#TBCResults: From overlooked to over-invested-in by his next employer with a 107% salary increase in 61 days
#TBCResults - 012 - Rainier: From overlooked to over-invested-in by his next employer with a 107% salary increase in 61 days
Rainier’s Problem:
“I want to ace the interview, resign and have a higher salary.”
“IT, FMCG, Consulting - companies such as IBM, DXC, P&G, Unilever, SMC, BCG, EY, Deloitte. I want to use my current learnings on SAP SuccessFactors on my new job but also I want to learn other SAP modules if possible. Can we figure that out together?”
Rainier's opening line during our first call was self-awareness at its finest: he felt like he was the clean up crew at his job. Not in a literal sense, he was great at the work, and he knew it. But nobody was handing him the visible, high-impact projects that would let him prove how great he really was. They kept assigning him the work no one else wanted to do. He was stagnating there even with his best efforts to stop it, and he could feel himself getting more and more irritated at the job every week.
He came to me after I had finished working with his friend (a previous #TBCResults herself) whose salary we'd nearly doubled in our work together and who ended up in a much healthier workplace in just 60 days. He watched that happen and thought: I want that just as fast too.
So he called me up for help.
“The true problem I quickly saw was that he didn’t know what makes him different. He described himself the way everyone does when they haven’t dug deep enough: adaptable, quick learner, team player. Nothing that said “this is what makes me different and a standout candidate.”
We just had 2 small problems to work around. Namely that he:
Wanted an employer who'd actually invest in him, meaning potentially funded certifications, a real growth roadmap of taking his SuccessFactors knowledge to the next level, not just another paycheck.
Really wanted to be gone from his current workplace as fast as possible.
These weren’t difficult for me to coach him through. I took note though that our interview practice had to be focused on him asking questions back and probing the workplace about what they really offered. Which means he had to really understand what they were saying vs what they actually meant.
If he wanted real investment from a new employer, he had to get specific about what actually made him different from everyone else. A vague list of soft skills was not going to get him double the salary and long-term investment in his career from a new employer.
Timing-wise, I was clear with Rainier. If he could submit high-quality homework quickly, I would make time for our calls as soon as possible as well. I am committed if my student is committed.
So where did we start?
With Rainier documenting all of his experience. Not just what he did as his day-to-day or what was asked of him, but where he'd actually differentiated himself from anyone else who could have done his job. The times he showcased his skill set to the fullest for the client and got that extra recognition. The solutions he suggested after hearing the client’scomplaints. The process improvements he proposed after studying best practices and analyzing it against the current system.
I reviewed it all and found the same pattern every time: what looked like "adaptability" on paper was really a specific pattern of him proactively picking up new tools and systems quickly and applying that knowledge in solving technical problems no one else wanted to touch. He was not just the clean-up crew, he was the architect and engineer who designed and implemented a modern solution.
Once we had that reframe locked in, we built out his career story. Specifically how he'd explain why he was leaving without it sounding like a complaint.
We also talked through what he actually wanted from his next employer: not just a role, but investment in his growth in the near-future, from funded certifications, to exposure to new skills, a workplace willing to treat his development as part of the deal.
The last thing we wanted was for him to land somewhere that repeated the same pattern: doing great work with nobody noticing or investing in it.
The Bumpy Career’s Proposed Solution:
Rainier's situation is one a lot of students come to me with: "How do I land a job that hits my ideal checklist (great salary, great work environment, benefits I want, good boss, etc.) in the shortest amount of time?"
And that's exactly what The Bumpy Career Framework is built for. It's the same system I use with every student to take them from "I have no idea where to start" to a signed offer, without the guesswork or months of random applying.
I won't walk through the whole thing here (that's what our calls are for), but if you want to learn how it works and how it could work for you, come learn it with me.
Back to Rainier.
Once we had his resume set up and his "why I'm leaving" answer locked in, it was mostly a matter of preparing him for all the incoming interviews because I knew it would move fast considering what kind of candidate he is.
Timeline and Deliverables:
Across 30 days, we had 2 1-hour calls where we:
✅ Built a strong resume, highlighting the end-to-end capabilities he built in the past year for his different clients, and how that gave him the skills to be both a solutions architect and implementer.
✅ Built out her ideal offer checklist, where we made it clear the minimum standards he was looking for. This meant what was the salary, what was the workload, and most importantly what was the investment in his further education that this workplace would provide him.
✅ Built out his job hunting tracker fully-focused on SuccessFactors roles and ones that would further specialize him in his niche.
✅ Built up his LinkedIn.
✅ Interview practiced, especially on getting his career story right from how he went above and beyond at his current workplace and more importantly, how he’d interview them back about how work was assigned to the team and what were the growth opportunities there.
✅ !! Most important !! Worked on his mindset and approach to the job hunt, that he needed to vocalize properly in all his interviews what he was capable of and what he was hoping to receive back from his next workplace. She was handling a whole team’s workload and job hunting on top of it. She needed to balance the work to avoid burning out and being stuck in a terrible situation.
Outcome:
I knew Rainier wouldn’t have a long job hunt. He consistently showed me that he was a great thinker, doer, and communicator when it came to his work. Any interviewer with working eyes and ears would quickly see how great he was.
What I worried about was the negotiation process involved, and how ready he’d be to advocate for what he wants. But I had to trust that our prep was enough.
And it was!
It worked almost too well. Rainier ended up juggling multiple interviews every week and messaged me half-joking if he should stop some of his ongoing application processes as he had too many to juggle. (My view is always finish the processes just so you know what the offer would be for benchmarking purposes. It’s also useful to do so for the network.)
Rainier signed a job offer in his ideal specialty with an employer who wanted to invest in his growth and more, just 61 days after we signed on to working together and paying him 107% more.
Of course there were some downsides, like the initial contract nature and the expected days in office. But as we spoke through the pros vs cons of the offer, like the total compensation landing him around Php100k a month, we agreed that this was the best step forward presently.
I coached him how to make the most of this initial year so that when his contract finished, he’d either have another offer already with an even better compensation package. Or he could negotiate an extension of his current contract, potentially to a permanent one with a better compensation package.
Which he did!
He sent me a message a year later to update me on his situation, and I couldn’t be more proud about how he maximized our sessions to get the best possible scenario.
Some words from Rainier himself:
I knew Rainier would move fast once he had the language to explain what actually made him different. The hard part was never his skills. It was that he'd never had to name his capabilities before.
When I received his message a year later, about how he'd been regularized, him detailing his successful negotiated for a salary increase, and how they were planning on sending him on work trips to Denmark, I really felt so proud of how far he’d come in such a short time. All it took was for him to recognize and learn to explain how exactly he was different from all the other candidates.
My greatest wish is for him to keep treating his growth as something he negotiates for, not something he waits to be handed. And if he ever gets stuck again, at least he already knows how to find me.
***
The Bumpy Career is the career coach for the confused high achiever.
Meaning you're the type of person that if you know where to go and what you had to do, you'd be number 1 in an instant. But you're a bit confused today on exactly that: where to go and what to do.
That's where I come in.
We'll work together to give you a actionable roadmap to make your career live up to your expectations. If that sounds great to you, then learn more about how we can make it happen here and let's talk soon~