Posts Tagged "getting a raise"

You Should Quit Your Job! 5 Signs That It Is Time To Move On

Posted by jefferson on Apr 30, 2012 in Career Advice | 27 comments

The writing is plastered all over the wall.  This job is going nowhere fast, and you are starting to seriously question what kind of a future you will have your company.  Believe it or not, this happens to everyone at some point, and you will soon after find yourself wondering if it is time to start looking to see what else it out there.  Sometimes this happens because your position with a company is eliminated, but more often– people start looking because they are just wanting to address dissatisfaction with their current role.

According to research, the average person will have 7-10 jobs in their lifetime, and the median years that a person stays in a job is 4.1 years.  With this amount of turnover going on, you shouldn’t be surprised or upset if you find yourself getting the itch.  If you work in a large corporate environment like I do, you live in a world where there are constant re-shuffles and re-alignments.  Managers and employees alike, are cycled from team to team, and job functionality and responsibilities can shift like the weather.  This level of turnover can sometimes lead you to falling into a no-win situation.  Staying in a bad situation can actually be very detrimental to your career, as you don’t want to stay on a sinking ship.

Luckily, there are some warning signs that you can look for to know when it is time to move on.  If these sound familiar to you, you don’t necessarily need to leave your company– but you should probably at least consider trying to move to a different team:

1. You Are Not Getting Invited to Meetings

Being asked to participate in important discussions is an important indicator of how much your management values your opinion.  If you find yourself on the outside looking in, don’t be afraid to reach out to the meeting organizers to see if you can get included.  However, if this pattern continues and especially if your entire team seems to have this issue– I would be concerned.  If you are slowly slipping into irrelevance, you need to be taking steps to reverse that trend.

 2. You Don’t Have Anything to Do

If management refuses to give you any meaningful work, this can mean a variety of things.  Perhaps there are company changes on the horizon or maybe they are waiting on a big project to start.  However,  if you find yourself doing more browsing than working, day after day,  then I might start to get worried.  The truth is that in most corporate environments, there aren’t enough people or hours in the day to do everything.  I have often joked that I could work for 96 hours straight without stopping, and still not tackle everything “on my list”.  Companies these days like to run it lean and mean, so if you find yourself on a team where there is no work available,  it is a major warning flag.  If the company does decide to make cuts, the teams that contribute little to nothing will be first to go.

3.  Your Job Has Taken Over Your Entire Life

This is the opposite situation as the one just mentioned.  If your work responsibilities have consumed you entirely, and you don’t have any time left for yourself or your family,  please realize that this isn’t the norm– and you are being taken advantage of.  All employers know that they are under some obligation to provide you with a work-life balance.  You shouldn’t have to work every day and every night for long periods of time.  There may be situations, as deadlines approach, where everyone has to hunker down and put in extra hours to make sure that projects get completed.  But if this is the situation, week after week, month after month, then your employer is obviously understaffed and needs to being in some extra bodies to help alleviate the pressure.  You will burn out quickly, if your job takes over your life entirely.  You must tell yourself that other people, who probably make the same money as you at different companies, are not being put through the same ringer.  Don’t be afraid to branch out and see what else you can find, if your employer insists on running things like a sweatshop.

4. You Don’t Get Along With Your Boss

It is normal to have some resentment towards your manager, it kind of comes with the territory.  It is their job to tell you what to do, and you don’t like to be told what to do.  But for you to be successful at work, you are going to need to have a positive working relationship with them.  You can’t forget that when you work for a large multi-tiered company,  one of your top responsibilities is to make that manager look good and to give them success stories to talk about in their meetings.  If you have an unhealthy dislike for them– this is going to be difficult for you.  Bad managers can come in all shapes and sizes, and you will surely come across a few in your day who are clearly out of their league.  If your boss’s approach or decision making  is causing you fits, you should be able to express your concerns to them.  If they wont talk to you or won’t make changes to improve the situation, you have to be willing to walk away.  I know people that have a very passionate hatred for their bosses, and it seems to totally consume them.  Having that much hatred for anything is not healthy, and you shouldn’t subject yourself to that many negative emotions.  Complaining to your manager’s boss may be an option for you if the problems are well documented, but it may also backfire on you and make you look like a whiner.  The better approach may be to see if you can find a different team and thus a different manager.

