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How should I properly approach my boss if I'm feeling underpaid?

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I joined a new company in the beginning of 2015 at grade 5 (though the salary difference wasn't that much more than the previous employer), I tried to negotiate but they said that the offer is final so I decided to take the offer since the job is interesting and more into my field. I already started and after 2 weeks I was frustrated when I saw their old internal job postings and discovered that they have posted this job for a grade higher than what they offered me.

Should I discuss this with my manager now or in the yearly review?

@gnat I think the two questions are different enough to be only related. The OP here joined less then a month ago (at the date of this comment posting), while in the question you linked the poster had two years on the job. — Jan 20 '15 at 16:56
I'm understanding "internal job posting" as "this is what we're offering people who already work for us". To me at least, it would make perfect sense to pay someone a grade higher who already is familiar with the company, whatever they do, whoever they deal with, etc. — Jan 20 '15 at 20:27

Wesley Long 44.7k15100159 · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-19 17:33:59Z

You should not be upset, and you should not discuss it.

You accepted the offer. The negotiations are concluded. If you didn't feel that the offer they gave you was adequate, you should not have accepted it.

What was done previously within the company before you talked with them is completely irrelevant.

As it is, now, you have two options:

Look for another position somewhere else that makes you an offer you feel is adequate.

Do the best possible job you can and make it clear to your manager you wish to be considered for any promotions or position upgrade opportunities that arise.

If you come to your manager with this question in the tone you phrased it, the only thing you will convince him of is that you do not keep your word.

Thank you Mr. @Wesley . I knew I would find the answer in this great website. I will follow point 2 for sure and I will prove to them that I really deserve to be on the top. Thank you again :) — Jan 19 '15 at 18:09
The negotiation is never really concluded, it's a given assumption that salary will change and that equal responsibilities should have similar salaries. If this is not the case, asking for a raise is perfectly acceptable. — Jan 20 '15 at 1:37
@Sklivvz - Really? 2 weeks in and you're going to ask to renegotiate. I wish you the best of luck. — Jan 20 '15 at 2:51
You can ask why... That's a form of negotiation which you can use 2 weeks in. Or you can wait a few months. Still better than looking for another job 2 weeks in, which you suggested. — Jan 20 '15 at 2:54
-1: For something so upvoted, this isn't great advice; "bury your frustrations rather than communicating them to your manager" is how trivially solveable problems remain unsolved. What are you worried about, that your manager will go "What kind of employee is seeking promotion? A slacker, that's who!"? — Jan 20 '15 at 11:45

Kate Gregory 105k40230332 · Answer 2 · 2015-01-19 18:14:37Z

What may well have happened is this:

company posts the job internally needing requirements A, B, and C and paying X

no suitable internal candidates apply

company posts the job externally, doesn't specify a salary but is still thinking X

you apply. You don't quite meet the requirements (maybe they want Strong A and you're more a Medium A person, or they wanted some D even though they didn't put it in the job requirements, and you don't have D)

they decide you're the best applicant they've seen, even though you're missing a small requirement, so they make you an offer for less than they had planned. You take it. That's that.

It's possible they decided you were perfectly qualified and deserved X, but they tried hiring you for less and it worked. That's that.

At no point should you try to get this "fixed". You like the job and you took it. Knowing what it was once offered for changes nothing. You have perhaps learned that you're not a good negotiator, or that you're not quite as perfectly qualified for this job as you thought you were. Try not to let this knowledge get you down. You were hired, after all, and you like your job.

That said, if you'd like to make more, going to your boss and asking "what skill do I have to develop in order to start making more money?" is never a bad thing. Don't make a meeting for no other purpose, just ask your manager some time. If you manager says "wait until your review and we'll talk about it then" you will have to accept that, though you may not like it.

