Timing

When you’re asking for a raise you can’t do it in a vacuum.

You have to look at other factors your timing is critical.

If your company’s go through radical downsizing and other people are losing their jobs now is not the time to ask for a raise.

If you work for a government agency and the legislature or the Congress has just cut your organization’s budget by 10 percent now is not the time to ask for a raise.

If you’ve just gone through a performance evaluation and they were in a less than stellar in their praise for you your managers now is not the time to ask for a raise.

If your stock price has gone down and you can see senior managers are a little bit antsy or if revenues are down or if your organization has lost its number one client.

These are all good reasons not to ask for a raise.

However if profits are up.

If people are being hired in your company those are good reasons where the timing might be right for you to ask for a raise.

Doesn’t mean you’re going to get it but the purse strings are likely to not be quite as tight as there are other good news around as a major new client been hired.

Is there a chance there’ll be more responsibilities if you’re in the non-profit or government sector has some new additional problem in society resulted in political leaders putting more responsibility and more revenues in the direction of your agency.

All of these are factors.

No one gets huge salary increases in a vacuum you have to look at all the other issues surrounding it and you’ve got to look at your timing.

You can ask for a 20 percent raise in one quarter and be laughed out of the room.

You can be asked for a 30 percent raise in another quarter and your bosses might say yes.

So before you go in for that meeting and ask for the raise.

Ask yourself Is this a good time.

Have I done something that warrants attention and people realize is adding value is my stock high in the company right now is the cut.

If it’s a public company is the stock literally high revenues up or profits up.

These are all things you want to look for when asking for a raise.