5. You Don’t Get Along With Your Co-Workers

One of the most important factors in how satisfied people are with their jobs, is their relationship with their co-workers.  You don’t have to be BFFs with the guy in the next cubicle, but you need to have a healthy respect for them.  I have worked on many different teams over the years, and the dynamics can very wildly.  The best kind of team is one where everyone can work together and contribute ideas to the complex problems of the day.  However, if people on your team rarely talk to each other outside of meetings, and the dynamic is one of mistrust and suspicion, things can get dicey.  If you find that you have a damaged relationship with one or more of your co-workers, you should see if you can take some steps to improve the situation, knowing that it may not work with everyone.  I have been on teams where the fact that I was dedicated and hard-working seemed to cause some resentment from a few, but I didn’t dwell on them.  The problem comes if you have a tense relationship with most or all of those around you.  If this sounds like your situation,  it is probably time to locate the exit sign.

What If You Find Out Your Co-Workers Are Making More Money Than You

Posted by jefferson on Mar 12, 2012 in Career Advice | 35 comments

The conversation started innocently enough.  Me and my buddies from work were driving home from lunch and talking about the local job market, and how it looked like companies were starting to hire once again.  A friend who was sitting in the backseat with me mentioned that a previous employer had reached out to him to see if he was interested in returning.  He said that he wasn’t interested in going back, but told the rest of us that the job had decent pay, and he threw out a number.

The number he threw out was a good ten grand more than I was currently making, so my jaw dropped a little bit upon hearing this.  I wasn’t especially interested in leaving my job to go to this company, as they were retail-driven and had a reputation for regular layoffs, but the realization that folks were getting paid that much to do a job very similar to mine was startling.  I exclaimed, “Wow, that is a huge number!  That is a lot more than I am making.”

As soon as I said this, I couldn’t help but notice that my two friends in the front seat cast a quick look to one another.  They didn’t say a word, but I knew right away what that look meant.  Every company in the world strongly discourages their employees from discussing salary.  Some companies even mention in their employee handbook that this is grounds for termination.  It is easy to see why companies take this stance,  as it is only going to lead to somebody getting upset if everyone knows how much everyone else is making.

I have the kind of friendship with my co-workers where we are free to call each other out at any time.  When I saw their silent glance, I immediately spoke up.  ”Uh.. guys, I saw that look.  I assume that means that this number is not as shocking to you?”  They again looked at each other, apparently trying to decide exactly what they wanted to reveal, so as to minimize the damage.  After a few seconds, one of them just said “Let’s just say that..  you should probably take a look at glassdoor.com.  Wanting to avoid further awkwardness, we agreed to end the conversation there.

I hadn’t heard of the site before, but I quickly learned that glassdoor is one little jewel of a site.  If you list your employer and job title, they will give you the min, max, and average salaries for that position.  If you work for a large employer like me, you will be able to quickly determine how you compare to your peers.  After the earlier conversation, I wasn’t surprised to learn that I was on the bottom of the range for my job title.  The average amount that my company was paying folks to do the same job as me was ten to fifteen thousand more than what I was making!

My first reaction to this news was shock.  This was followed by anger, frustration, and a strong desire to quit.  I had been a great employee for this company and had received many accolades for my hard work.  While my teammates were all good employees and fairly hard workers, I was confident that the work that I was doing was just as good (if not better).  I had been perfectly happy with my salary before that day, but now I was pissed!  No wonder companies try to keep this type of information secret  At this point, there was no going back.

I didn’t want to leave my job, but it isn’t in my personality to just sit around and be angry about something like this.  That being the case, I immediately went to work.  I started building a detailed case of  why I deserved to be paid like I was one of the top performers on the team.  I carefully outlined how my work  compared with my peers, including information like:

• The amount of projects that I ran, compared with my teammates.
• The critical nature of the projects that I was assigned to.
• The fact that other folks on my team, and on other teams, always come to me for assistance when there are issues.
• The fact that I am the Subject Matter Expert on more technologies than anyone else on the team.

After putting together my list and supporting details, I scheduled a meeting with my manager to discuss it.  I didn’t want the content of the meeting to completely catch him off guard, so I named the meeting “Jefferson’s Career Path.”  My boss ended up rescheduling the meeting into a lunch conversation, which made me nervous, but ended up well.  He carefully listened to my points and agreed with everything that I said.  In our meeting, of course, I didn’t mention the conversation with my co-workers in my car, but instead pointed to glassdoor.com as to what clued me in.  We concluded the meeting with my boss stating that he would do all that he could during the upcoming calibrations to get my salary adjusted to an appropriate level.

If you are curious to find out if you are being underpaid by your current employer, I  encourage you to look into it and follow a similar path.  It would be incredibly tacky to start a conversation of this kind with your co-workers, but nothing is stopping you from looking at the web resources that are freely available.  If you *do* find out that your co-workers are making more than you,  then don’t be afraid to build a case and to ask for the situation to be corrected.  You deserve it!