Thank you Kate, you are true about the fact that I really have to improve my negotiations skills. I appreciate your response. Thanks again! — Jan 19 '15 at 18:20
The last point is good advice, but I'd definitely wait for more than two weeks on the job before asking that question, lest you appear dissatisfied. — Jan 19 '15 at 20:17
And so what? It's standard industry practice to post white-knight job descriptions which cannot be satisfied, not even by someone at twice the salary, even if they could be found. Recruiters can then use this as fake leverage in compensation negotiations. Remember: you can't lie about your qualifications and experience, but the employer (and recruiter) can totally lie about the job requirements. Or recycle generic, outdated or nonexistent job listings. — Jan 19 '15 at 20:50
@smci I'm not sure how these comments address the question or the answer. Are you telling the OP that the internal posting is not particularly reliable information and to be content with the current salary? — Jan 19 '15 at 21:37
@ÃÂ ÃÂ¡ÃÂ¢ÃˆÂ¢Ã‘Â¸ÃÂ¤ÃÂ¥Ã‘Â¾ÃÂ¦ÃÂ§ÃÂ¨ÃÂ©ÃÂªÃÂ«ÃÂ¬Ã‘Â¢Ã‘Â¤ÃÂ®Ã‘Â¦Ã‘ÂªÃ‘Â¨Ã‘Â¬Ã‘Â Ã‘ÂºÃ‘Â®Ã‘Â°Ã‘Â²Ã‘Â´ but that's exactly what OP says: it was posted at a higher grade than what the OP is receiving — Jan 20 '15 at 14:03

Michael Thorpe 22814 · Answer 3 · 2015-01-19 19:25:52Z

One thing which hasn't been pointed is out is that an internal person will probably already have familiarity with some of the things you'll encountered on the job - saving them training time and effort.

If it takes you (probably underestimating here) 2 months to get properly integrated into the environment at the company and find your feet, but an internal person say just 1 month, that's probably quite a bit of extra working time this hypothetical internal person could do.

This doesn't even consider the fact you might need to have a supervisor who will help you with tasks etc that the internal person wouldn't need to ask.

score 6 · Answer 4 · 2015-01-20 14:48:04Z

Should I discuss this with my manager now or in the yearly review?

Bring it up now.

Anything that bothers you that much should be brought up with your manager reasonably quickly. Waiting until your yearly review would push the issue too far out - perhaps so far that the details have been forgotten. In addition, if it bothers you this much, there's no sense in letting it fester for months.

If you have a regular one-on-one meeting with your manager, that would be an appropriate time for this discussion.

If not, just say something on the order of "Hey boss. Do you have a few minutes to chat? I have something that's bothering me that I'd like to discuss."

During your conversation, try to stick to the issue that bothers you. In your case, it sounds like you are bothered by the fact that the position was initially targeted at one grade higher than you chose to accept.

Remember that there might be many reasons why this happened. It's possible that they re-graded the position before you were interviewed. It's possible that they thought they needed someone with more experience and abilities than you currently possess, but that they view you as capable of eventually getting to that level. Also remember that you accepted your current compensation, and presumably were content until you happened to see the old internal job posting.

Try to go in with the attitude that you just want to understand what happened, rather than just "I'm frustrated". After all, you did accept the offer for several reasons.

And try to be clear in your own head now what you hope to accomplish from your discussion with your manager. It's unlikely you'll be bumped up a grade just because you became frustrated - that's not likely to be a reasonable expectation.

Mike S 1585 · Answer 5 · 2015-01-20 05:12:25Z

While it's true that the negotiations have concluded, you are always free to challenge what happened, based on what you now know. Your boss is free to think of you negatively as a result (which may or may not happen). It's a risk. Assuming you work in a larger company, you'd put him/her in a difficult position by pushing for something that they probably won't be able to deliver; after all, what's done is done. Large companies are notoriously bureaucratic and systematic (which is not necessarily a bad thing). So I don't think you'd be successful if you were aggressive about the situation.

But the news is not all bad. You now have knowledge, and knowledge is power.

I once had a job where I discovered that my underling was making more money than me. This angered me to no end. Once I relaxed, I strategized: Ok, said I, now that I know what the company is thinking (ie, "The position is worth at least $X"), I have to squeeze the cash out of them but proving that I am underpaid and deserving of a raise. So I went out to job sites and so on and created/documented my case. It was a lot of work, but in the end I went to my boss and very nicely said, "Boy working here is great but I think I'm not up to industry standards, and here's why..." He went and got me a mid-year salary increase which was highly unusual.

So, the moral is: Prove your worth, prove you're worth it, and hope for the best. If it doesn't turn out, ask the Market for its opinion (ie, look for another position for more money).

