Asking for a raise??

Networkguy86

So I'm currently looking to ask for a raise at my job but looking for some validation To make sure I'm not out of line in my thinking.

Background: I have 6 years experience in IT and have been working for my current company for just under 3 years. I started as general support but was promoted network administrator a year ago. I'm currently the only network guy managing a network of over 100 remote sites on an mpls, including voip phones, our corporate office, and all the things in between such as user and site vpn connections. I'm also currently redesigning our entire network to save us a lot of money

At first we had a contracted engineer to help out but they let him go a few months ago. When I received the promotion I received 10% salary increase and now make 64k.

I would like to make 75-80k, does anyone think a raise of this magnitude be out of the question?

In the past year I've also earned my ccna security and ccnp:rs.

MeanDrunkR2D2

How long ago was your promotion? And what are you willing to do should you not get a nice raise? And have facts behind you to show you deserve a larger than standard raise. Highlight your tasks, new certs since your promotion, and the long term projects and the positive progress you are making with them. If you have your ammunition ready to counter any qualms about giving you any raise it will make it hard for them to say no.

Now that said, if your company just isn't giving raises out and it's out of your bosses control to approve it that could be a risk. How he conveys that to the decision makers to fight for you to get that raise will be huge. Many companies will play chicken and say no or just give out a pity raise that is far lower than you hoped.

At that point if you really want to be paid that it's time to freshen up that résumé and put out feelers to other companies looking for the skillet you have. Also, if you haven't updated your résumé since you got that job, shame on you. I always update and add new projects to my résumé once a quarter to make sure that I can keep it as thorough as possible so I can quickly get my résumé out to Carpet bomb job boards when I'm on the hunt.

MitM

What month does your company normally give out merit increases? I'd say have a discussion with your manager prior to that happening, so that he can work some magic for you.

Networkguy86

Last promotion was just over a year ago when I received my current position, last raise was in march when they do annual reviews. During these they give out 1-3% 'cost of living' raises.

I don't hear of others asking for or receiving raises ever so I'm not sure where the company stands on it.

Assuming I'm in a large American city does the salary I'm suggesting sound like it's about right for the job?

hurricane1091

If it makes you feel better, I am in a similar situation and would like a similar salary! I make less actually, even with a bonus. I probably won't say anything, I'll just leave eventually. I just figured they won't give me a 20k raise no matter what, so I am wishing you luck and interested in what will happen.

MitM

Networkguy86 wrote: »

Last promotion was just over a year ago when I received my current position, last raise was in march when they do annual reviews. During these they give out 1-3% 'cost of living' raises.

I don't hear of others asking for or receiving raises ever so I'm not sure where the company stands on it.

Assuming I'm in a large American city does the salary I'm suggesting sound like it's about right for the job?

It sounds like you work for my company haha.

I've never heard of someone going in and asking for over a 15% raise and getting it. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but I'd be surprised to hear it happens a lot.

If you like working for the company that you work for, I'd talk to your manager about all the work (great work) that you've been doing, and all of your responsibilities, and see about getting a plan together to get you promoted to Sr Network Admin. I think this is going to be your best bet for getting a bigger increase.

I think what you're looking for make is acceptable for sure, at least where I'm from.

TheFORCE

hurricane1091 wrote: »

If it makes you feel better, I am in a similar situation and would like a similar salary! I make less actually, even with a bonus. I probably won't say anything, I'll just leave eventually. I just figured they won't give me a 20k raise no matter what, so I am wishing you luck and interested in what will happen.

You make 65K with all those certs in NJ? Wow you got lowballed for sure. Is this your first job? How many years experience?

TheFORCE

Networkguy86 wrote: »

So I'm currently looking to ask for a raise at my job but looking for some validation To make sure I'm not out of line in my thinking.

Background: I have 6 years experience in IT and have been working for my current company for just under 3 years. I started as general support but was promoted network administrator a year ago. I'm currently the only network guy managing a network of over 100 remote sites on an mpls, including voip phones, our corporate office, and all the things in between such as user and site vpn connections. I'm also currently redesigning our entire network to save us a lot of money

At first we had a contracted engineer to help out but they let him go a few months ago. When I received the promotion I received 10% salary increase and now make 64k.

I would like to make 75-80k, does anyone think a raise of this magnitude be out of the question?

