Making the Case for Revising Your Job Description & Asking For More Money

Let's get pumped to ask for more money that's rightly deserved! Here's the deal. If you're constantly going above and beyond your job, doing it diligently, doing it exceptionally well and continually getting shafted in the pay department, it's time to do something about it. One option is to always look externally but if you like the company and see growth potential, Plan A consists of methodically creating your own promotion. (And if leadership isn't keen on it, well then you pretty much know they don't recognize your service and it's time to work for someone who does.) For starters, pull out that job description from when you were initially hired. Create a new one of your daily responsibilities and projects. How do they contrast? Highlight the differences. If you're an editorial assistant, for example, and you're managing a group of interns, chances are that wasn't on your original job description since it's higher than typical entry-level responsibilities. Ask your supervisor for a meeting in order to outline the before and after versions of your current job. As recommended by Salary, show the differences. You don't even need to mention money at first. Instead, you can honestly couch it as an opportunity to talk about your ever-changing role and how you want to be clear about your responsibilities going forward. Money aside, we should all do this to ensure we're on point with our responsibilities. Sometimes your boss may not even know exactly what you're working on (i.e., someone else is dumping on you) or what skills you're developing. Prior to the meeting and assuming by now you've outlined your new responsibilities, find out the going rate for the role you're currently doing. As you speak with your boss to discuss and confirm the new job description going forward, mention that your salary is based on the old job description and not currently correlated to the responsibilities you've been doing. Here's the kicker: it's time to ask for more money! You should at least be in the midpoint of the range for your role or at least have the ability to negotiate to get in the range. As for the range, you may be wondering -- some companies are pretty transparent about the pay grades and ranges for each one though they get a little shady when pay grades overlap. For instance, the highest level assistant could overlap with salaries of the lowest end of the band for the next level up. So, you may only get a slight bump, if anything. The point is, through the process you're valuing your worth. You're taking time to outline your responsibilities, speak with your boss, ask for more money and detach from the outcome. And if the outcome is less than desired, hey, at least you have the nifty job description readily available to update your resume and look elsewhere.

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Making the Case for Revising Your Job Description & Asking For More Money

Vicki Salemi

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Vicki Salemi