Sounds nice, right? Last month I asked for a raise at my job because my responsibilities had increased by a large amount due to my team leader leaving 6 weeks ago – including being expected to lead/manage a team of graduate trainees in a highly competitive and cut-throat field. Luckily, I have lots of leadership experience from my time in hospitality and I’ve had horrible managers/supervisors, so I have a good enough idea how to set up the trainees as best I can; but I’ve only been in this field and job for a grand total of 5 months…doing the work of roughly 5 people, while now managing a direct headcount – something reserved for senior consultants (18+ months minimum).
Three days ago, my director pulled me aside all smug and happy and was like “we’ve automatically given you a 5% raise from our conversation last month, I hope you know we took your consideration seriously, and I can’t wait for your promotion in six weeks as you’re doing better than we’d ever expected so fast, you can expect another raise to 23,500 then!”
5% equates to 1,020 a year, or 78 a month. Market rate at my junior level is 28-30k; market rate at what I’m doing currently is 35k+
Mate…I’ve taken a second job working 13 days in a row with one day off because you won’t pay me a living salary.
Last Monday, a recruiter reached out to me with some potential opportunities, and I began digging around – only to realise at my level, I am being underpaid around 8-10k in market value.
Long story short, I did six interviews in 3 days, and have finals at 4, with another 4 first stages next week (to a total of 8). Each time I’ve explained my situation, the HM on the other end has said, without fail, “I actually can’t believe what they’re expecting you to do, for so little, without providing proper support or training, I’m amazed you’r doing as well as you have with all that” – so much so that one recruiter emphasised they’d never run across my situation in 15 years of experience!
Expecting an offer to come through by end of next week. The kicker? I’m still in probationary period, so my notice is only 1 week – boy are they going to be shocked!
Edit to add: I absolutely refuse to leave without setting up my trainees to be as successful as they can. I am fully aware I will be placing them in a situation not my unlike my own. They are amazing people and I truly want them to succeed, so I am focusing 90% of my time on teaching them everything I’ve learned. I’ve even given them some of the highest-priority projects not because I don’t want to do them, but because I want them to see and know they can do it, so I can review it and guide them in the right direction so when I do leave, they aren’t unprepared and lost in the dark like I was