In the past year I've also earned my ccna security and ccnp:rs.

Seems like you do need a raise and some more help, thats for sure. What happens if you go on vacation and something goes down? Who they going to call?

Networkguy86

MitM wrote: »

It sounds like you work for my company haha.

I've never heard of someone going in and asking for over a 15% raise and getting it. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but I'd be surprised to hear it happens a lot.

If you like working for the company that you work for, I'd talk to your manager about all the work (great work) that you've been doing, and all of your responsibilities, and see about getting a plan together to get you promoted to Sr Network Admin. I think this is going to be your best bet for getting a bigger increase.

I think what you're looking for make is acceptable for sure, at least where I'm from.

I'd really like to give them the opportunity to give me a raise and keep me around. I like where I work and I still have so many projects coming up that I'm really excited to get into.

The raise itself is asking for an almost 25% raise so in that context it sounds really high. I think I'll arm myself with as much evidence for a raise as possible and give it a shot.

Is salary.com data a good source for comparable salary data? Or will they laugh at me for brining something like that in?

Infosec85

TheFORCE wrote: »

Seems like you do need a raise and some more help, thats for sure. What happens if you go on vacation and something goes down? Who they going to call?

Ghostbusters?

Hammer80

How about this, instead of asking for a raise, let them know all the certifications you have have earned and the things that you are doing for the company that will save them money and just state that you would like to be paid market value on your next raise cycle. Instead of putting pressure on you, it puts pressure on them to match the current going rate for somebody in your position.

hurricane1091

TheFORCE wrote: »

You make 65K with all those certs in NJ? Wow you got lowballed for sure. Is this your first job? How many years experience?

Apologies to OP for hijacking his thread, but here it goes.

So, it's a weird situation. I finished my second Associate's degree (because of a 4 year degree I bailed) in late 2013. I immediately went to work on a 6 month XP to 7 Migration project that led to just desktop support at the end of it. Then I worked at another place for 7 months (took awhile to find work after contract ended) as a desktop support person, with some systems administration duties. In the mean time, I finished my CCNA R&S and applied to go to WGU for a BS in IT Security and was finishing up my CCNA Security. Before I started WGU and finished that CCNA, I was hired as a network engineer at a larger company in Philadelphia, which is where I am at now and have been for 19-20 months. Since starting there, I finished my BS, CCNA Security, CCNP R&S, CCDA, and 2 or 3 CompTIA certs I did not already have for WGU. My base salary mid 50s with up to 10% bonus if the company does well. I think at the time it was a very fair number as I had no network engineer experience, but they determined I was smart enough to do it and would grow. I don't think anyone expected me to accomplish all these additional certs. I don't think anyone expected me to be given the F5 load balancing project with zero load balancing knowledge and we had no F5s before anyway, so there was nothing to go off of. I don't think they expected me to mock up a big DMVPN lab to make our DMVPN environment more efficient (which, if we ever get the money for iWan, I will be rolling out the new DMVPN stuff first). I don't think they expected me to implement our first set of ASRs as CE MPLS routers.

I think you kind of get the idea here. I look back at what I knew when I was hired and it's a joke lol. There is still a ton to learn out there and my boss and the VoIP manager are pushing me to get my CCIE. I was put in a fortunate position where most of the advanced stuff you read in books, we are actually doing and I am actually allowed to do it. So I put that to use and worked extremely hard, read and labbed a ton, picked my bosses brain a million times, and here we are. I just don't know what to do right now, because my boss wants me to try to get the CCIE and I am seriously considering it. I already have a 12 device lab racked and stacked at work that I used for the CCNP and to lab up real scenarios for work as tests before going to production and can add to it. So, I definitely feel like I should stay and give it a shot, if they would pay for me to do so, which is a huge if.

