Career Advice

Former recruitment agency experts answer employment questions, candidly suggesting how to negotiate your salary, find a really good job, handle phone interviews, and more.

Sage advice like this is priceless.

I am unfairly paid, what should I do?


Evaluate where you stand in the company versus outside opportunities. Understand what the market is paying for someone at your level. Be objective. Study at least a couple of career salary surveys since there can be variance from one to the other. Once, you have validated that you are, in fact, underpaid, (many employees that feel they are underpaid, are not) determine a strategy.

In general, it is best to link salary considerations with performance discussions. If you feel you are unfairly compensated, it is likely that you believe your contributions to the organization outweigh your remuneration. Request a performance evaluation from your supervisor and listen. Is his/her perspective different from your own? If so you need to work on changing that. Either your accomplishments need greater recognition or you need to re-evaluate your own performance. Or, if your evaluation was favorable you can respond with a salary request. The worst they can say is no, then the decision to stay or go is yours to make.

If your career salary increases haven’t been great, ask yourself if it is your performance or the company’s? If it’s yours, improve it. If it’s the company's, ask yourself what kind of future you and the company have.