Asking for a raise

mu5ic92

Hello everyone, I am currently working towards my VCP550 and started thinking I may be up for a raise. I am currently making 50k a year managing a virtual environment. I work with some networking, storage but the bulk of my works revolves around working with vcenter, servers, and monitoring tools that include solarwinds and system center operation manager. My mindset right now is to speak to my manager and inform them that I would like my salary to align more with the market which is around 60k possibly 65k for someone in my position. I do plan on approaching this from a passive standpoint and ask what I would need to deliver on to get this bump in salary. As I said before I am working on getting my VCP550 and am wondering if that alone can be used as leverage in the sense that if I were to get certified it can justify getting the raise. What are you thoughts?

Source of research is payscale.com

Entry Level Systems Engineer (Computer Networking / IT) Salary

soccarplayer29

I like all the thoughts and progression!

I think it'd be a tough sell to base your raise of something you haven't achieved yet so I'd be cautious about taking that approach. Backup your request with market research (multiple sources) based on your current duties/skills. Another thing to consider is trying to negotiate a bonus for attaining new skills or another performance review in X months outside the normal cycle after you've obtained it too.

cyberguypr

If you intend to leverage a cert the first question is "does the company care?" Some places do not put any weight on certs, so if you are going this route make sure the company values them.

Lexluethar

My first question is how large is your VM environment and what 'advanced' features do you use? Reason i ask is if you just have a standard configuration of vCenter managing saying 100 VMs market value may be much lower than what you could expect from someone managing 500+ VMs, using vDS, DRS, VSAN, FT, ect, ect. The more complicated the solution the better chance you have at getting that raise. Reason being is it will cost them more to bring someone in from the outside and get them up to speed - IE more of a reason to keep you.

I like the passive approach myself, but I always look at market value (don't just use one website, look at what other companies are offering for similar positions with similar responsibilities).

I would also wait until you have the certification before broaching the subject. Also bring up any money saving techniques you've brought to the table (IE at my work i've automated server creation without the use of Orchestrator - a complex product, we also developed an in-house SRM in order to leverage powercli and powershell with our storage array to fail stuff over). These types of things along with experience and what you manage will net you more money.

It really just depends on your experience and what you do, a vmware admin with 2 years experience, no certification and running a standard environment will net far less than someone with more experience, a certification and running more complex operations.

networker050184

What have you done for the business to deserve more compensation? Come with that not "market value" or a certification.

alias454

OP, How long have you worked there? asking for 10-15k if you have only been there a month might not be a good idea. However, If you can show you have added value as networker suggests, you will have a good leg to stand on. Also what are you going to do if they say no?

tmtex

alias454 wrote: »

Also what are you going to do if they say no?

He will then be a marked man that they know will be leaving soon.
I twittle my thumbs imaging laptops all freaking day for just under 60. If your doing that kind of work I would be fuming at making 50K

dave330i

How do you leverage a cert you don't have?

kiki162

Look at getting some VMWare certs above VCP-DCV. Get your VCP6 completed and go for VCP Cloud or VCAP. Look at OTHER jobs that are looking for those requirements. If you have the ability in your current job to gain experience on other VMWare products...DO IT! Getting additional certs in your current job will NOT get you a pay raise, only unless your supervisor specifically says so. Leverage your existing experience, get a few more certs, and go find a new job.

mu5ic92

Thank you everyone for the responses. My approach would be more of a "I would like to reach this salary in my current position, what goals can we set that justify my move to thatt salary (certification, product knowledge, expirience, projects that I can deliver on, etc). I currently work with 2 vcenter environments. Our main and our BCP environment. Deal with more then 1000 virtual machines that span across around 100 hosts. i work with most of the services provided by vCenter (DRS, VDS, SDRS, HA, ..) Also I have been in my current position for 4 months as a part timer in the begining and coming up on 1 year as a full timer. I have previous system engineer expirience from my previous compant that amount to 1 more year 1. I also hell manage the hardward which is Dell through OME and as mentioned before use Orion Solarwinds for monitoring as well as recently deployed System Center Orchestrator and Operation Manager.

the_Grinch

You're going to ask for a 20% raise? I know of no company that would give anyone that raise without it involving some form of promotion. If people are getting raises they aren't seeing more than 3 to 5%. I'd say get the cert and move on because that's probably the only chance you have to see the raise you want (if they don't have a senior level position that you could move to and would carry the level of salary you are hoping for).

volfkhat

kiki162 wrote: »

Leverage your existing experience, get a few more certs, and go find a new job.

Totally agree.
Negotiation is all about Leverage.

It sounds like you have a nice environment for Learning stuff.
Not sure how long you been there, but SOAK it up.
Also, you need to do the BOOTCAMP before you can sit the exam. So... Who's paying for that??

Get the Experience. Get the Certifications. THEN go "ask" for a raise.

If they Balk... then WALK.
(that's how the game is played unfortunately)