I'm pretty sure I am more seasoned than most people with only 19-20 months experience, but not enough still. However, I'll say this. Yesterday, my boss was off, the engineer in another state was off, the senior guy was in another building we have in town, and that basically left just me. Well, our monitoring program out of the blue when everyone was in our weekly meeting with the CTO goes totally red. I'm actually not in the meeting despite always being there, since I was working on something else. I saw it first before anyone, and then members of other teams (like server engineering) were getting e-mails about their servers being offline, etc. Everyone exits the meeting and the CTO comes straight to my desk and wants to know what the heck is happening. No choice but to figure it out, I'm the only one there. I get into our CE MPLS routers (that I set up way earlier this year, so I am a little sketched) and see our BGP peers are fine. Routing table looks fine. Logs look fine. So our service provider account rep happens to also be there on Wednesdays, and we get him to get on the horn and find out what is going on. Quick thinking, I run a cat tools job to try to figure out what sites are down, and it ends up being about 30. We're seeing some bouncing on the circuits, and it's getting concerning now because if they would stay down, the backup circuits would route traffic at the branches and we would be fine. Since it's not all of the sites, we can't shut the BGP peers down on our CE MPLS routers (which advertise internal subnets and a default route), so my plan was to log into the DMVPN hub router and start to SSH to these sites through the backup circuit and shut their BGP peers down. Fortunately, it did not come to this. We were concerned our SP was under some sort of DDoS attack and the problems would be intermittent, but the problem (whatever it was, no RFO given yet) ended up getting resolved within 15-20 minutes and business went on as usual. But this right here was the first time I ever was put in a position like this, and I handled it great I think. At the very least, it makes me think I'm worth more (among other things) but who knows.

TL;DR - Make entry level money for a network engineer because I was entry level, gained a ton of experience, a BS in IT Security, and a ton of certifications in 20 months. Still make entry level money, but in a good position to learn and try for the CCIE, don't know if I should ask for a raise or not.

goatama

So just my $0.02 but it sounds like you don't really have any teeth in the fight. Meaning if they don't give you the raise, it doesn't sound like you're gonna leave. You're very vested in the job, nothing at all wrong with that by any means, but if your boss knows this, you won't likely get the raise. I like Hammer80's suggestion to ask them to pay you market rate at your next raise cycle. But if they don't, you need to look elsewhere if you really want to earn more. And with your qualifications you will *definitely* earn more elsewhere.

I've discovered over the years that the only sure way to get raises like that is to change jobs entirely. Most employers won't give you a raise that substantial unless you hold their feet to the fire. The most I've gotten is 17% at an employer, but I technically changed jobs there. I went from applications to hardware, same job title, but they decided to pay me what I was worth rather than the initial hiring manager who decided to pay me the minimum because it was "more than I was making" at the time. (Another reason I hate when they ask what your current salary is. Pay me what the position and my qualifications are worth or GTFO.)

hurricane1091

goatama wrote: »

So just my $0.02 but it sounds like you don't really have any teeth in the fight. Meaning if they don't give you the raise, it doesn't sound like you're gonna leave. You're very vested in the job, nothing at all wrong with that by any means, but if your boss knows this, you won't likely get the raise. I like Hammer80's suggestion to ask them to pay you market rate at your next raise cycle. But if they don't, you need to look elsewhere if you really want to earn more. And with your qualifications you will *definitely* earn more elsewhere.

I've discovered over the years that the only sure way to get raises like that is to change jobs entirely. Most employers won't give you a raise that substantial unless you hold their feet to the fire. The most I've gotten is 17% at an employer, but I technically changed jobs there. I went from applications to hardware, same job title, but they decided to pay me what I was worth rather than the initial hiring manager who decided to pay me the minimum because it was "more than I was making" at the time. (Another reason I hate when they ask what your current salary is. Pay me what the position and my qualifications are worth or GTFO.)

Thanks for your insight. My boss has said the words to me "I know you're not going to work here in a couple of years" which is an odd thing to say to someone. I think it is best just to get everything out of this job, which includes learning QoS and more firewall experience, and then bouncing. I have a brother with similar experience but not quite as good (no load balancing, no Nexus 7k, etc) and he's been offered considerably more in SC. I feel like at this point it is best to get everything I can out of it and more experience, and just go make a big leap elsewhere than some middleground leap into the unknown. I've seen first hand that this company tries to pay the least that they can because it took over a year to hire a Sr Server Engineer, because they all wanted 6 figures and that was more than the company wanted to pay. Gave up and hired a regular server engineer lol.

goatama

hurricane1091 wrote: »

Thanks for your insight. My boss has said the words to me "I know you're not going to work here in a couple of years" which is an odd thing to say to someone. I think it is best just to get everything out of this job, which includes learning QoS and more firewall experience, and then bouncing. I have a brother with similar experience but not quite as good (no load balancing, no Nexus 7k, etc) and he's been offered considerably more in SC. I feel like at this point it is best to get everything I can out of it and more experience, and just go make a big leap elsewhere than some middleground leap into the unknown. I've seen first hand that this company tries to pay the least that they can because it took over a year to hire a Sr Server Engineer, because they all wanted 6 figures and that was more than the company wanted to pay. Gave up and hired a regular server engineer lol.

