These series will begin with a disclaimer: having written this, I cannot guarantee that by reading this post (or the next ones) your salary will triple automagically. Stop daydreaming. The knowledge that (I hope) you get from this post will increase the chance, but you still need to make courageous efforts to make it happen
Let’s begin with my story
It’s been about 3.5 years since I first work. My employment timeline looks something like this:
During the course of my employment, I increase my monthly salary… exponentially.
From 1 to 2, 0% increase. When I ended my third period, I had 60% increase from when I started. And when I ended my fourth period, I had 400%+ increase compared to the end of my third period.
I’m going to share to you what I learned along the way, the mistakes that I did, the lessons that I learned, how I did it, and most importantly, how you can multiply your salary too. Not 3 years from now. This year.
Understand: do you know how (good) employers determine your salary?
Think of employers as investors. Employers see all their employees as investments. And like every investing process, there are bad investments and there are the good ones. When you hear someone say that employees are assets, what they really mean is: the good employees are assets (you earn money from these people). The bad ones are liabilities; because all they do is cause headaches and you lose money on these people.
Now, assets are not all equal, some produce more than the others. The best investors do not diversify, they focus primarily on the most valuable assets.
Back to our story: based on my experience, employers don’t really have a strict salary threshold for any given position in the company*. Meaning, even if your salary expectation is above theirs, they are willing to match it if and only if you meet some certain (unspoken & unwritten) conditions. If you meet or even exceed the conditions, you just magically transform into a really valuable candidate. And they determine salary through the value of employees. Akin to the best investors, for extremely valuable assets, they will be willing to spend more. Even much more.
Why?
Because they know that even if they pay a great web developer 50% more than the other mediocre web developers, the great one will ship codes 100%-200% faster than the others. That is, the great one has a much higher production capacity than the others. And what happens when you can produce more? More income within the same time frame.
Think of it this way: suppose you have 300 thousand Rupiah. If you put 200 thousand Rupiah in Bank A, you will get 300 thousand Rupiah next month. But if you put 300 thousand Rupiah, you will get 1 million Rupiah next month. How much are you willing to put down?
All sane investors will pay 50% more when they can get twice or more income within the same timeframe. I know you would.
* The story is of course different if you’re working for Nazi. Heh.
The ugly truth: Employers don’t care about your CV
It’s true. Do you know why employers ask for CV? It’s for selection purpose. If you can impress them more than the others can, they will shortlist you. The sooner you can impress them, the better. If you can’t impress them, your CV goes to Mr. shredder.
Your CV and/or your portfolio is a snapshot of your background. I know this is going to sound harsh but it’s the reality: the best of the best employers don’t give a damn about your background. Your background is about your past, but they are not paying for your past. Your past is only an indicator for them; a predictor of how you will likely perform if you get hired. Instead, they pay for your future. They pay for your performance once they hire you. So you can have double Masters degree but if after 2 months you don’t perform, you’re a liability to them. And no sane investor want a liability in their portfolio.
Knowing that, what should you do?
Invest in yourself and increase your values. When your values are up and you eventually become (one of) the best, the price is yours to determine (up to a reasonable extent). You got to say “no”, because everyone wants a piece of the best. They need you and not the other way around. Because if you don’t get accepted in 1 company, there are 10 others looking you up on linkedin.
And that is a true story.
So how to increase your values? That’s the million dollar question isn’t it? I’ll have a new post up next week on increasing your values.
Have a great weekend!
How to multiply your salary series: how do employers think . the only requirement to increase your value . how to increase your value
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