I practiced the first sentence eleven times in the car on I-565 last Tuesday, out loud, somewhere before the airport exit: "I'd like to talk about my pay today, and I brought one page so we're looking at the same numbers." By the eleventh time it sounded like something a person says, not something a person rehearsed. That was the point.
My annual review was at 10 that morning. It was my first full merit cycle at this company, and I walked in with market data, a one-page summary and that sentence. Here's what I asked for, what I got and what I'd change.
The prep: three kinds of numbers
My range. Last fall I asked my manager, "Can you tell me the range for my position and where I sit in it?" She told me. The midpoint was about $90,000, and at $88,000 I was a little below it.
The market. I pulled fourteen job postings for project managers with two to five years of experience in the Huntsville area that listed a salary range. The middle of those ranges came out around $94,000. A published salary survey for PMP holders in our region landed in the same neighborhood.
My results. Straight out of the green folder: the schedule I held within four days of baseline through a subcontractor change, the status meeting I cut in half (about 104 hours back for the team by October, more since) and the client calls I covered during a coworker's leave.
All of that fit on one page. Top third: three results with numbers. Middle: the range and the market data in three lines. Bottom: the ask. I emailed it to my manager the first week of January.
The conversation
After my first sentence, I said: "Based on what I delivered this year and what this role pays in Huntsville, I'm asking for a 6% increase." Then I stopped talking. That pause was harder than the sentence. The conference room was its usual chilly self, and I counted ceiling tiles.
My manager said, "I'll be straight with you. It's 4.5%, and I argued for that. Our pool was under 4%." From the HR side, I knew what that meant: she'd moved money from somewhere else in her budget to get me above the pool, and that is not nothing.
So I asked two more questions. "What would it take to get to the middle of the market next year?" And: "What does senior project manager look like here, on paper?" She said she'd send me the criteria for senior. I wrote that down in front of her, which is a small thing that tends to make things happen.
The 4.5% took me from $88,000 to $91,960. That's $3,960 a year, or about $152 a paycheck before taxes and my 8% to the 401(k). Not 6%. Not nothing either.
What I'd change
- Send the page in December. When I asked last March, my manager said decisions happen in January, and I took that literally. It turns out she starts filling in her spreadsheet before the holidays, so my one-pager arrived after her first draft. It still helped, but it would have helped more as her starting point.
- Ask for the range a year earlier. I didn't ask until fall, which means I spent most of a year not knowing I was below the midpoint.
- Cut the "sorry." I said "Sorry, one more thing" before my question about senior. I wasn't sorry. I'm practicing that one too.
From the HR side, here's what I'd tell anyone walking into a review: the number is almost always final by the time you're in the room. The conversation is really about next year, and the paper trail is why the page matters. My one-pager now sits in my manager's files with a 6% ask, a market number and a question about senior on it. That's a better starting point for next time than a vague feeling that I deserved more.
This was our situation and my company's process. Yours may run on a different calendar, so ask when the decisions get made before you plan anything.
Ben's review of my review, over leftover chili that night: "So you asked for six, got four and a half and a path. I'd take that." I did.
