Entry Level Engineer with well rounded background 2

[Mototank]

Hello All-
I would like to once again thank everyone here who posts and shares their advice, insight, and experience...a truly impressive and helpful site.

I have been working at my current job for the past 18 months, and took the job with the understanding that my salary was that of an entry level engineer, $60K. And while it is true, that this is my first detailed design engineering job since graduating in 2007, I spent several years before, during, and after college in more of a construction management position that I think think brings a lot more to the table than a newly graduated college student might be able to in terms of working with both internal and external employees and customers.

While I am not the worlds best Electrical Design Engineer, and I am aware of this, and trying to find a better fit for me within the company, I have learned a lot in the last 18 months and trying to be as useful and profitable for the company as possible. Last year I got the company standard 3% raise, and at this point I don't see them offering much more this year. I have my 2 year review in July, and would like to push for a more substantial raise.

My question to the forum is, am I being unreasonable to ask for a significant raise, based on the fact that I have been with the company for 2 years, bring minimal Electrical Engineering experience, but have many skills that many Electrical Engineers might not be able to bring to the table in terms of mechanical abilities and communication.
Or, is this just part of what happens when you switch career paths?

Should my salary be just based on my Electrical Engineering abilities, or should other skills, that may not be part of the job description, be accounted for as well?

thank you for your insights!

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Based upon your level of experience (for the job you were hired to do) at time of hire, were you underpaid? If not, I wouldn't expect miracles...

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[KENAT]

What are you doing for your company that helps them make money?

How have you improved/increased your value to the company?

Simplistically to get an above inflation/COLA type raise (ignoring more nefarious techniques or being grossly underpaid initially etc.) you need to have increased your value to the company correspondingly.

This should be relatively easy the first few years of your career as initially you are typically a resource sink until you start to know how to do useful stuff.

While it depends on location etc. $60k is not bad for an inexperienced engineer.

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[MadMango]

You say you have skills beyond others, but are you using them? Can you give your employer examples when review time comes around? Are you keeping a log of tasks and projects that you have been working on in the past 18 months to support your position of using skills that others do not have? If you can answer YES to all of the above, then asking for/receiving a raise above the company standard should be easy.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."


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[Mototank]

Based on my design engineering abilities alone, I would fully agree that the salary is fair. I am in the upper Midwest.

I cannot specifically point out how I am making money for them, as I am most likely costing them money at this point due to engineering inexperience.

However, the skills I bring are going to pay off in organization, communication, and fewer mistakes and less time to resolve the mistakes made in the overall process. Already, I have established great relationships with many people within the company, that has allowed for much better, easier, and less tense communication between sales, manufacturing, mechanical engineering to us.

I have been able to and am willing to, take tasks that would have normally taken up someone else's time, such as assembly or test fixture fabrication, and not only done it, but done it quickly so as to not delay projects or testing waiting for someone else to get to it.

From what I am hearing though, really, to justify a raise, it comes down to more how are you directly making the company money, than how are you contributing to the company in terms of efficiency in general tasks, morale or intradepartment relationships etc? Is this correct?

 

[KENAT]

No, 'soft savings' or similar can be used to justify the raise - it's just a little bit harder. In fact, for many of us it's hard to directly say how much we've earned for the company or how we've directly benefited bottom line.

Your big deal for a raise though is why you are worth more now than you were last time your salary was adjusted.

Your 'pre existing skills' existed at that time.

Unless you can show you've been able to leverage them more than was expected when your previous pay level was set why should you get more for them now?

Management seem to love lists of achievements, and how they are above or beyond the norm. If you can provide multiple examples of how you created tooling in 2 weeks that would have taken someone else 1 week, and it made production a lot simpler etc. that may be justification for above inflation raises.

Management are also suckers for 'great communication skills' or similar. If you can summarize in a compelling way how your skills are better than other folks (and I don't mean by saying how bad others are) and demonstrate how that's helped the company they may buy into it.

Likewise demonstrating increased responsibilities can justify more pay.

(Bare in mind, much of the above applies in an 'ideal state' that few of us really work in - but there have been plenty of threads touching on that before.)

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[KENAT]

oops - my 1 week & 2 week are back to front.

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[MacGyverS2000]

I was going to say, Ken... with your idea, I can slack my way into a Ferrari by year's end! ;-)

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[Mototank]

Thanks very much for the insights, that is a great place to start and good advice on how to present it. My original thought was basically, you hired me knowing nothing of me besides by work history background, and now that you have seen my non-engineering skills in action for 2 years, and given that they have improved this and that, what do you think about XX raise instead of the company standard 3%. This insight will definitely make me put some more "paper work" together on this and see what I can do.

Appreciate it much folks...

 

[PhilBW]

You talk about your non-engineering skills, but also state that your design skills are lacking. While you may be strong in areas they didn't really consider when they hired you, you are weak in the area they hired you for. Instead of spending time trying to show off your soft skills, you should be spending your time improving your design skills, since that is what they hired you for. If they are willing to move you to another job in the company, that is great, but as long as you are considered a design engineer, that should be your focus.