HLGEM 133k25226489 · Answer 6 · 2015-01-20 16:54:15Z

Instead of a negative, look at this as a positive. It means there is room for growth once you prove yourself.

There could be many reasons why the salary offered to you is lower - they are taking a bigger chance on you coming from the outside. But the reason is irrelevant really.

However, now that you know they view the job as a higher level job, you can use that knowledge to ask for the promotion once you have proven yourself. You don't need to wait until performance apprasials are done, but you do need to wait until you have some solid accomplishments at this job under your belt.

No manager anywhere is going to give a pay raise to someone they have just hired. It is a perceptual negative to ask at this point. By this I mean the manager will think less of you and will be far less likely to give you the money and will be more likely to give greater weight your errors if you ask now. It is a lose-lose situation for you to ask until you have proven to be valuable.

However, once you are valuable, you know they have already determined that this job can pay more. So if you do a good job of showing your manager that you are a valuable team member who is contributing beyond your current grade level, there is a good chance of getting that promotion.

grasshopper 799613 · Answer 7 · 2015-01-20 12:16:00Z

Depends on your personality. If you are the type of person who will not let this go, boiling inside for a year and waiting for the yearly review to "prove" yourself is not going to be good for you. Let's fast-forward one year from now, best case scenario:

Say you were excellent, worked overtime, achieved results and you ask for a raise. Because of how companies work, the raise you can realistically ask for may be less than the difference between the higher paygrade. Also, if they don't give you the raise, what can you do? You already did the work. You can only threaten to go or just go or accept it.

The time an employee is most powerful in the negotiations is when they haven't accepted the offer yet. You didn't have enough information to counter their offer and they got you to accept it. This doesn't bode well for your next performance review - maybe they will see that you have done commendable work but still give you less than they could/should, just because they can. I think, instead of putting in long hours to "prove" your worth, you start looking elsewhere. Put the long hours into becoming a better negotiator instead, because you probably didn't do as good job as you could have in that matter. You switched positions and accepted a job with a very small salary difference - most people switch up. They probably fed you the "the job is so interesting!" line too to get you to accept their offer.

Working for a year feeling underpaid and hoping that after that it will all be fixed is not a good strategy. You put effort into an organization that tricked you in the hopes that you will be so good they can't trick you anymore. If you feel you are worth more and they tricked you, you need to either let go of the feeling and appreciate the good parts about your current situation or let go of the job.

PS: I assumed that the OP was offered a low-ball offer intentionally in my answer. There are other good answers who explain why this may not be the case.

Source: Personal experience, Books on negotiation

Wesley Long 44.7k15100159 · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-19 17:33:59Z

You should not be upset, and you should not discuss it.

You accepted the offer. The negotiations are concluded. If you didn't feel that the offer they gave you was adequate, you should not have accepted it.

What was done previously within the company before you talked with them is completely irrelevant.

As it is, now, you have two options:

Look for another position somewhere else that makes you an offer you feel is adequate.

Do the best possible job you can and make it clear to your manager you wish to be considered for any promotions or position upgrade opportunities that arise.

If you come to your manager with this question in the tone you phrased it, the only thing you will convince him of is that you do not keep your word.

Thank you Mr. @Wesley . I knew I would find the answer in this great website. I will follow point 2 for sure and I will prove to them that I really deserve to be on the top. Thank you again :) — Jan 19 '15 at 18:09
The negotiation is never really concluded, it's a given assumption that salary will change and that equal responsibilities should have similar salaries. If this is not the case, asking for a raise is perfectly acceptable. — Jan 20 '15 at 1:37
@Sklivvz - Really? 2 weeks in and you're going to ask to renegotiate. I wish you the best of luck. — Jan 20 '15 at 2:51
You can ask why... That's a form of negotiation which you can use 2 weeks in. Or you can wait a few months. Still better than looking for another job 2 weeks in, which you suggested. — Jan 20 '15 at 2:54
-1: For something so upvoted, this isn't great advice; "bury your frustrations rather than communicating them to your manager" is how trivially solveable problems remain unsolved. What are you worried about, that your manager will go "What kind of employee is seeking promotion? A slacker, that's who!"? — Jan 20 '15 at 11:45

Kate Gregory 105k40230332 · Answer 9 · 2015-01-19 18:14:37Z

What may well have happened is this:

company posts the job internally needing requirements A, B, and C and paying X

no suitable internal candidates apply

company posts the job externally, doesn't specify a salary but is still thinking X

you apply. You don't quite meet the requirements (maybe they want Strong A and you're more a Medium A person, or they wanted some D even though they didn't put it in the job requirements, and you don't have D)

they decide you're the best applicant they've seen, even though you're missing a small requirement, so they make you an offer for less than they had planned. You take it. That's that.

