You Really Need to Ask for a Raise. Here’s How.

Years ago, when I worked for a publishing house, I went out to happy hour with my coworkers at a whiskey distillery. One thing led to another and I found myself drunkenly badgering three of my female coworkers about their income (if this is shocking to you, you must be new here at BitchesDrunkenlyBadgerYoutoGetRiches.com).

At issue was the fact that none of them had ever asked for a raise. Ever. At any job they’d ever had. And as I listened to their pathetic excuses I felt the worst kind of déjà vu. All of their reasoning and fear sounded frighteningly similar to my own personal experience.

For I too had once waffled and procrastinated over asking for a raise! It was a massive, embarrassing, and expensive mistake. I asked my boss for a raise and he sheepishly gave me 25%—even more than I asked for!—because he realized he forgot to give me a raise with my last promotion and I had been underpaid for literally years. The whole miserable experience was basically designed in a lab to be my supervillain origin story.

Since then I have never hesitated to ask for a raise. I set calendar reminders and keep a running tally of the reasons why I am fucking worth it.

I’ve also become a raise-seeking evangelical. Because if my old coworkers still struggled with all the same hang-ups about asking for a raise that I once had, then chances are some of you do too. And it is my sworn duty as a Loud Internet Woman to type words at you until you get the hell over it!

The squeaky wheel gets the raise

Statistics show that you are more likely to get a raise if you ask for it than if you don’t.

So if Sarmishta in development actually asks for a raise this quarter and you don’t, odds are she is getting that raise and you are not. Not necessarily because she’s better at her job than you are at yours. Not necessarily because she worked harder, brought in more money or clients, or saved the company millions of dollars. Just because she fucking asked for it.

While you were sitting around pining away for a raise, she was acting out the corporate equivalent of the romantic climax to a Cameron Crowe movie.

We’ve talked about this harsh reality before. Your employer has very little incentive to promote you or give you a raise. Sitting around doing nothing to funnel those extra dollars toward your bank account is basically a way of signaling to your boss that you’re perfectly happy working for your current measly salary.

So give yourself a ferocious pep talk, remember that deep beneath your mild-mannered exterior you are in fact a fire-breathing dragon, and make the ask.

How to ask for a raise

Whether in person, over Zoom, or by email, the formula for asking for a raise remains essentially the same.

Once every six to twelve months, you need to schedule a conversation with your boss. Don’t have a boss? Ask the head of your department, your human resources representative, your immediate supervisor, or all of the above. Here’s a script for scheduling the conversation:

I’d like to meet with you soon to discuss my job performance, contribution to the company, and my overall compensation. When can we schedule this conversation?

Short, direct, and unapologetic. Just like BGR producer and local cryptid, Ducky!

Step 1: Present your brag sheet

A brag sheet is essentially a list of your accomplishments. Every time you finish a project at work, you should add it to your brag sheet. That way you won’t forget all the impressive stuff you’ve done when it comes time to prove your worth.

Bring your brag sheet to the meeting where you will ask for a raise (or just memorize it ahead of time). Start the conversation with your biggest brags, reminding your boss of why all your hard work should be rewarded.

Step 2: Calculate your value

Every item on your brag sheet should answer one of two questions:

1. How much money did you make for the company?
2. How much money did you save the company?

Calculate the numbers. Add ’em all up. You have literal financial worth to your employer. Your job is making them richer (or, if you work for a nonprofit, saving them money). You do this by making processes more efficient, bringing in new clients, improving products, switching vendors, and overall making decisions and changes that benefit the company’s bottom line.

Surely a benevolent employer can reward you by sharing some of the profits that resulted from your hard work? (… is the implication here.)

Step 3: Prepare your counteroffers

You should prepare for the possibility that your boss won’t give you a raise. That sucks, but it is NOT the end of the conversation.

If they say no to a raise, simply spin dramatically around in your desk chair while saying “Not so fast.” Then pause for the background music to strike a discordant note.

There are all kinds of ways your employer can compensate you without money, as we explain in our list of creative counteroffers. And some of these counteroffers—while not monetary!—come with significant value.

