This worked for my sister in law and her coworkers. They had all chatted about this together and separately brought up cases (did a market comparison for their respective positions that showed they were underpaid) to their leaders, and they all got compensation adjustments. Their company cared about talent and were able to adjust the budget. I tried this at my company and did not receive an adjustment. In addition to the market comparison, I had also set, met, and exceeded the goals with my boss. So, I looked for another position and got a pay increase elsewhere. This briefcase approach is perfect even if you don't get the raise at that company. Why? Because you’ve learned how to effectively communicate your desires and show your work ethic. It won't always work for a pay increase AT THAT company. Ramit knows that. You are building the muscle of how to be a valuable employee and you give your employer a chance to treat you right. And if they don't, you're out of there because you've now established your value and know what you're worth.
I work with survivors of DV which includes financial abuse nine times out of ten. I teach the women that they should treat jobs AND partners this way, even in a nonabusive situation. If someone can't meet the basic things you want, renegotiate and if they can't keep their side of the agreement, there is someone else who can out there. and unlike jobs where you have to have one, you don't have to be in a relationship and ironically you can up your income when you are single and focused lol. not to mention over 50% of gaslight victims and workplace bullying victims are also women
Notice how many comments here begin with "This won't work for me because ____" Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But if you approach any strategy with all the reasons it won't work, you can be sure it won't. Anyone who gets a substantial raise starts with this phrase: "If it worked for others, maybe it can work for me."
I did something similar. Didn't have a meeting to discuss it beforehand, but at a regular check-in with my boss I brought evidence of my work over the past 6 months and how I was working at a higher level than what I was hired to do, as well as market research. Ended up with a title change and a 15% raise without changing a single thing I was doing.
Work for a larger company. I have never really asked for a raise or promotion, but I still got them way faster than others. It really comes down to how well you sell the value you provide to where you are hard to replace.
If you don't get right level of raise or promotion in large company, go for sideways move in that company instead of promotion. If you are good at what you do and are a top performer, your work will be missed & if your old management has any sense, they will be motivated to bring you back with a raise/promotion. This worked for me in a roundabout way. Else move to another company.
My company has a long annual review process that’s actually pretty similar to these steps. I got a promotion and $15k raise last year and getting a 10% raise this year. It definitely helps to have bosses and leadership actually value the work of their employees and willing to invest in a system that makes it easier to have these kinds of conversations. Plus my state has salary transparency laws, so at least I know where I stand with my compensation in general.
I tried this one time before I knew the name. I could not get a raise but I got 2 free trainings worth off €2000,- and the lessons always stuck with me still helping me out.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The most reliable way to get a raise is to shop around and change companies if you get an offer that meets or exceeds your expectations. You can be the top performer and lay out all the reasons why your compensation should be increased and they can still say no. Happens all the time.
I negotiated for my desired salary and extened vacation time when I was selected for a job. Management approved both. Some of the old timers were pissed that I had more time off then they did. Anyway, retired early and I am living my best life. Automated deductions from paycheck to 401k. That's what I did so I could live my best life.
Last year I tried to negotiate my salary with some techniques you mentioned. Since our company has to cut costs and save money, it unfortunately wasn't possible to get a pay rise. However, I got 4 days more vacation. Not so bad, I would say.
I've done this sort of thing twice, and both times got significant increases and promotions equal or better than job hopping to another employer. Some of the stated goals included specific training, specific results, specific certifications.
Yes, you can often negotiate by going to a different company. But if you enjoy your company, it would be foolish to leave without negotiating before you leave. This is a skill to develop, not to run away from.
@@ramitsethi I (and the clients I work with) often find that only the threat of resignation motivates employers to pay more. Doing an incredible job? Thank you but we just can't afford to pay more right now. Got a better offer elsewhere? Suddenly the money appears.
@@ramitsethi Most companies already set annual performance KPIs. It's a system designed to provide the top performers with a COL increase and scare the underperformers with threats of PIP. The "skill" you're proposing here is to brown nose for 6 months and hopefully get a financial return for the self abasement. Jumping companies is a significantly lower effort and more secure means of achieving the same financial ends. Love your content btw.
Jumping companies is definitely an easier method for increasing your income, if the market is hot for employees. This doesn't work during a downturn. During a downturn this skill helps you out more than job hopping. Also, if you do develop this skill set, you give your resume a boost while looking for a new job because you can say that you take the initiative to improve KPIs. @@dnjinrok
@@kevinShau2023 If you were able to get a better job outside your company easily it was because you were a top performer at your other company. Combining both job hopping with this method enables you to have a bidding war once you ask for a promotion, and it enables you to have a stellar resume while looking for a new job. But you need to have this skill in order to maximize job hopping.
