A salary review is a meeting that a graduate has with their manager or supervisor to assess their job performance and determine whether they will receive a salary increase. Salary reviews allow employers to ensure that they are providing competitive salaries to their employees. This is important when considering their standing within an industry and for fostering company loyalty within their employees. This article will provide you with important information about salary reviews so that you can effectively prepare. 

What is a Salary Review?

A salary review is a meeting between a graduate and their manager. It is used to evaluate their work performance. The frequency of a salary review will depend on the company, but it typically occurs annually. The review allows graduates to reflect on their performance in their role, including their strengths and weaknesses. Graduates can also use this opportunity to inform their manager about additional training or support they might need to fulfil the obligations of their role. For graduates that have already worked at the company for a few months or a year, the salary review also allows them to reflect on the goals they may have set during a prior review. Graduates can also discuss their achievements and performance so that the manager can determine whether a salary increase is appropriate. 

How to Prepare for a Salary Review?

Here are some tips to consider when preparing for your salary review:

Understand the company’s objectives

Before attending your salary review, you can conduct research into the company’s objectives. This can be through reading quarterly or annual reviews, and other reports that have been published by the company or your specific department. This can allow you to extract specific information about company goals and integrate it into your responses during the salary review to demonstrate the ways in which you have fulfilled or worked towards them. This will inform your employer about the value that you bring to the company and the quality of your contributions to the company’s success. It will encourage them to seriously consider a salary increase as they will want to retain your skills and prevent you from taking your expertise elsewhere.

Collate your accomplishments

Make a list that contains everything that you have accomplished in a professional capacity since your last salary review. If this is your first review, make a list of what you have accomplished since you began working at the company. A list will help you recollect all your accomplishments so that you can make mention of them without missing anything. In addition to this list, you should also collate documentation that points to these accomplishments. You can present this physical evidence to the employer at your salary review. This documentation can include certificates, awards, performance reviews, customer feedback forms, and other relevant materials. This is strong evidence of why you deserve a salary increase so should be presented during the review. 

Consider previous reviews

If this is not your first salary review at the company, it is worthwhile to consider your previous reviews. This can allow you to track your development and progress at the company, so that you can make inferences and connections about the growth that you have made over time. You can provide specific examples of specific skills, knowledge, expertise, or experience that you have gained. This is especially helpful if in a previous review your employer made mention of an area of weakness that you could work on. Evidence of your progress will therefore provide the employer with important insight about your professional growth and your ability to continue learning and developing.

Make Goals

You can present your goals for the following year to the employer during your salary review. These goals should be specific to your position within the company, the requirements of your role, and they should also consider and refer to the overall goals of the company. This will demonstrate to your employer that you are serious about continuing to show improvement, that you value your place within the company, that you have been thinking proactively about your future, and that you engage productively with your work. These goals should not only be about improving your work but also improving yourself as an employee. This can include engaging in training or earning a certification that can be helpful and useful for an employee in your position to have. Personal goals will demonstrate to the employer that you are deserving of a salary increase as you are also motivated to invest in your future at the company.

Prepare Responses

Like a job interview, you can expect the employer to ask you a range of questions during a salary review. These questions can vary, and your ability to answer them will depend on the extent of your preparation prior to the review. Some questions that the employer may choose to ask and that you can prepare responses to advance include:

• What have you achieved since your last review?
• Do you think that you have earned a salary increase?
• Why do you believe that you have earned a salary increase?
• What support can we provide you to help you improve in your role?
• Is there anything about your role that you find particularly challenging?

Prepare Questions

You can prepare questions before the salary review of what you wish to ask your employer. This can ensure that you do not misuse the opportunity that the employer provides at the end of the salary review when they ask if you have any questions for them. By having pre-prepared questions, you will show the employer your interest in making the most out of the salary review, as well as your commitment to the role and the company. The questions that you ask will depend on the role, your performance, and what was mentioned by the employer during the review. However, here is a list of questions that you may choose to ask the employer:

• How do you think that I can improve my performance in this role?
• What do you think my weaknesses are and how can I work on them?
• Does the quality of my work adhere to the standards of the company?
• Is there any additional training or professional development opportunities available that I can participate in?
• Are there any goals that you would be particularly interested in seeing me complete?

Conduct Market Research

Before attending your salary review, you should conduct research into the salaries of similar roles at different companies within your industry. This can inform you on whether you are receiving a competitive salary and whether an increase is likely. Completing research into this can be helpful information to cite during the salary review to demonstrate to the employer why a salary increase is necessary. This should be done politely to avoid coming across as confrontational. 

Find out more about the average salary for your industry.