For example: when I started working from home, I increased the amount of my paycheck I got to keep because I wasn’t wasting money commuting. Car insurance and maintenance, gallons of gas, and hours wasted sitting in traffic really adds up, after all.

So pick your favorite creative counteroffers and deploy them when it looks like you’re facing defeat. Your boss may not want to pay you more, but they might have no problem with an extra perk that will still improve your life and finances in other ways.

The sexist red herring

The gender and racial wage gaps are real things. Like climate change, this is not open to discussion yet is still somehow open to discussion.

Still, misogynists love nothing more than delegitimizing misogyny. Actually, they love nothing more than their privileged position within our patriarchal society, which is why they’ll stop at nothing to maintain it. But delegitimizing misogyny is a close second, as evidenced by all the men who think that the gender pay gap is made up in service to a vicious feminist political agenda and not, y’know, a real source of economic pain for half the population.

The argument against the gender wage gap is that it only exists because of the choices women make, not because of any kind of systemic sexism.

Hear that, ladies? As usual, it’s all your own fault! If only women would ask for raises as often as men do, or work as hard as men work, or angle for promotions as often as men do, or go into higher-paying professions like men do, or not get pregnant and have babies like men don’t, they’d be making just as much money as the men!

These are certainly contributing factors, but not the root cause of the gender wage gap. They merely act as a handy excuse to not fight for income equality between the genders.

Because by this logic, short of forcing women to make better choices in the workplace, these things will just keep happening.

So if, according to these emissaries of the patriarchal status quo, the wage gap is “only a thing” because women “never ask for raises”… well then honey, you need to ask for a goddamn raise.

It is your feminist prerogative. You’re letting down your sister misandrists every time you don’t ask for a raise! Think of how angry the misogynists will be if you take away their sexist red herring and force them to recognize systemic inequality!

Your pathetic excuses

“But asking will be so awkward!”

“I’m afraid of rejection!”

“I don’t want to look like a greedy bitch!”

“Other people deserve it more!”

“I know the company is going through a really tough time right now and there’s no room in the budget for me to get a raise!”

If you have ever considered asking for a raise but you were stopped when one of these excuses occurred to you, please do the following:

1. Place the excuse in an airtight container.
2. Drive it out to the woods along with a sturdy shovel in the dead of night.
3. Bury it deep where no one will ever find it.
4. Never speak of it again. It will be your Dark Secret—the cornerstone of your Mysterious Past. You will occasionally think of it—the sound of the shovel scraping dirt under the wobbling light of your flashlight—some nights while gazing into your massive fireplace and drinking the finest scotch. Yet you will sleep soundly, dream peacefully, secure in the knowledge that you banished the only thing standing in the way of you obtaining the raise you so richly deserved.

Conflict avoidance

These excuses are a boring method of avoiding conflict. They make you look like you actually enjoy impotent martyrdom. Yet none of the above concerns are actually your problem.

Asking for a raise is hard. It’s unpleasant. If you’re like me and you have the daily anxiety level of a wounded wildebeest within sight of Pride Rock, the thought of asking for a raise can be physically nauseating.

But if you don’t ask…

That’s right. I’m circling all the way back to my very first point: if you let the excuses win, then you’re not getting a raise. It is very unlikely to magically appear in your bank account if you do not first ask for it.

So you owe it to yourself to overcome your fears and excuses. You owe it to yourself to not contribute to damaging statistics about income inequality. Look at all these articles we’ve written to make it easy for you!

• The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Salary
• When It Comes to Salary Negotiations, Are You Asking for Enough? 
• The First Time I Asked for a Raise
• How NOT to Determine Your Salary 
• What to Do When You’re Asked About Your Salary Requirements in a Job Interview
• If Your Employer Refuses To Negotiate Salary, Try These 11 Creative Counteroffers 

You’ve fucking got this! Your fears are the only thing holding you back from having more money so you can reach your financial goals faster and easier. Nervous? Afraid? Feeling unworthy or suffering from imposter syndrome? Here’s a straw so you can suck it up, my lamb.

The absolute worst that can happen is that your boss says no. But that’ll only happen if you give them the chance to say yes.

Now go out there, get your raise, and tell us how it went in the comments below.

An earlier version of this article was publishing in May, 2017.