Getting paid
Am I underpaid?
Probably, if you have been in the same seat for more than about three years and have not asked. But the feeling is not evidence, and you cannot take a feeling into a conversation about money. Here are four checks that turn it into a number.
The question usually arrives after something specific. A colleague lets a number slip. A recruiter mentions a range. You see the advert for your own job.
Whatever started it, the useful move is the same. Stop asking whether you feel underpaid. Find out whether you are.
Check 1. What the same job pays elsewhere
Not what a salary survey says the average is. What two or three real adverts say, for your role, at your level, in your city. Recruiters will tell you if you ask them directly. Most are happy to. It is how they start conversations.
Three real data points beat any benchmark report. A report averages across seniority and company size, and your number disappears into it.
Check 2. What a replacement would cost today
If your employer had to fill your seat this month, what would they have to offer? That number is often higher than what you are on. The gap is the most common form of being underpaid there is.
It is not personal. Pay bands move with the market and internal rises rarely keep up. It also does not correct itself. That is the part worth sitting with.
Check 3. What you actually generate
Write down what you produced in the last twelve months with a number attached. Revenue, percentage over target, cost removed, markets opened, conversion moved.
This is the check that turns a complaint into a case. It is also the one most people skip. It is the only one that takes an afternoon.
Check 4. Whether the seat can pay you at all
The uncomfortable one. Some roles cannot pay well however good you are. The product is cheap, or the market is small. No amount of negotiating fixes that.
What the answer means
If checks one to three point the same way, you are underpaid and you have the evidence to say so. That is a conversation, and there is a script for it.
If check four is the one that stands out, the answer is not a raise. It is a different seat, and the sooner you know that the less it costs you.
And one number worth knowing either way: what you are paid is not what you cost. Your employer spends between 11% and 34% more than your gross, depending on the country, before anything reaches your account. You can see the figure where you live in the country calculator.
Questions people actually ask
How do I know if I am underpaid?
Compare three things: what the same role pays elsewhere, what you generate or save for the company, and what a new hire into your seat would cost today. If all three point the same way, you have an answer rather than a feeling.
Is it normal to be paid less than a new hire?
It is extremely common. Pay bands move with the market and internal rises rarely keep up, so the person hired last month is often on more than the person who has been doing it for four years. It is not a judgement on your work and it will not correct itself.
Should I tell my employer I know I am underpaid?
Say the number, not the grievance. "Based on the value I have created I would like to move toward €X" gets a different response from "I have found out I am paid less than Tom". One is a business discussion and the other is a complaint about a colleague.
Now you have a number
The five sentences that took my pay from €2,000 to €12,500 a month, and the one that was worth more than all the others.
How to ask for a raise
Who wrote this
Fifteen years in sales, starting at €700 a month. Ranked first of more than 250 account executives globally at Deel in the first half of 2023. Everything you can check is on the proof page, including the parts that cannot be checked.
This is education, not advice, and I am not a licensed adviser. What that means in full is in what this is and what it is not.