraid of asking for a raise now more than ever. In fact, the recession is providing a good excuse for employees to not ask for more money, and for companies not to give any. But high performers can and should be compensated.

To get a raise, you first need to be aware of the three contingencies raises are based on:

Past Performance (and the learning curve)
All jobs have learning curves. What took you eight hours a day at the start of your position will slowly taper off until you start to get bored six months in. Good employees realize this and try to shorten the learning curve as quickly as possible by completing stellar and quality work right away. How quickly you’re able to shorten the curve often determines how quickly your first review and raise will be.

Future Opportunity (and taking on more responsibility)
Once you master your initial set of responsibilities, it’s time to start looking for more. You should first look for the low-hanging fruit; tasks that have been overlooked in which you can easily shine in. This might be tracking and measurement, or the suggestion of a weekly meeting. Whatever it is, you should make sure your superiors know you are looking to do and be more.

Second, you should also be strategically thinking about your next step and title in the company. If you want to expand your design role to include rendering in addition to drafting, you should try to take on as many rendering projects as you can before your review. New titles (and the accompanying compensation) aren’t awarded to people who haven’t already been doing the work. In other words, don’t wait for the title to impress.

Many companies won’t have such opportunities for advancement, however – either they aren’t willing or aren’t able – and that’s when you should start looking for a new job.

Market Value (and how adaptable are you)
There are a ton of social media jobs out there right now. There are also a lot of people who can’t execute on social media. Which leaves the people who can in a great negotiating position.

For those positions that don’t carry such great demand – say, journalists – you’ll need to figure out how to keep yourself and your position relevant. This doesn’t mean saving the entire journalistic profession, but being creative in the responsibilities you take on. It’s good to think of yourself in both positions at once, however, since the market varies and changes from year to year.

Once you understand the three contingencies, it’s time to put together an action plan:

1. Be proactive. Bad companies will put off your review on purpose. Good companies will too. There’s no reason for employers to pay you more if you’re not asking for it. Be proactive in checking in with your boss throughout each month, and scheduling reviews often. It’s often helpful to schedule your next review at your current one (“I’d like to meet again in three months to talk about the possibility of a new title and an additional raise.”) When you set up a meeting with the expectation that you’ll be discussing a raise, the conversation becomes easier.

2. Research and prepare. Even if you don’t show your boss, prepare a document of your past accomplishments and proposed future responsibilities. This gives you a list of relevant talking points during your meeting. In that document, include a salary number and back it up with research on what other people in similar positions are making. I recommend listing the number a bit larger than you expect so that you have some negotiating room and can meet your employer in the middle.

3. Practice. Just because you have everything written down doesn’t mean you won’t stumble in the meeting. Practice phrasing some of your key accomplishments and especially practice stating how much salary you’d like. Just say it aloud a few times to make it less scary.

4. Negotiate. Negotiating for a raise is incredibly hard, made even more so by the fact that your boss has probably just finished a glowing review, and it seems like an especially inopportune time to ask for more. (Or is that just me?) But not only is it the right time, it’s the only time. Go for it! Some employers will tell you right away whether the amount you’re asking for is something they can do, others will want to check and get back to you. Be prepared for either possibility.

5. Negotiate again. It’s very rare for a company not to be able to give a high performer a raise, even in the recession. When more money really is impossible – say, when you work at a University and they’ve declared that not only will there be no raises, but there will be pay cuts – you should still ask for more. You don’t have to ask for more money, but make sure you’re asking for more of something.

For instance, a smart woman I know negotiated additional paid time-off in lieu of more zeros on her paycheck. Just be careful that you’re not setting a precedent that the ability to work from home, gain additional stock options, or attend a conference is how you want to be compensated in the future. Unless, of course, it is.

What do you think? Is it difficult to get a raise in recession? If you’ve been successful, what were your strategies?

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Finding a job Generation Y Get a Raise Workplace

Why Generation Y should job-hop, even in the recession

There’s buzz in the media that Generation Y is finally being put in our place. The recession won’t play favorites and Gen Y will see just what Gen X and the Boomers have been talking about. Besides this being ridiculously sad – honestly, are we really a society that beats down optimism? – it’s also completely erroneous.

The Economist reports that “the touchy-feely management fads that always spring up in years of plenty (remember the guff about ‘the search for meaning’ and ‘the importance of brand me’) are being ditched in favor of more brutal command-and-control methods.” (h/t The Schiff Report)

Except companies that operate according to the latest trend and resort to command-and-control methods are neither Gen Y-friendly, nor anyone-friendly. You cannot have one set of values one month and a different set the next, because what makes individuals productive in one economy does not change in another.

If you value an open, collaborative approach, that shouldn’t change when times get tough. Especially when Gen Y values are so beneficial to everyone.

The Economist goes on to say that Gen Yers “have labored under the illusion that the world owed them a living. But hopping between jobs to find one that meets your inner spiritual needs is not so easy when there are no jobs to hop to.”

Except that those who can perform will always be able to find a new, exciting position. And Gen Y knows how to perform, especially under pressure. We’ve been multitasking since we could make a to-do list and we readily embrace change. We came of age during 9/11 and as Nadira Hira argues, “corporate America often appears just as scary and unstable (and untrustworthy) as the world at large, if not more so.”

Just because we’re experiencing an economic meltdown for the first time does not mean that we’re going to hide in the corner. We’re not going to settle. Really, we’re not surprised. We saw all this growing up– lay-offs, bankruptcy, politicking – and it’s exactly why we wanted to change the workplace in the first place.

As the Financial Times reports, “today’s younger generation are better prepared for economic hard times than their parents or grandparents: they were not expecting jobs for life… switching jobs and reconsidering careers are second nature to them.”

So, stop listening to those who say Gen Y won’t survive the recession. Here are four ways to really feel secure in today’s economy –

1) Turn down job offers. My mother was horrified and I was elated when I turned down a job offer a couple months ago. But it is one of the most empowering career moves you can make because you get to practice negotiating, you get feedback, you’re in control and you have the option of using it as a bargaining position later.

2) Get paid what you’re worth. I’ve increased my salary 60% since my first position out of college. If you’re keeping track, that’s a 20% raise each year. Silvana Avinami, a self-proclaimed strategic job-hopper reports on Brazen Careerist that she does even better than that, averaging a 30% raise with each hop (see comments).

You simply cannot do this by staying at the same job unless you’re there for a very long time. You just can’t. “Loyalty is about delivery,” and when you deliver, you should be rewarded accordingly.

3) Over-perform. You probably don’t love what you do. And if you don’t like your job, even a little, you’ll start performing badly. That’s bad because high performance is the key to a successful career.

“It makes sense,” Penelope Trunk argues. “If you don’t need to get another job anytime soon, then you don’t need to perform well in the next six months. You can coast. Job hoppers don’t coast or their resume will look bad.” Job-hopping allows you to find out what you like and figure out your strengths by forcing you to make an impact quickly.

4) Risk everything. Because safe is boring and maybe that’s good when times are easier, but they’re not. Safety doesn’t create innovation. But innovation does create new jobs and new opportunities. Innovation creates new markets and cures for illnesses and ideas that make us excited to get up in the morning.

You really want to help the economy? Put yourself out there. Risk everything. Do it for you, your family, your friends. We’ll all thank you.

Recession proof.

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