Upcoming salary review

aaf

Just need some opinions on this. I've been working for a company for about 21 months now and I have my first salary review coming up at the end of Jan. You have to be there at least a year to have a salary review hence I didn't have one last year. I'm Network Administrator / IT Support working in a team of four, one being the Head of IT OPs, so his is a higher role, more paperwork, planning etc. I currently earn in the lower €30k bracket. I'm 30 a have a few years experience in IT related fields. I've been told that there's a 5% cap on salary increases this year, which will be a right slap in the face as I've done A LOT of out of hours work as most people in IT do. Late night friday nights (most recently till midnight) and Saturdays are common. Only get to leave on time approx half of the time. Now, all four of us work extremely hard and I trust the others are well looked after in terms of salary. We need to patch all of our servers once a month and I've missed about 4 of these since I started. This has become my job now aswell. I'm really busy on a daily basis, mostly with support calls. My role has also grown to include supporting phones and out of office conferences. I've made all of these points in my yearly review. What do you guys think? As I'm coming up on two years, I was hoping to make a big leap in terms of salary, closer to €40k. I've been so busy over the last 6 months that they're bringing in a student to help me out at easter for work experience.

mikemac

You mean work late on Fridays and some weekends and you're not getting overtime? :eek:
I don't work in IT and from reading a lot of posts in this forum it seems to be very common in IT.

I sure hope you're logging those hours and are taking time off for every hours you work, ie, clock up 8 hours at the weekend and then take a weekday off.
And if you're not, then you my friend are a sucker.
I've never been in professional job without overtime. Maybe IT is different though and I seem to remember ye getting paid big money a few years back.

In my review I was told inflation was 5.7%. I don't know, seems high but research if inflation was higher than 5% and if so, push for that.

Here is a salary survery (from 2006)
http://www.recruitireland.com/careercentre/info/salarysurvey_it_permanent.asp

Network Support Engineer is given as 30k to 47k

A lot of IT people post here so they will have more info

AARRRGH

Now is a great time to find IT jobs.

You're being underpaid and overworked. You don't need that ****.

Go work somewhere you'll be appreciated.

leeroybrown

I would say that you should make your case to your employer based on your increased responsibilities, workload and skills. My guess would be that they are unlikely to break their own salary cap at review time.

The second thing I would suggest is to evaluate your skills and update your CV (a useful exercise in general). Take a look at the kind of jobs you are interested in and see if you are falling short in any area. You can then look at how you can fill in the blanks either through opportunities at work or in your own time.

Regardless of the outcome of the pay review you have coming up having 2+ years experience in your role and the right skills might result in some good opportunities.

aaf

Cheers for the comments guys. IT is a unique area to work in. Working long hours and out of business hours is the norm and expected when you work in IT. I find I'm actually reconsidering my career as a Network Admin due to the long hours and not being properly compensated for my time. It'll be interesting to see what kind of a salary increase I'll be offered at the end of the month. If it's not >= €37k, I'll be reconsidering my job with the company and maybe even the area I'm in.

MIN2511

Hey aaf, as you know you are being underpaid.
At your review point this out and remind them how hard you have worked if they can't give you what you want then you might as well get a new job!
All the best and keep us posted

aaf

Guys, just to let you know that I got a nice bump in my salary. Alot more than I was expecting so very happy now. Also got a nice little bonus on top of that. I've being thinking about nothing else all month! Was pretty tense about the whole thing but my hard work and long hours paid off. Wonder what I'l get next year when I have a few certs under my belt

JackieChan

Aaf,
Great to hear that you got what you deserved.Well done.

MIN2511

Congrats!!!!!

About time though