The answer is never. If you are waiting around for someone to tap you on the shoulder to reward your hard work and loyalty you will be waiting a very long time. It just doesn’t work that way in what I like to call reality.  In reality you must create a little tension to get your just rewards. You must cause a little friction. You must be willing to lay your cards on the table and clearly communicate what additional composition you are looking for.

Now before we continue let me point out the obvious fact that in order to be successful at requesting more money, you must be a valuable employee. If you have the feeling that no one would miss you if you left, then don’t bother. Just continue to sit back collecting paychecks until that inevitable day when your boss calls you into his office for a chat.

For those of you that remain congratulations! You are a valuable employee and your employer would not want to lose you. But how do you leverage this into an increased salary? This is a very tricky question with many different possibilities. Here is what I recommend.

First off you should quietly begin a job search looking for other career opportunities. You don’t want to start salary negotiations without having other options lined up. You also want to know with confidence what the current market salary for you skill set would be.

This kind of job search should be private. Don’t reveal your name, email address, phone number, address, or current employer. Contact a quality job search company to make this easy. Once you have a feel for the market place its time to formulate the message that you’ll be bringing to your current employer.

The first thing you want to do is get clear about what you want. Are you looking for a salary increase? If you are looking for a salary bump then how much do you want? You must never be vague when requesting a salary increase. Vague requests get vague responses.  Think in terms of percentage increases. For example your goal could be a 10% pay increase.

Don’t forget that you could also negotiate other items including time off.  I once used up all my time off due to the birth of my son and negotiated an extra paid week off.  Employers will often give you extra time off a lot easier then they will give you a pay increase because time off is a soft cost.

Once you have a goal in mind you must set a formal meeting with your supervisor and lay your cards on the table. I recommend that you prepare an update to date resume and list what you bring to the table. This is not the time to be modest. Lay out your accomplishments out and remind your employer why you are so valuable. Then make your request and provide back up information.  “I’m looking for a 10% salary increase which would put my salary in line with the current market for my skill set and productivity level.”  Put it out there and shut your mouth. Let you boss digest your request and come back with a response. You might be surprised his response.

One thing that you should never do is to use a job offer to club your current employer. This is bad protocol and has a high likelihood of getting you escorted out the door next to Johnny the security guard with a box full of cubical crap including a squeeze toy and red stapler.

This whole exercise involves leaving your comfort zone, but if you are willing to put yourself out there you might be pleasantly surprised at the results.

Energy Job

This is not a good game plan. When you choose to accept a position you are making one of the most significant decisions of your life. Think about it, with whom you spend more time with, your spouse or Joe in the next cube over. Usually you spend more waking hours around Joe then the person who you made vows with.

What kind of company is it? Do people tend to work 9 – 5 (at some company’s everyone works until 7:00 PM). How is the commute from where you live? Is the company in a growth field? Do you believe in their core product or service? What kind of charities is the company involved with? How are their employees treated? How do ex-employees speak about their experience with the company?

These are all important questions that you should have answered before agree to work for anyone. If you don’t know the answer then you will find out the hard way.

Join some social networking sites (I recommend linkedin.com) and start participating. Find former classmates and coworkers and reconnect with them. If your choose linkedin I recommend that you participate in their answer’s module. You can build significant credibility by getting into the habit participating in the community.

This all comes down to developing the habit of networking. Spend one hour a day for 30 days on networking activities,  and I promise the second 30 days will be much easier to network.

If you were bored you could wave your wand and your phone would instantly ring with offers to attend countless events from parties to golf tournaments and everything in between.

If you needed a date you could wave your wand and your phone would ring offers to play matchmaker on your behalf.  If you had an interest in a particular you could ask your network for an introduction and someone would be able to give it to you.

If you were losing your job could use your wand to get nearly unlimited job offers. Your phone would ring off of the hook with friends and acquaintances recommending you’re for internal positions that would never appear on monster.com or hotjobs.com.

While you don’t have a magic wand you do have the ability to work on improving your networking skills. Networking is a skill like learning to drive a car, and can be learned and mastered with practice and persistence.

Do you know what the most import job search skill is? Here’s a hint its not resume writing or interviewing. By far the most important way to find your dream job is good old fashioned networking.

I’m not talking about strangers in chat room or the thousands of friends you have on Facebook that don’t know who you are. I’m talking about networking face to face with real human beings that you’ve met and who know and like you. I’m talking about people who when called for a reference could say something positive about you.

People hire people. They don’t hire resumes and they don’t hire interview performers. When job positions open companies reach out to employees for any candidates that they can recommend. I’ve seen this pattern over and over Its rare that you will find a quality job on monstor.com or hotjobs.com. You’re best source of a good job is your personal network.

Come back this week as I’ll be covering networking in greater detail.

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