It's possible they decided you were perfectly qualified and deserved X, but they tried hiring you for less and it worked. That's that.

At no point should you try to get this "fixed". You like the job and you took it. Knowing what it was once offered for changes nothing. You have perhaps learned that you're not a good negotiator, or that you're not quite as perfectly qualified for this job as you thought you were. Try not to let this knowledge get you down. You were hired, after all, and you like your job.

That said, if you'd like to make more, going to your boss and asking "what skill do I have to develop in order to start making more money?" is never a bad thing. Don't make a meeting for no other purpose, just ask your manager some time. If you manager says "wait until your review and we'll talk about it then" you will have to accept that, though you may not like it.

Thank you Kate, you are true about the fact that I really have to improve my negotiations skills. I appreciate your response. Thanks again! — Jan 19 '15 at 18:20
The last point is good advice, but I'd definitely wait for more than two weeks on the job before asking that question, lest you appear dissatisfied. — Jan 19 '15 at 20:17
And so what? It's standard industry practice to post white-knight job descriptions which cannot be satisfied, not even by someone at twice the salary, even if they could be found. Recruiters can then use this as fake leverage in compensation negotiations. Remember: you can't lie about your qualifications and experience, but the employer (and recruiter) can totally lie about the job requirements. Or recycle generic, outdated or nonexistent job listings. — Jan 19 '15 at 20:50
@smci I'm not sure how these comments address the question or the answer. Are you telling the OP that the internal posting is not particularly reliable information and to be content with the current salary? — Jan 19 '15 at 21:37
@ÃÂ ÃÂ¡ÃÂ¢ÃˆÂ¢Ã‘Â¸ÃÂ¤ÃÂ¥Ã‘Â¾ÃÂ¦ÃÂ§ÃÂ¨ÃÂ©ÃÂªÃÂ«ÃÂ¬Ã‘Â¢Ã‘Â¤ÃÂ®Ã‘Â¦Ã‘ÂªÃ‘Â¨Ã‘Â¬Ã‘Â Ã‘ÂºÃ‘Â®Ã‘Â°Ã‘Â²Ã‘Â´ but that's exactly what OP says: it was posted at a higher grade than what the OP is receiving — Jan 20 '15 at 14:03

Michael Thorpe 22814 · Answer 10 · 2015-01-19 19:25:52Z

One thing which hasn't been pointed is out is that an internal person will probably already have familiarity with some of the things you'll encountered on the job - saving them training time and effort.

If it takes you (probably underestimating here) 2 months to get properly integrated into the environment at the company and find your feet, but an internal person say just 1 month, that's probably quite a bit of extra working time this hypothetical internal person could do.

This doesn't even consider the fact you might need to have a supervisor who will help you with tasks etc that the internal person wouldn't need to ask.

score 6 · Answer 11 · 2015-01-20 14:48:04Z

Should I discuss this with my manager now or in the yearly review?

Bring it up now.

Anything that bothers you that much should be brought up with your manager reasonably quickly. Waiting until your yearly review would push the issue too far out - perhaps so far that the details have been forgotten. In addition, if it bothers you this much, there's no sense in letting it fester for months.

If you have a regular one-on-one meeting with your manager, that would be an appropriate time for this discussion.

If not, just say something on the order of "Hey boss. Do you have a few minutes to chat? I have something that's bothering me that I'd like to discuss."

During your conversation, try to stick to the issue that bothers you. In your case, it sounds like you are bothered by the fact that the position was initially targeted at one grade higher than you chose to accept.

Remember that there might be many reasons why this happened. It's possible that they re-graded the position before you were interviewed. It's possible that they thought they needed someone with more experience and abilities than you currently possess, but that they view you as capable of eventually getting to that level. Also remember that you accepted your current compensation, and presumably were content until you happened to see the old internal job posting.