Yeah, your last two sentences is probably *why* your boss said that he knows you're not going to work there in a couple of years. He knows they're not paying you what you're worth and he's just biding his time until you figure that out as well and jump ship.

koz24

goatama wrote: »

So just my $0.02 but it sounds like you don't really have any teeth in the fight. Meaning if they don't give you the raise, it doesn't sound like you're gonna leave. You're very vested in the job, nothing at all wrong with that by any means, but if your boss knows this, you won't likely get the raise. I like Hammer80's suggestion to ask them to pay you market rate at your next raise cycle. But if they don't, you need to look elsewhere if you really want to earn more. And with your qualifications you will *definitely* earn more elsewhere.

I've discovered over the years that the only sure way to get raises like that is to change jobs entirely. Most employers won't give you a raise that substantial unless you hold their feet to the fire. The most I've gotten is 17% at an employer, but I technically changed jobs there. I went from applications to hardware, same job title, but they decided to pay me what I was worth rather than the initial hiring manager who decided to pay me the minimum because it was "more than I was making" at the time. (Another reason I hate when they ask what your current salary is. Pay me what the position and my qualifications are worth or GTFO.)

This will be illegal in Massachusetts on July 1 2018. That is they won't be able to ask for your salary history by law. Hoping other states follow but I'll take it. Before I used to just flat out state "I'm not willing to provide my salary history because those salaries were negotiated with different companies for different roles and I had different skill-sets at those times". Something like that. Sometimes they will keep pressing but you jus have to stand your ground and refuse to provide. Really what they're looking for is a way to rip you off. So if you're underpaid, for whatever reason(discrimination, bad negotiation, etc), always refuse to provide salary information because you never know what their budget for the position is and you don't want to be locked in to a never-ending underpaid nightmare.

It's fine for them to ask for a ballpark desired salary, sure. That's where you just have to do some research and give them a number you'd be happy with. I know some people try to dance around this question with things like " Oh well, I'm sure you'll pay me fair market share" or something. It doesn't work with everyone. Some places won't take the process further till they have a ballpark, so the research is critical.

koz24

hurricane1091 wrote: »

Thanks for your insight. My boss has said the words to me "I know you're not going to work here in a couple of years" which is an odd thing to say to someone. I think it is best just to get everything out of this job, which includes learning QoS and more firewall experience, and then bouncing. I have a brother with similar experience but not quite as good (no load balancing, no Nexus 7k, etc) and he's been offered considerably more in SC. I feel like at this point it is best to get everything I can out of it and more experience, and just go make a big leap elsewhere than some middleground leap into the unknown. I've seen first hand that this company tries to pay the least that they can because it took over a year to hire a Sr Server Engineer, because they all wanted 6 figures and that was more than the company wanted to pay. Gave up and hired a regular server engineer lol.

Sounds like this company you work for is cheap as hell. And a little foolish. It will cost them more money to hire on someone with a CCNP and experience than to give you a raise. Or they'll hire a CCNA with no experience who doesn't know their environment for $60k. You are grossly underpaid, by the way. What are you still doing there? I'd be aggressively applying for jobs if I was in your shoes. You can learn QoS on your own, you don't need them. And as mentioned above in a previous post, if you are making $60k as a CCNP with experience, absolutely refuse to provide your salary if they ask.

hurricane1091

Well, our benefits are terrible and our 401k match is 1 percent. It is what it is lol. Like I wrote out, I only started here 19 months ago or so. I gained my BS, CCDA, and CCNP after I started. So at the time, it was a miracle to just get the job without experience. Today yes, it now sucks to still be on the same salary. I do not need to stay any longer and could probably leave for more money, but there's a couple of things I want to know like QoS before going elsewhere. I don't want to have any question marks when I apply for another position which probably will be within a year. I think I'll be able to maximize my salary that way.