The best is to get a job offer elsewhere. I got a $20k+ raise this year by being offered a kick ass job elsewhere. He really didn't want to lose me. And I do like my workplace, but I was willing to leave for this other opportunity. Now I get to stay and I've improved my finances tremendously.
I attempted this last year. All year tracking my numbers. Every quarter going over my numbers, being a lead in a few projects. But come this year review, they said it wasn’t in the budget this year with all the recent cuts and freezes there’s been in the company. I had the smallest increase I’ve had in the last 4 years in this department. I’m still working with her for the 2025 review but maybe need to look elsewhere for a new role or new company.
I can't find the other video anymore.... but i followed your advice on negotiating a lower auto insurance premium, and it worked! I ended up having to adjust my coverage but then some magic happened behind the scene and my new premium is almost ~$300 lower than my initial statement!
In sales you can’t complain you are being underpaid oftentimes because you write your own check even if you get a base pay. They will you use your uncapped commission rate as an excuse to not increase your wages. I’m going to try your techniques (most of them) in my sales career. I will let you know if I get a raise this year
In the last 15 years, I have received 2 what i would call substantial pay increases (over 8-10%). One was directly asking for a raise during the mid-year review with supporting documents and market research in hand. The second, which was a bigger raise in comparison, was to change jobs. Can a raise be negotiated, yes. In this market, is getting a raise from changing jobs the more reliable route, probably. In my experience, STEM fields.
My union just helped us get a raise of a little over 10k per year about a week ago. Yeah, it's great to negotiate on your own, but if you can, join a union, too.
unions are extremely rare unless its a trades job. I been in unions before, they are awesome. collective bargaining for the win. i work in the weed industry and its not even federally legal yet lol. I can not even get direct deposit. that said I am on ramits money system and absolutely killing it on low salary lol
Please enlighten us with which cooperation you have worked where this has worked? If you don't know how to be a top performer you either work in the wrong company or you have no clue about your job.
This seems to apply more for salary jobs. Im an RN that gets paid hourly these rules won't work. They have a legit algorithm to calculate hourly rate and won't budge on it. Yearly we have a review and you can get "meets expectations" and get a small percentage raise or "exceeds expectations" and maybe get a dollar an HR more.
Same. I'm a medical lab tech with an hourly rate and our company gives us percentage annual raises (my last raise was $0.60 per hour). But you don't get into the medical field for the money, right?
@esrdwarrior4286 exactly. My organization made changes a few years ago to make it overall much more fair based on previous experience, and seniority within the institution. Before that there were definitely variations in rates. People who had lower rates got a raise to match the algorithm. Retention is rough in the medical field.
@@stephaniemejia4324 Yes, turnover is always high, but that benefits the people that stick around for years, because particularly in the lab world, highly experienced techs are valuable and have room for career growth into tech specialists, technical supervisors, and lab managers. I used to work as an ER tech so I know that nurses are also valued for their skills, so retention is always a goal for any good healthcare organization.
This is not applicable for companies that give fixed percentage raises per year. For instance, I have worked in the medical field for many years, and I cannot just go in and negotiate a raise, because my job has a fixed yearly increase. I would have to move to a new job, but when all jobs in your particular field pay about the same, there is no point moving because all I will be doing is giving up seniority, all of the step increases I have earned, and having to start over at a new facility. Not worth it.
@@anastasiarenaud2568 Then raises don’t occur in nursing. We get a performance review then “meets” or “exceeds” expectations. Our pay increases are based on that. They are never more than 3 or 4%. I had to change companies to get a $10/hr increase doing an easier job. My current employer would have NEVER agreed to that.
I used this to get a salary change from 60 -> 80k as well as increased equity in the company. It does work. My only question is how often can you do this? Surely you can't do this every year? or can you?
Sure, it's worth a try. At big companies, the manager isn't the one who decides whether you get a raise or not. They can fight for you with their superior, but it has to go through many rounds of reviews and usually raises are given at specific times of the year. It can take years. There are also teams that say whether or not you're properly paid, and you can choose to stay or leave. But at least you know when you leave it's for the best and you exhausted all your options
I wouldn’t even say my employer is that large, but we have a very robust HR and compensation department that are the fifth level of review for promotions. I’m currently undergoing this process and am very cautiously optimistic.
Ramit, how would you negotiate as a new young physician at a large academic medical center where everything is standardized on a payscale based on your professorship status? I know private will pay more but the day to day is different. I also know I am bringing value well beyond others with my experience level.