Try to go in with the attitude that you just want to understand what happened, rather than just "I'm frustrated". After all, you did accept the offer for several reasons.

And try to be clear in your own head now what you hope to accomplish from your discussion with your manager. It's unlikely you'll be bumped up a grade just because you became frustrated - that's not likely to be a reasonable expectation.

Mike S 1585 · Answer 12 · 2015-01-20 05:12:25Z

While it's true that the negotiations have concluded, you are always free to challenge what happened, based on what you now know. Your boss is free to think of you negatively as a result (which may or may not happen). It's a risk. Assuming you work in a larger company, you'd put him/her in a difficult position by pushing for something that they probably won't be able to deliver; after all, what's done is done. Large companies are notoriously bureaucratic and systematic (which is not necessarily a bad thing). So I don't think you'd be successful if you were aggressive about the situation.

But the news is not all bad. You now have knowledge, and knowledge is power.

I once had a job where I discovered that my underling was making more money than me. This angered me to no end. Once I relaxed, I strategized: Ok, said I, now that I know what the company is thinking (ie, "The position is worth at least $X"), I have to squeeze the cash out of them but proving that I am underpaid and deserving of a raise. So I went out to job sites and so on and created/documented my case. It was a lot of work, but in the end I went to my boss and very nicely said, "Boy working here is great but I think I'm not up to industry standards, and here's why..." He went and got me a mid-year salary increase which was highly unusual.

So, the moral is: Prove your worth, prove you're worth it, and hope for the best. If it doesn't turn out, ask the Market for its opinion (ie, look for another position for more money).

HLGEM 133k25226489 · Answer 13 · 2015-01-20 16:54:15Z

Instead of a negative, look at this as a positive. It means there is room for growth once you prove yourself.

There could be many reasons why the salary offered to you is lower - they are taking a bigger chance on you coming from the outside. But the reason is irrelevant really.

However, now that you know they view the job as a higher level job, you can use that knowledge to ask for the promotion once you have proven yourself. You don't need to wait until performance apprasials are done, but you do need to wait until you have some solid accomplishments at this job under your belt.

No manager anywhere is going to give a pay raise to someone they have just hired. It is a perceptual negative to ask at this point. By this I mean the manager will think less of you and will be far less likely to give you the money and will be more likely to give greater weight your errors if you ask now. It is a lose-lose situation for you to ask until you have proven to be valuable.

However, once you are valuable, you know they have already determined that this job can pay more. So if you do a good job of showing your manager that you are a valuable team member who is contributing beyond your current grade level, there is a good chance of getting that promotion.

grasshopper 799613 · Answer 14 · 2015-01-20 12:16:00Z

Depends on your personality. If you are the type of person who will not let this go, boiling inside for a year and waiting for the yearly review to "prove" yourself is not going to be good for you. Let's fast-forward one year from now, best case scenario:

Say you were excellent, worked overtime, achieved results and you ask for a raise. Because of how companies work, the raise you can realistically ask for may be less than the difference between the higher paygrade. Also, if they don't give you the raise, what can you do? You already did the work. You can only threaten to go or just go or accept it.

The time an employee is most powerful in the negotiations is when they haven't accepted the offer yet. You didn't have enough information to counter their offer and they got you to accept it. This doesn't bode well for your next performance review - maybe they will see that you have done commendable work but still give you less than they could/should, just because they can. I think, instead of putting in long hours to "prove" your worth, you start looking elsewhere. Put the long hours into becoming a better negotiator instead, because you probably didn't do as good job as you could have in that matter. You switched positions and accepted a job with a very small salary difference - most people switch up. They probably fed you the "the job is so interesting!" line too to get you to accept their offer.

Working for a year feeling underpaid and hoping that after that it will all be fixed is not a good strategy. You put effort into an organization that tricked you in the hopes that you will be so good they can't trick you anymore. If you feel you are worth more and they tricked you, you need to either let go of the feeling and appreciate the good parts about your current situation or let go of the job.

PS: I assumed that the OP was offered a low-ball offer intentionally in my answer. There are other good answers who explain why this may not be the case.

Source: Personal experience, Books on negotiation

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