It's a good time for mythbusting on pay rises

When it comes to pay rises there are LOTS of myths that float around in your head and society. Let’s look at the top 3 and bust them!

Myth #1: I have to wait 1 year before I ask for a pay rise

The first one, “I have to wait one year before I ask for a pay rise.” A lot of people, and even myself when I was early on in my career, assume that the only time you can get a pay rise was at the end of the financial or performance year and that you just had to wait. But it's actually not true and you can ask for it at any time that you want. You just have to be open to the answer! Some companies or leaders will spout, “Oh no, we can't offer anything.” If they want you enough and they're willing to fight for you, there is always the opportunity to get more outside of sequence, outside of performance cycles etc. 

I’ve had Leading Successful Change students actually get pay rises internally every time they had a contract renewal or new role conversation. Any time something in your role changes within the year or at any time you can ask for a pay rise. It might be that your contract's going to get renewed, you might be going on a bigger project that's got more responsibility. You might have to step up, you might have just covered somebody else who was more senior than you. Really look at all of those moments and those times where you have got more skills, you've got more experience, you bring more value, you add more to the table or they don't know you, so you can actually pitch whatever you want. 

There's no timeframe around it, but the companies / your employers will have you believe that you've got to wait one year and there's no room to negotiate outside and it's simply not true. There is room, there are exception processes. Always ask the question and if you need a boost of confidence and a boost of support and cheering you on, post in our Leading Successful Change community about what you want to do and we will absolutely cheer you on and give you that boost because you can absolutely ask the question.

But! Always be prepared for them to say no. And then I always say, “If they say no, what does that tell you about how much they actually value you? And do you want to stay in a company or with an employer or with a leader that doesn't value you?” You can if that's what you want to do, but asking the question sometimes gives you the answer that you already felt in your gut or your heart that it wasn't right for you and you weren't being valued. It can also light that fire to maybe go somewhere else and get more money. Then you can also obviously always exit a company and go and find another role. That's actually how I managed to get so many pay rises. I went from company to company really early on in my career and I jumped.

• The first one was a $20,000 jump and I changed industries.
• The second one was a $20,000 jump and I stayed in the profession but I changed industries again. 
• And then the next one was $15,000.
• And then the next one I doubled it and went to almost $200,000. 

I was suddenly earning so much money really early on in my career simply because I moved companies and got pay rises each time, even in times where I didn't expect to get a pay rise. 

Myth #2: I have to take a pay cut to change careers

I changed careers five times by the age of 35 and I've gotten a pay rise every time. You don't necessarily have to take a pay cut to change careers. You can absolutely change careers and get a pay rise again if you set those salary or pay day rate parameters in your job search.

You can work on your internal self-worth and self-confidence using the tools in my Leading Successful Change program. Plus always feel free to grab my Underpaid and Overlooked Coaching Action Guide here, which has my 5-Step Career Change Formula that helps you to then go through a process to just help clear out and then re-boost and build your energy. 

And sometimes it's also thinking about: what is the profession or the industry that you can go to that will give you the pay rise? For me, I knew that I could get more money working on client side in Marketing with the people who had the budgets, rather than on Advertising agency side with the people who were being hired by those clients. I made the move: $20k pay rise. Then I knew that I could get more money working in projects in Change Management. And so I made the move into a higher paying career and I was able to make the move because of my transferable skills. Transferable skills - you have so many of them at your fingertips, especially after doing Leading Successful Change, you could literally go in a million directions. Sometimes it's just about being strategic about which career you choose or which professional role you choose and going for the one that's higher if that's what you want to do. I truly believe that you shouldn't ever have to take a pay cut in order to change careers. I think that with your transferable skills and your experience, you should always be able to get a pay rise because you are moving jobs and moving companies. Moving companies is a really easy way to get pay rises, as is changing careers or industries!

Myth #3: I need all the skills and experience to get a higher-paying promotion

You might be looking at more senior roles or career pivots that pay more thinking, “Well, I don't have all of the boxes ticked.” There's been a lot of research done that women are more likely to not go for roles if they don't have 100% of all the skills and experience that the job ad requests and asks for, whether it's internal or external, while men are definitely more likely to go for roles even if they only have 50%-70% of the skills and experiences. We do live in a patriarchal society. Women are often under the spotlight more. We often see any woman who's in a leadership position gets scrutinised a lot more than men. So we feel we have to prove our worth more because we are operating in this really patriarchal society and business model, we are usually in companies and corporates or any organisation, even government and NGOs (non-government organisations and charities). 

In my Leading Successful Change program you get the “Intro to Change Management” webinar bonus, and there’s a Transferable Skills Mapping exercise which is so powerful because it steps you through all of the key transferable skills for Change and gets you to rate yourself in those skills. And sometimes getting out of your head and out of your emotion and just seeing it on paper in front of you as to where you rate yourself, can be a really good indicator as to the fact that you are actually eligible to go for a more senior role or a promotion. Students can always post their self-ratings in our private Leading Successful Change community and we can give you feedback to make sure you’re rating yourself realistically. I know I attract a lot of high achievers, and annoyingly we rate ourselves more harshly than other people would rate us!

I always say, if you're hitting 70% of the skills and experiences, absolutely go for it because you want to have room to grow in a role, you want to have space to challenge yourself and you can absolutely bring that into the interview. Use our Leading Successful Change community around you to help boost and bolster yourself up so that you do go for those promotions because the role is a wish list. They're actually looking for somebody who has say 70-80% of those skills and experiences, and they are more than flexible on 20%.

Those are the three myths:

1. I have to wait one year before I ask for a pay rise, not the case. 
2. I have to take a pay cut to change careers, not the case. If anything it should actually be the other way. 
3. And then - I'm not good enough for promotion with a pay rise. 

You are absolutely good enough, your transferable skills stand on their own two feet, and you can use the tools at your disposal to prove that to yourself.

We’ll be busting more career myths in my free Underpaid and Overlooked Workshop. We’re kicking off next week on Monday 16 February:

Register your spot on my free Underpaid and Overlooked Workshop here

All my belief, 

Lata xx