Get Paid What You’re Worth
Consider yourself the product and those who employ you the customers.
To get paid what you’re worth, you need to know what you’re worth. Here’s an exercise that can help you evaluate what you bring to the table when it comes to employment.
1. Identify the skills you have as an employee.
Some of these will be job-specific skills, but some of them will be qualities like people skills and trustworthiness. You could ask coworkers to help you identify additional traits. If you were a product, these traits would be on the product label to let customers know how you would benefit them. Strong skills lead to rewarding benefits for customers, or employers.
2. Convert your list of skills into benefits for an employer.
Benefits are what your employer gains by having you around. She doesn’t have to worry because you are always on time. You do quality work, which makes her look good. You are efficient, so she profits from your work. And because you are good with people, she retains customers.
3. The last step is to identify why you deserve to get a raise or get hired.
This step is where some people may fall short. They are good at identifying their skills, they struggle a bit with how they can help the company, and they completely ignore the why. The why is your enthusiasm for the industry and for the job you are doing, as well as your personal values that match the values of the company. Employers know that they can find people with the right skills. But it can be hard for employers to find people who are as passionate about their business as they are: employees who will stay late to fix a problem without being asked or who will spend a few extra minutes making a customer happy because they pride themselves on being honest and fair.
As you build your plan for getting more for what you provide, sometimes the hardest person to convince is yourself. This is not the time to be reserved about who you are; it is the time to let your light shine. Find the values that drive you—service, craftsmanship, unity. Focus on those qualities, and let them guide you as you seek compensation for what you’re really worth.