It's difficult to say anything without knowing your industry, position and replacebility.

In general, I believe the best way to increase your salary is simply switching firms. Once your inside its quite hard to get any real raise (20-40%).

There are two strategies:

1. The best one has been pointed out--go out in the marketplace and get another job. When they ask you how much you were making, at BetaBux Enterprises either (a) deflect by telling them you are negotiating based on the position you are applying for, not the one you have now, or (b) lie like a motherfucker. Your choice.

2. Talk to your supervisor, explain that you're happy there, but you're clearly getting raked, and that's bullshit, but don't harp on it b/c that will sound like whining...because it will be. Point out what you've done for the company. Ask what you can do to make more $. He's going to tell you to wait b/c that's what he's been trained to do. Come back in a year. Or whatever. Assuming no other constraints (and believe me, there are on overhead, and they are not always rational), that might get you a bump, but NFW will it be 15%. You might be able to recoup with a promotions, but not likely. There's always some HR fairy tale bullshit about why they can't pay you what you're worth.

Eventually, you're going to have to move on to get more. Employers always expect you to be their bitch and take a "hometown discount". The complain about how employees aren't loyal anymore, while ignoring the fact that the days of walking into GE or IBM at 21 and walking out at 65 with a nice pension and a gold watch are Way Long Gone. Now they give you "merit increases" which are really COLAs but often are less than the rate of inflation. BFD.

You never have more power than during the negotiation process when they want to hire you. That's when you make your case for $. As a fall back, you can always structure an increase after 6 months as a proposal, and sometimes they will go for that (I had it happen once, so don't get your hopes up).

You should also study up on negotiations. Start googling, and good luck.

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Can people stop telling op his mistake was to accept the position at current rate. He knows that now. Give him advice to get the raise.

Why do you think you deserve a raise? Just because other people earn more than you? I think the HR department was clear, and not even a month later you want to ask again?

Your first mistake was to accept the pay before you started to work there. Maybe it seemed like a good offer at that time. You second mistake was to talk about a raise only four months into your new job. I can assure you the HR department was not amused. And now you are swinging again, strike three ahead.

Hmm.. Be careful with getting another job offer and using it as leverage. From personal experience, they may not take too kindly of an employee looking for another job, no matter how much they value you. I was canned because they had match another offer that I received PRIOR to being hired, only to be contacted by another employer for a job reference.

Just be careful.

Best way to get a raise is to have options. Go apply and interview elsewhere, then you can leverage offers against eachother and your current position. And if they don't buck up, you just pick the other position.

Initial discussions (1 month ago) resulted in HR telling me that I must prove that I'm working at the same level with the rest, have the same responsibility as the rest and do just as well as them and in this case they will "adjust me to the next payment bracket".

Did you get this in writing?

My advice from personal experience:

Start looking for another position. Go on interviews. Get offers. Once you have an offer, you're gold. You have a bargaining chip.

In the ~week they give you to decide on the offer letter, make a short list of your accomplishments and confront your boss. Use the offer letter if you need to, but as with women: be prepared to take the L. If they say no, or try to bring you down too much, say "I'm afraid I'll have to put in my two weeks notice". It's always good to leave on proper terms. Call the other company, accept, start new.

I nearly doubled my rates by following Ramit Sehti's advice. His free advice is good, and his paid courses can be worth the money depending on the upper end of your industry.

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/salary-negotiation-earning-more/

If you are at a company that would underpay you by 15-30%, you don't want to stick with that company in the long run. Because even if you successfully negotiate a raise, you know that they try to stiff you the next time and the time after that. One of those times, you are going to be replaceable and you will either be stuck with a low salary or you are going to get forced out.

There are companies that actually pay their workers very fairly. Usually this would be the case in industries where they can't handle turnover that well or that the business is vulnerable to workers taking trade secrets/clients to competitors, etc. Those are the companies that you can stick with for the long run. I work in finance (investment management) and there is pretty much no salary negotiations, but everybody gets paid fairly because it is assumed that everybody is knowledgeable about finance (people leave the moment better offers come elsewhere), so management doesn't even try to pull one over you. And turnover is very bad for the firm because employees can leave with trade secrets and turnover makes clients nervous.They'll ask, "If your fund is doing well, why are your analysts jumping ship? Can you maintain your performance in the future without your analysts?".

You want to find a business where the workers can be in this type of position so management is willing to work with you rather than against you. Usually that means a business where if you do better work, the company makes more profit. It is not one where there is a fixed amount of money that the company gets paid for the project and the company makes profit by finding out how to do it for as little cost as possible, e.g. minimizing labor costs, because it creates a situation where employees and management would have an adversarial relationship.

If you choose to stay in a "bad" company, then you have to learn how to be the corporate asshole. I've seen some people have great success manipulating the bureaucracy. They'll dig themselves into a niche role and refuse to teach anybody else. If they are a programmer or IT guy, they may intentionally write very difficult and confusing code so other people can't figure it out. Basically, they go full dark triad in building their moat in the company, they are not really concerned with doing what is good for the company but doing what is good for themselves. They may even sabotage projects (e.g. intentionally getting someone incompetent into an important role) just so they can swoop in at the last second and save the day to get credit for everything. I don't like playing this type of game, which is why I left one of my previous jobs.

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