Category: Career, job, and business ideas or advice
Should I be asking for more money? Serious question need advice.
Ok. Heres the background on this job, which will lead to my question.
I've only been working at this company for a short while. They are a pretty small company but make a lot of money and are located in a great area.
I started work here about four months ago and since then have..
Completely redesigned their internal webserver with custom login and fresh database (along with a javascript menu).
Created a newsletter in HTML to be sent out via E-MAIL.
Completely redesigned their website, scrapped the old one. Made it in PHP and CSS, also developed flash banners and headers (and other projects as far as marketing goes).
Completed SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and got their site ranked #1 on GOOGLE, YAHOO, and MSN. (Before I began they were on Page 7 of GOOGLE).
Am currently designing a new website for them to integrate with their old one. It will consist of a MySQL Database integrated with PHP. The website itself (design wise) will be full-blown CSS.
I am currently getting paid hourly and a lot of my friends at other workplaces have told me that I should be getting paid a lot more. What should my payrange be for these types of services. The only problem is that I am only an intern doing this type of work yet there is noone above me, I am the only one in the company capable of doing webmanagement/design. (I worked full-time but am now part-time).
Thanks a lot for any replies.
Based on what you say you've done, I'd ballpark you should be making between $45,000 and $60,000 USD (if you're in the US, which I'm assuming).
You've got some pretty good things to show them when asking for a raise. You've increased search ranking, which should increase traffic, which from a marketing perspective should be worth something. If you're an e-commerce site, then I would imagine that you can probably point to a hard number increase in revenue.
The CSS redesign should have a positive ROI going forward, so you can emphasize that. The new database and PHP programming would run between $50 and $150 / hour to hire a contractor, so you've saved money there.
I'd go and ask for a raise. I think you probably deserve it. Of course, if you work for the government or a non-profit, then all bets are off ;)
Why are you a part-time intern with no one above you? How long is your contract for? Instead of just asking for a raise, you might want to express your desire to become more involved in the company and would like to renegotiate your contract to take on more responsibility so can effect more progress and positive change in the company. Go from part-time intern to part-time consultant or full-time consultant or even get a salary.
A lot of it is a game. How much were you making before? If you're already working for them, don't expect more than a 15% raise. If you want more than that, you're going to have a better chance by changing companies. The only way you would get more than 15% is if they NEED you and you tell them you're considering leaving, but don't play with that! If you tell them you're going to leave, you better be looking for other jobs or have others lined up. I've changed jobs twice now. The first change was a 25% increase in salary, the second one was 30%. The only reason I could get those raises was because I told a new company that's what I wanted. I could never have gotten that by sticking with the same company.
Good luck. And ask on Monster's forums, they got a lot more knowedge about this stuff there.
45-60k sounds a bit agressive - The market is flooded with people who can do the same type of work (and are) for far less.
Key questions to ask yourself when you're feeling under valued at the work place are:
1. Why did I take this job?
2. Am I doing more than expected? (You would have a hard time convincing me to give you a raise if you were only doing what you were hired to do in the first place).
3. Am I happy?
4. Would I rather lay in bed or get up and go to work?
I think you've already answered the third though. People who are happy at their workplace dont typically question their compensation - at least not at this level of employment. Also, being an intern, you pretty much know what you're getting out of this job: experience.
The best thing you can do to increase your worth in the company is to do more than is expected, always ask for more work, come up with creative concepts and the means to impliment them and be an overall nice person to work with. All the previously mentioned things do get noticed by employers and are bound to get you to where you wish you were quicker than whining about needing a raise to co-workers.
On the flip side, you could always freelance - that is, if you're as capable as you say you should have no problem finding work ;).
Are you sill an intern and employed with this company? If you have put up this kind of performance for the duration of time since you first posted this, you should be commanding a pretty good salary. The IT job market is strong, despite all the problems in other industries. Go for the gold and ask for a raise. Let us know how you are doing.
Are you sill an intern and employed with this company? If you have put up this kind of performance for the duration of time since you first posted this, you should be commanding a pretty good salary. The IT job market is strong, despite all the problems in other industries. Go for the gold and ask for a raise. Let us know how you are doing.
this thread is from 2006, :)