As a trained salary negotiation facilitator, I’ve presented facts, resources and strategies to many individuals across the globe to help them enter into and walking away successfully from negotiation conversations. Today, I want to provide a tool specifically for professionals who want to remain with their current organization but know in their hearts and minds that they deserve a raise or recognition for the work and results they contribute.

Even in nonprofit jobs.

The “job analysis” is a resource I have found particularly helpful. It helped me uncover what I wanted and needed next in my career. Between Spring 2013 and Spring 2015, my department had been through several leadership changes, the loss and subsequent increase in new staff members, and an increase in expectations not only from our senior leadership but also the media regarding best practices in our field.

Needless to say, we were under the microscope and we all needed to step back, assess what our jobs are and should be, and determine our individual investments in the future of the department. So in the Spring 2015, my company’s HR department asked that all staff in my department complete a job analysis.

What is a job analysis you ask? Well, a broad strokes definition of the two parts are:

1. Part I: A detailed examination of what your work requires
2. Part II: A detailed examination of how it is working

The 2 Parts of a Job Analysis

Part I: A detailed examination of what your work requires

In the first part of a job analysis, you give a detailed examination of the

• tasks that make up a job,
• the conditions under which they are performed, and
• what the job requires in terms of potential for achievement, behavior characteristics, knowledge, skills, and the physical condition of you, the employee.

Part II: A detailed examination of how it is working

The second part of the job analysis includes

• determination of the most efficient methods of doing a job,
• enhancement of the employee’s job satisfaction,
• improvement in training methods,
• development of performance measurement systems, and
• matching of job-specifications with the person-specifications in employee selection.

At first I could only think about how completing this exercise would serve the institution. But later I realized that it was helping me learn more about what I need and want out of my role and, ultimately my career. In salary and raise negotiations, it is imperative that we first consider our needs. Then we consider what the market is willing to pay us. It is the combination of those two factors that give us the foundation for a productive conversation with our current or future employer.

What the Job Analysis Showed Me

I’d never had the opportunity to spend this much mindful consideration about how and where I was spending my time in my current role. It showed me that I had outgrown the work. I realized I like being part of strategic conversations, but I wasn’t able to in my current role. And at a time when the institution was reconfiguring positions, the job analysis gave me the courage to talk about what I was discovering with my supervisor. When my supervisor later reviewed the results of my job analysis, she agreed that I had outgrown the position and offered me a promotion for a position that had been written into the budget but she had waited to fill. I even had the opportunity to help her write the job description, pick my title, and advocate for the work I would do in the role!

Because the job analysis is an objective, deliberate evaluative process, the exercise productively moved me away from the negativity surrounding my professional situation. Evaluation happens for most professionals either at both the mid-year or end-of-year mark. But I highly recommend that you complete this exercise now (no better time than the present) and prior to at least one of your evaluations.

Get Your Step-by-Step Job Analysis Guide

So let’s dive in! Download this step-by-step guide to Rai$e Your Awareness, Rai$e Your Salary by signing up for my newsletter. Complete it before you join us for the You Deserve a Raise Today: Getting What You Want in Salary and Raise Negotiations webinar on September 6th 1-2:15pm. In that training, you will learn about the resources and strategies to share what you’ve learned with your supervisor. Including specific phrases to use in that conversation.

Hint: I would give yourself a week to complete it so you have time to let what you discover percolate and can ask colleagues for feedback if you find it necessary.