Ask a Manager

It’s your Friday good news!

1.  “I’ve been waiting to send this! I’d been at my last job with basically zero company culture and growth potential for six years and was reading AAM to remind myself what good company culture did look like. Because of your advice, I didn’t get too invested in any one application and was pushing myself to just keep sending applications in. I tailored my resume and asked recruiters for their salary range before sharing mine. One of those listings fit my experience especially well, still with stated room to grow (somewhat niche field), and while interviewing, I actively took note of how balanced the company culture seemed to be and how the interviewers prioritized it.

I received an offer for more than double my previous salary. It’s been a few weeks in my new role now, and I’m so happy – I’d genuinely forgotten what it felt like to be excited about projects you’re working on or to have friendly, supportive coworkers and active Slack – thank you, so much, for your advice and for keeping me clear-eyed and hopeful about what work should look like!”

2.  “I’ve been an avid reader of your site for years. I’ve been with my organization for quite a few years and have become a very valuable member of my team, and I have always really enjoyed working with my team. But I’ve had frustrations over the years with my title, career progression, etc., not lining up with my actual contributions and abilities. It’s something I expressed at several points, and my manager would do everything possible to make me happy beyond changing my title.

I used your resume and cover letter advice to secure a great job offer with the title I was after during the pandemic (and a big salary bump), but I ended up staying when my company matched the salary because I was a new mom and put a lot of weight into the security of sticking to a job I knew. I made a decision to leave well enough alone when it came to my title and kept reading your blog to be prepared for whatever came my way down the road.

Well, a director left recently, and I was presented with the opportunity to take over that team at a lower title and salary level. There really wasn’t any good reason given for this, and I suspected it was moreso the perception of ‘skipping a level’ that led to this idea rather than any clear difference in the duties I’d be performing. I knew I wasn’t willing to replace a director-level position without the commensurate title and salary, boxing myself in to the same frustrating scenario I’d been in for years. After a few sleepless nights, I was fully resolved to (calmly and respectfully) leave the company for other opportunities if we couldn’t agree on this point.

So, in good faith, I mustered every bit of knowledge I had about having hard conversations, researching my market value, selling my skills, etc., and prepared for a VERY direct conversation with my executive-level leader about what I wanted, my leadership ideas and value-add to the team, and the salary I wanted to make. Somewhat to my surprise, the executive fully bought in, and…I am now officially a director! They even agreed to my number (a good bump above the starting salary, which I had researched beforehand) without protest.

While I have no doubt my skills, knowledge, and drive have given people ample reason to buy into my potential as a leader, I would also like to thank you for helping me find the self-awareness and self-confidence to know my own bottom line and to actually ASK FOR IT in a professional way. Arming myself with this knowledge made all the difference. Thank you! And hopefully, this may serve as motivation to readers to ask for what you know you deserve — the answer could very well be yes!”

3.  “I’m a daily reader, I’ve written in a time or two, and I recommend you all the time to clients. However this is the first time I’ve had my own good news to share. I had a portion of my job I didn’t care for, and a feeling that I’ve been being underpaid. So a while back I reached out and got a lead for a new job. I interviewed and it is right up my alley with only the part of my job that I like. The position was paying 8k more than I currently made, but not quite enough to jump ship after 15 years. They asked what would make me happy. I added 10k to that number, then shut up. I’ve never negotiated from strength before. Thanks for all of your great tips. I tried to negotiate PTO but no dice.

I’m now 2 weeks into a job with an awesome culture and an overall 35% raise. One interview. One job.

Thanks for all of your good help over the years.”