How will this work if my boss doesn't have any influence on my salary (I think?) Working for a large corporate company I assume compensation should be discussed with HR.
How do you suggest negotiating a salary when working as a state employee? There is a tiered pay structure that each job title has and from what I've been told, there is no negotiation.
for what it's worth, i have a friend who jumped tiers from one job to another. he leapfrogged over people who were working there longer than him. so you may want to see what opportunities there are for jumping tiers when an opening in your agency/sister agency/similar industry agency comes up. so, he didn't do it in his existing role, but similar to what ramit said, my friend was a top performer at the time he jumped so he was able to transition to the higher tier to start in the new position (negotiated upon interview)
This is solid advice and it should work in many cases, IF people have the ability to do it... if they have the executive functioning to make it happen, if they aren't fearful of being fired for trying to negotiate, if they have time on the clock to work on it or few enough demands on their time outside of work that they have time to think this through and practice... It is an individual solution to a collective problem. I'd rather do some collective bargaining along with my coworkers instead. I hate that everyone is somehow expected to know this "game" going on behind the scenes without being taught about it and people are compensated unfairly without realizing it. By definition everyone cannot be exceptional, only a few can, that's what exceptional means.
This can work but what if you cant define your job enough because you generlise your skills within a field. Wearing multiple hats. How do you define yourself to be able to find the market value of what you do?
We recently had our annual review and we'll be discussing merit raises in the coming weeks, would that be a good time to negotiate based of my recent performance review?
Most large companies do not have option to renegotiate salary.....those days are going, going, gone. Ramit, curious when was the last time you worked for an employer?
Ramit has never worked in a health care system. Our salaries are capped and there is no negotiating once you have the job. The only way to get more $ is to leave and work for a competitor.
This is great if you work for a private company. But if you work for the state (me) or fed gov, there are tiers and you get a raise based on getting to the next tier. If there's no opening, you have to wait and keep applying when a higher tier job opens up.
Dear Ramit, I love your content! This is great advice and I'm thankful to you for providing us with specifics, even including the words to use in an email. On a slightly different note, as a person from Europe, some of your amazing content is not exactly applicable to me, do you think you can do something for us, at the Old Continent? Maybe a tailored course or a few videos about viable ways to invest as an EU citizen? If you don't have this specific knowledge, that's okay, of course, just trying my luck :)
This is good but naive. Salary control has taken over. Companies have a million rules to make you do more with no compensation and no intent for more compensation
I work for a large global company and my previous employer was the same. They have company wide rules that the top performers cannot get more than a 5% increase from year to year. Only Enterprise level leadership are eligible for bonuses. And the maximum you can get for a job promotion where you are moving to the next level is an 8% increase. That is pretty standard with big companies and jobs in the STEM fields.
I'm not sure I'd agree that's standard for STEM fields, which generally pay very, very well. If your company has the 5% limit, I would ask how negotiable that is, and if it's not (and a high salary is important), I would consider leaving.
Outside of Software, it's actually quite common I've found. Maybe not for sales, but any of the technical positions are quite tightly capped both for annual increases and overall salary caps. This may not be the case once you've moved up to management (say director level and above).
@@FalknerBlitz00 true, but soft skills can still get you a nice chunk extra. Especially if you get assigned to high visibility projects (assuming you do a great job).
It definitely can be the case but in my experience, I've found sales and management to get the rewards for large projects...not so much the technical group. I've even had management tell me that big projects are tracked for the sales group rather than engineering...even though it was part of our KPIs also. It may be a bit of jaded feelings coming through but what I've found is employers are happy to get the extra effort out of you but get real quiet when it's time to recognize those efforts (monetary).
@@FalknerBlitz00 No doubt. I'm OPS not DEV, but end up having to help clients as well. The bonuses for making big clients happy can be nice. (off course as a percent of the size of the client it is pitiful!)
There is the drawback of this…you will always required to be a top performer(which sometimes requires after hours work to get jobs done ) and it’s difficult to keep up with it. Balance their expectations too
This is outdated advice but I normally love your content. I've done this sort of thing before and I literally got the worst raise out of all my coworkers. So I left and now I'm paid way more.
Issue is most of the people who watch these tactics are the bottom 80% of performers and always expect the top 5% of pay. See this all the time in hiring as some average skills or revenue #s and they want what the guy at the top makes it's a laugh.
This take is pretty cringey, you can say this about any degree. A degree is not what makes you an expert at something, and no reasonable person believes that it’s anything more than a set of baseline foundations. Experience makes you an expert.
