I entered Corporate America back in 2016.
Since then, I’ve increased my salary by 90% or 15% / year (on average).
No – I don’t work in sales; I’m just a vanilla project manager.
As a result, today I’ll be sharing 5 actionable tips that I have done (and you can do too) that resulted in these consistently large yearly raises.
Let’s dive in.
Tip 1 – Learn hard and valuable skills
The hard and honest truth is that we are all replaceable.
However, where we fall on the ‘replaceability scale’ boils down to one variable: what hard and valuable skills do we possess? Think about it this way: if we possess a specialized skill set, then it is harder to replace us. And if it is hard to replace us, then we have more leverage to ask for a yearly raise.
As a new project manager back in 2016, I didn’t possess any specialized skills. My job originally consisted of scheduling meetings and building different metrics in Excel; things that can be done by anybody.
That didn’t sit well with me, so I decided to do something about it.
Between LinkedIn Learning + YouTube, I learned basic database architecture, SQL & Tableau.
Suddenly, I wasn’t just a project manager anymore. I was a pseudo-engineer who developed a data analytics system that automatically created all the reports I was responsible for in 5 min vs the 40 hours it previously would have taken me.
This resulted in cost savings to the company of +$10M. I went from a 100% replaceable employee to a slightly less replaceable employee (in the end, we are all replaceable).
ACTION: Make yourself more valuable by learning hard and valuable skills that make you less replaceable.
Tip 2 – Don’t be afraid to move around in your company
Switching companies is an effective and popular way to make more money.
However, another potential option to consider is moving around in your current company.
That’s what I did in April 2021 and was able to internally negotiate a 25% raise for doing the exact same job for another department.
I know what you are thinking: “Well, this isn’t an option for me because my company has a policy limiting internal raises to X%.”
That’s what my company said. However, as it turns out, if a manager wants you badly enough (maybe because you have valuable skills that are hard to find)… then it becomes more like a Pirates of the Caribbean situation:
The code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.
Hector Barbossa
Even if you don’t immediately get a raise out of the deal, there is a certain value to moving around a company and learning as much as you can. I have personally moved around my company 4-5 times in the last 6 years, resulting in a more well-rounded understanding of how the business runs.
ACTION: Don’t get comfortable and stay in one position. Comfort breeds complacency which can stagnate your ability to grow your income.
Tip 3 – Adjust performance: work smarter, not harder
Tip 3 is something that I like to call “Performance Arbitrage.”
Let me explain.
At my company, there are two types of employees: business employees and technical employees.
From a performance review perspective, business people are ranked against other business people. Likewise, technical people are ranked against other technical people. Most companies do something similar to this so that they are comparing apples to apples when evaluating employee performance (and subsequently doling out yearly raises).
I am in the ‘business employee’ category. Furthermore, I have always gotten the top rating in the ‘business employee’ category resulting in almost always receiving the highest available amount for yearly raises.
And it’s not because I work any harder than the other ‘business employees’.
In fact, I work a lot less than my coworkers.
That’s because I found there is a hard limit on the value that business employees can create due to their lack of skill specialization. As a result, using my specialized skills (Tip 1), I can perform at a mediocre technical level and always outperform the highest performing “business employee.”
I should technically be considered a technical employee and be graded against other technical employees. However, because I don’t have a technical degree (a requirement to be a technical employee), I can continue to remain in the ‘business employee’ category and reap the benefits of “Performance Arbitrage.”
ACTION: Understand your company’s performance review system and examine ways on how you can create ‘Performance Arbitrage’ opportunities.
Tip 4 – Learn how to communicate effectively
While this sounds like a generic and easy tip, it’s honestly very difficult to execute.
Communicating effectively was something that I struggled with for years. Every performance review I have ever had inevitably brought up that I needed to learn how to communicate more effectively.
With that being said, I have witnessed a lot of smart people who were unable to create change in my organization (myself included) due to their inability to tailor their messages to their specific audience.
An example of this that comes to mind was a recent meeting that I was involved with that included a team of data scientists. The data scientists were trying to explain to executive leadership why a lot of people have recently been leaving the company.
Well as you may expect, when you use very technical terms (regressive model, feature testing, etc.) to non-technical people, you will lose them. Because at the end of the day, these executives are not going to make a policy decision based on terms they don’t understand.
It’s not that they wouldn’t approve the proposal on how to fix the issue (they want to look good to their bosses, etc.) – they just have no idea what they are approving. It ends up being a completely different language to them.
ACTION: Become ‘bilingual’ – know how to scale up/down the level of detail that is appropriate for your audience in order to communicate effectively.
Tip 5 – Remember that you are your own best advocate
This was the hardest lesson to get through my skull.
In a perfect world, you have a manager whose got your back and will fight for you.
However, the reality is that all managers aren’t great managers who will consistently get you the promotions/yearly raises that you deserve. In my 6 years, I’ve had maybe 15-20 different bosses and only 2 of them went out of their way to help me out.
At the end of the day, you are your own best advocate: don’t have your career & yearly raises be dependent on anybody else but yourself.
For introverted people like myself, speaking up and talking up your own accomplishments is a very difficult thing to do. However, I remind myself that if I don’t thump my own chest every once in a while to show the value that I deliver, somebody else will and they’ll get rewarded for it.
When given the opportunity, don’t be shy to talk up your accomplishments.
ACTION: Create your own “personal metrics” showing your impact: how much money did you save the company, what was the direct impact on the company from a decision that you made, etc. Come performance review time, it’s easier to give bigger yearly raises to someone “who saved the company X dollars” vs someone who “strategically executed synergistic opportunities.” 🙂
Final Thoughts
To be honest, I used to believe that large yearly raises were impossible.
I think that mindset stemmed from the belief of some imaginary rule book saying that the norm for any increase in salary was matching inflation (if that). By ignoring these imaginary and self-limiting rules, we can enable ourselves to potentially grow our income a lot faster.
Thank you for reading! 🙂
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