Know your worth

As I outlined in a recent column about how to make a pitch for a pay rise, this is the time of year when it literally pays to know your worth.

Hopefully, you saw the column on how to approach your boss for a pay rise. If you missed it, the story is on the CareerOne website in the Job Hunting Strategy section.

Now, in timely fashion, recruitment giant Hays has released its massive annual salary survey. I say “massive” because I know how much work goes into putting it together. The survey covers 14 employment sectors and hundreds of job roles and is based on a survey of 1,700 real people including both employers and employees. It covers small, medium and large organisations.

The areas covered include accounting/finance; banking/finance, construction, call centres/customer service, HR, sales & marketing, IT, insurance, legal, logistics and procurement, office support, professional practice and resources/mining.

It is literally hot off the press. We have a copy on the CareerOne website in Employment News section or you can click on the Hays Salary Survey button on our home page.

I’ve had people tell me that they don’t earn as much as those salaries listed. That does not surprise me. Getting a decent pay increase does not happen automatically. Managers have salary budgets and if you’re not making a strong case for why you should receive one, then you’ll get cost of living or in some cases no pay rise at all.

Make sure you think through your pitch carefully. Threats don’t work. Making a well documented case is a much better approach. Good luck with your pay reviews this month!

By Kate Southam, Editor of careerone.com.au