You guys are right and I am definitely aware. I'm just going to further develop my skills and get out within a year. It sucks because I'm aware of the job hopping nature in IT, I've already had three jobs. It sucks because the person I replaced was a sr network engineer. Is it possible to leverage that somehow and get a raise in the mean time? Not some cost of living garbage raise but something significant lol.

pinkydapimp

Networkguy86 wrote: »

So I'm currently looking to ask for a raise at my job but looking for some validation To make sure I'm not out of line in my thinking.

Background: I have 6 years experience in IT and have been working for my current company for just under 3 years. I started as general support but was promoted network administrator a year ago. I'm currently the only network guy managing a network of over 100 remote sites on an mpls, including voip phones, our corporate office, and all the things in between such as user and site vpn connections. I'm also currently redesigning our entire network to save us a lot of money

At first we had a contracted engineer to help out but they let him go a few months ago. When I received the promotion I received 10% salary increase and now make 64k.

I would like to make 75-80k, does anyone think a raise of this magnitude be out of the question?

In the past year I've also earned my ccna security and ccnp:rs.

Honestly, you got a 10% raise and promotion in march. I think its going to be difficult to get another at the same company. And this is similar in most places. If you can wait a year then build your case and ask for it then fine. but i think at this point it may be time to move on. With your skill set you should be able to make a larger jump and can learn more skills.

EANx

Th biggest key to getting a raise has little to do with certifications. Certs are helpful for getting a job and for giving you a study plan for self-improvement but any manager worth his salt knows most of those can be braindumped. Instead, you need to show your value to the organization. On X occasion, I did 123 which saved us buku-bucks. On Y occasion, I did 789 which improved overall user effectiveness by Z%. Show a manager you're either saving them money or improving their bottom-line and they're far more likely to share some of that.

pinkydapimp

Understand, its not that your manager doesnt want to give you a raise. But they have a budget they are working with and they need to get as much out of it as possible. Chances are, for them to go to bat for someone to give a significant raise means they need a strong case. Most managers simply dont want to do this. others may try but without a good case will get shot down. And really, if HR feels that they can get the same skillset for less, then they may not either. These decisions may have to go up the chain. So just understand when you are making these requests, you should really have a good reason for that raise because for them to subvert their normal process you better be an outstanding asset to the team and have clear evidence of why you need it and cant be replaced.

Mitechniq

I would like to follow what EANx said:

We tend to forget that most IT departments are an operational cost to the company, they see it as a necessary debt that must be taken to keep the business running. That is why the rapid change to Cloud and DevOps, the same developer who creates the 'profitable' application can now code his infrastructure. The point is they hired you with a set of skills, education, and certifications. Unless your new certifications were mandatory or move the business in a gold partnership, I do not see it being a valid argument. I learned this the hard way several years ago; you have to prove business enablement, cost reduction, and automation which saved the company time and effort. If you can show these on a consistent basis, then you have an argument.

We tend to discuss the companies that do not value their employees by providing any pay raises or a chance to move upward in the company. This is not the case with you as they have done both just recently,

OctalDump

I think you need to know your own value. You need to know that if your current employer can't/won't give you the raise you deserve, then the market can. Because ultimately, that is the worst case position: you ask for a raise, they don't give it to you and get nervous that you will leave so look to replace you before you jump ship. Sometimes the answer to a raise is "we agree that you are good, but we can't do it now, we think you should look elsewhere".

If you do know your value, and can articulate it well, then it also makes it easier for them to give you what you deserve. If you can demonstrate your value to the business, the money you make them (or save them, which is really the same thing), then you are far more likely to have success in any negotiation. It also means that if you need to find a new position you will be able to articulate the kind of value you can bring to a new employer.

This value isn't about "I have these degrees, these certifications, this knowledge", it's about "I can do this for the business. I can reduce your security risk. I can reduce your operational costs. I can increase our productivity. I can reduce our downtime. I can increase availability. I can help bring this new service online with will do *this* for the business."

TeKniques

I think you should look for a new job rather than ask for a raise. There are several negative things that can come about from asking for a raise, especially since you just got an increase in March. Your situation is common when starting out in an entry level position and moving up in the same company. In most cases, getting a significant pay bump comes with changing jobs. OctalDump is right, you need to know your market value and the best way to do that is to apply for jobs, get interviews, and ultimately get some offers.

Good luck.

mudflaps

Start applying elsewhere. If you get another offer it gives you mega leverage especially for a large percentage bump. Otherwise your company is likely to say "no".