When I started my job search as a recent college graduate, negotiating salary was intimidating. Thankfully my first job offered my goal salary with the promise of a raise upon exemplary performance. Great; everything was smooth sailing for about a year.

When I hit my one-year anniversary I began plotting how I would ask for a raise. “Ok, once the annual report is in, I’ll ask before the board meeting in January.” Well the annual report wasn’t where it needed to be for me to ask for a raise. I’d done well in sales, but we had some substantial expenses so I chickened out. I could wait.

Granted, during that time I was working hard. I worked every weekend in January and 11 weekends straight from Easter to the mid-June. I’m sure there were opportunities to ask for a raise during that first quarter but I wanted to make sure that as an institution we were profitable so my appeal wouldn’t be viewed as greedy or selfish. I asked for advice from my parents, friends, friends’ parents—anyone who had insight into the best practices of business.

Here’s what I heard: You should be formally evaluated once a year. Normally a raise is given to cover inflation so ask for 5% but expect 3%.

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