 

[Twoballcane]

Saw this artical and thought of this post:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_...tag=cbsnewsSectionsArea;cbsnewsSectionsArea.2

In short, you have been ranked and there you stay until you gain more years in the company...

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”

 

[bigTomHanks]

If you work for a larger organization then the two main ways to get an increase higher than the standard raise are to:
1) Get a promotion and take on more responsibility.
2) Take on more responsibility in your current position so that it appears that you are more valuable than others in your same grade.

Your company is willing to hire and develop people as part of their business model. They get some production out of it but they also expect a certain amount of people in your position to leave at some point.

Once you get a large enough body of knowledge and experience that many people are looking to you for guidance then you don't have much to bargain with in your current position.

The good news is that your day will come and then you will have some leverage to make the big bucks. Expect to earn that extra money though and work hard to get there.

If you feel ready for that level after a few more years where you are at then it may require you to move companies and reinvent yourself into who you want to be.

 

[Mototank]

Well I just walked into my boss's office, told him I am looking for $100k for being a nice guy and always smiling, or I am out...that is what you guys told me to do right?! Well he didn't take it very well and already hired a new grad for 3/4 my salary! jk

In a more serious manner, I truly appreciate the comments and support. I am doing my best to pick up as much as I can, I just get a little discouraged with the rate of becoming "competent" as I am used to being pretty darn good at stuff I do, but I also realize the engineers I am working with have 20+ years of very high level experience, and I am the first entry level to be hired, so trying to keep my head up and my ego down.

Maybe, by pushing hard, spending less of my day here and more time just grinding through what I don't currently understand as well, I will show more than anything about my worthiness.

Thanks all!

 

[KENAT]

Well for what it matters I'm starting to like the cut of your jib Mototank - I'd give you at least 4%;-)

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[ports394]

You keep bringing up inexperience. OP, I'd probably put you on probation. Stop making mistakes.

So far, communicating well with other teams, etc.. that's just doing your job. I don't see that you've done anything to go above and beyond.

You're making $60k, starting in the upper Midwest, that's high. Most of my friends that graduated in 2008 started in the mid 40's to 50k range.

Yes, I'm being stern. You need to start spending your evenings studying, and learning to do your job better. They hired you to do a job, they didn't hire a nobody, as you said. Do the job, get paid... do the job and more, get paid more.

 

[cvg]

you can study until you are blue in the face. most "experience" comes from real world projects, on the job and from your mentor. also, learning from your mistakes. If you really want that raise, you need to go through the chain of command. Your supervisor reporting to your engineering manager reporting to the office manager. If they all give good reviews, you can probably expect better compensation.

But also realize, that all compensation is directly related to the financial health of the company which is out of your control. Over the last few years, many have gotten pay cuts. A lot of entry level engineers are unemployed. You should be happy that you are
a)getting paid at what appears to be a high level for your experience and
b)working full time
c)expecting another raise this year

 

[Mototank]

Ports-
Be as stern as you want, I have no problem with that and it is the reason I posted what I did. I am not looking for a pat on the back, instead looking for real feedback from real live people who have been there. You make very good points.

My point is, I don't want to be leaving money on the table, that is there to be had. I am not saying I want to be over compensated, however, I go above and beyond what the other senior engineers do here for making sure there is open, non-hostile communications which makes everyone seem to work better together.

So, I came here to see if asking for a raise would make me look like I want something for nothing, or am entitled to it because I am part of a generation that deserves everything for nothing.
CVG-
The company is doing pretty darn well with 25% percent growth for the past several years and $40million plus is sales, but they are also new and growing and that takes TONS of capital, and I realize that too.

So, from the comments read here, I really should just be happy with what I am getting, whether or not I feel I am missing out on some pay that I would have had sticking to one career and being less well rounded, beef up my engineering skills and THEN go to the bargaining table with not only engineering skills but the other skills as well.

Thanks again all, and thanks for saving me from looking like a jacka** in the coming months

 

[KENAT]

Well within reason there's no harm in asking (ok in reality it can upset some folk but hopefully you get my point) but be realisitic.

Out of interest, have you previously asked your manager what you'd need to do/achieve to get an above average raise/the raise you want?

The implication here is that you don't wait until it's raise time to ask for a raise. You need to be preparing for some time, for instance asking in 2012 what you'd need to do to warrant a raise in 2013 etc.

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[msquared48]

Unless you were being fecicious with your post, don't you think that the 100K was just a tad bit over the top of an increase over 60K?

I would have started at 65K - no more under the circumstances.

To me, the 100K figure could have been construed as insulting.



Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[Mototank]

haha...yes, I was being fecicious...
If I wasn't, I would hope I would have gotten fired for that kind of an increase request!