Journey towards 790% salary hike in span of 3.5 years.

Back in 2021 I changed my domain form unix support guy to ServiceNow Domain after 1.5 years of career break. I joined one of the startup’s with bare min salary (even lesser than min salary given to freshers at that time). I only cared about learning the technology and never cared about salary. I also got a few internal awards within company and the management was also very generous to almost double my salary after 1 year. And as always my focus was always on the learning the stuff. After completing 2 years I finally decided to change company and attended several interviews. I gave several interviews with no offer letters being released and finally realised my skills are not upto the market’s requirements and went on with learning spree again.

After a year the startup I’m working for finally decided to close its business in India and I had no option but to look outside. I took many interviews and finally got an offer letter from one of the prestigious companies.

Once I joined the project I soon realised that the project is not a good fit for me (it was a 24x7 support project and I was hoping for a development project). I realised to land up in project I want, I need to improve my skills more and did exactly the same for next one year. Finally after a year of work in the project I landed up in job that offered me 140% hike. It was not easy journey though (many job applications and nearly 40 interviews) there were the times when I attended 3-4 interviews in a day. Many companies took the interviews and dint even update the status but that did not demotivate me. Attending several interviews gave me lots of experience in how to manage interview and what are the critical questions that were frequently asked. These experiences helped me a lot in cracking the high paying company’s interview. So, now when I compare my salary with my salary 3.5 years back it increased by 790% and that really amazed me and gave me lot of confidence and satisfaction.

My mantra for continuous nearly 100% salary hikes:

1. Concentrate on skills and make yourself a valuable asset in project. (Skill drives salary not vice-verse)

2. Attend as many interviews as possible. Don’t be picky while applying for jobs. Interview teaches you a lot in limited time.

3. Never undervalue yourselves. Know your worth and hold your ground strong while salary negotiations.

4. keep your ego low ALWAYS. Even a fresher will teach you something sometimes. Try to understand their POV and help them understand why it’s wrong and why your POV is correct.

Hope this post helps and boosts confidence amongst many of us to aspire and accelerate in their career.