Picking up from my last post, it’s now time to talk salary with your manager. If you’re nervous about doing this, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most people have a very hard time figuring out what their salary should be and how to ask for what they’re worth. If you’re working in your first job, you’re undoubtedly getting lots of differing opinions. Your parents tell you one thing, friends say another, online research says something entirely different. So here I am with yet another opinion, but I’m not going to tell you the number to ask for, just a couple of things that stand out for me because I’ve seen or heard many people make some “mistakes”.

1 — Tell your manager why you deserve a raise. Please don’t say that your living expenses are high. Everyone’s are and your boss doesn’t care. Her bills are high too. Instead, tell her what you’ve done since you started that warrants a raise. Doing exactly what you were hired for isn’t good enough. Show how you’ve gone above and beyond your duties. Make a list of your accomplishments. The more you can quantify the better. Point out some challenges that you were able to overcome and how you did it. You get the idea. You won’t get a raise because you’re broke all the time. You’ll get a raise because you’re valuable to the company and have made it a better place.

2 — As far as the number that you’re looking for, do your homework about what people are making at your level in the industry. Be specific about how much money you would like to make and be realistic. If you shoot too high, they’ll think you’re crazy if you shoot too low, you’ll kick yourself afterwards.

3 – By doing your homework, I don’t mean asking the peers in your office what they’re making. As tempting as it may be, it’s just tacky and the whole conversation will either be awkward or you’ll end up so mad you’ve got a whole new mess on your hands. You could however ask a peer at another agency something less personal like “what are art directors making at our level?”

If you know a recruiter that you like, you might ask them. If you have a mentor, that’s a great person to ask. If you don’t have one, add this to your “why a mentor is a good idea” list. You could also do research online. There are many sites out there that have the info and I’m not going to list them because there’s not one that I think is exactly spot on. If you know of any, feel free to send them my way.

4 — If you ask for the raise and they say no, then make sure you know whether it’s your performance that prevented the raise, or a financial issue for the company. If it’s performance, you should know what you need to work on improving. If it’s a financial issue, then aside from continuing to work hard for the company, it’s pretty much out of your hands. But you could ask when an appropriate time would be to follow up about being considered again for a raise.

5 — If you do get a raise, congratulations, you’ve done it. You’ve taken charge of your career.

Yes, the bottom line is, take charge of your own career, whether it’s getting a review or asking for a higher salary. But, be prepared with information so that you’re not just winging it and proceed within the framework of the agency. It often takes some time to figure out that framework, but after a year you should get it. If not, it’s time to figure it out. I’m not saying you should always expect a raise after a year. But rather you should know what the process is and where you stand in your career development within the agency.

A copywriter friend recently called me for advice on her salary. She has been at her agency for almost 2 years and hasn’t had a raise. My first question was whether she has had a review and I was surprised to hear that she hadn’t. This is not a “small shop in Soho”, but a very large agency with offices worldwide. I realized that while this seemed strange to me, if it’s your first job out of school, how would you know that it’s something to expect in a job? Personally, it was years before I had a review, and prior to that I had no idea they existed.

In fact, if you’re in your first job out of school, you’re probably not sure about a lot of things. So I thought I’d write a 2 part post on the importance of a review and how to ask for a raise. If you’ve got other topics that baffle you in your first job out of school, please write me, or comment so that I can address that in posts to follow.

To continue with my friend’s issue…She said that her agency has performance reviews, but they don’t seem to happen. My suggestion was to talk with her manager, who is probably the Creative Director and say that she hasn’t had a review yet, and would very much like one. In her case this is easy because she’s reporting in to someone new, so this would not seem unusual to check in about a review with a new manager.

If you’ve already done this with your manager and nothing happened, the it’s time to go to someone else. You could start with HR. This might seem alarmist, but don’t worry, it’s not. You’re not ratting out the person, but taking responsibility for your own career by making an inquiry. Nobody else will do it for you, so it’s important that you recognize that it’s in your hands.

Some agencies will have a creative staffing person or coordinator that you might be able to approach first if you’re more comfortable with that. Or if you had a good relationship with the recruiter who hired you, you could even go to her/him.

Finally, you have the review scheduled, now what? Some places have you prepare by writing your own review. As daunting as that might seem it’s a helpful exercise and a good idea even if it’s not requested. It gives you the chance to look at what you’ve accomplished (write these down) and things that you could use some help on. It’s important to have examples of things, so don’t just say “I’m good at bringing people together” but give an example of when you’ve done that. Other than that, the key thing is to relax and go in with as receptive a mindset as possible. If that’s hard for you, work on some ways to relax ahead of time, like breathing and counting to 10, or whatever works for you (except for a cocktail of any sort).

Also, bear in mind that a review usually covers the whole past year. If you’ve been kicking ass lately, but were a little slow to get going, you’re going to have to hear about how you were slow to get going. Try to look at it as a positive as you were able to turn it around.

If something is pointed out that you don’t understand, ask to have it clarified. You should leave the meeting knowing what you need to work on today, and what you need to work on to get to the next level in your job. If you don’t have a clear idea, you need to go back and ask for that information.

You should receive your review in a written format and if they don’t give it to you automatically, ask for it. You should have a copy to refer back to.

One thing to really watch out for in a review is defensiveness. No matter how pissed off you get hearing the feedback, please remain calm and quiet until your manager has finished speaking. Then take a deep breath and think about what has been said with as clear and objective a frame of mind as possible. If you don’t understand something, ask for clarification…i.e. “You say that I need improvement on writing a creative brief, could you be more specific about what needs work?”

If it’s all good news, well, that’s easier to hear so I don’t really need to address that. Maybe try not to walk out of the meeting gloating. Nobody likes that.

If you’re someone that takes a while to process information, then ask your manager if you could reflect on this overnight and come back if you have any questions. If they’re a good manager, they’ll already know that you think this way, and should have no problem with your request.

If you’re at an agency or firm that doesn’t do formal reviews, then you could tell your manager that you’d like to do an informal review so you know how you’re doing and what you need to improve upon. If they don’t want to do that and you really want that raise, then set up a meeting to have that conversation. And probably better to not say in the meeting invite that you want to discuss salary. Just say that you’d like to have a meeting about how things are going right now.

I’ll continue with tips on discussing salary in my next post.