Hike Up; Our experience with job seekers and employers using our job portal www.jobibex.com has enabled us to understand how salaries in Oman and the GCC are determined.  Typically, employers underestimate the amount they perceive the candidate is worth.  On the other hand, candidates always believe they should get more.  This article provides you tips on how to convince employers that your underpaid and, thus, hike your salary in 2024 and beyond.

This is certainly not always due to companies trying to secure better deals.  Nor it is due to candidates and employees being greedy.  The key reason is mostly that employers are not able to find enough justification to offer more than they do.  On the other hand, candidates are also unable to establish and demonstrate their true value.  As part of our human nature, we always demand bigger paycheck.

How to Hike Up Your Market Value and Increase your Salary in 2024

It Starts with the Employee and Ends with the Employer

It is always up to you, the candidate, to prove their worth and clear all doubts about the right salary to demand.  Here are 10 tips to enhance your market value (salary you should be offered) in 2024:

1. Revamp your whole mindset

I bet you think that you are a victim of your bad manager.  You excitedly like quotes like “people do not leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers” on LinkedIn.  You might even believe that if this particular boss or co-worker is removed from your life you career would flourish.

Nothing will change in the outside whatsoever.  Start by blaming yourself for anything that seems wrong in your career.  Only then you can start your journey to expand the numbers on your next job offer.

2. You do not have to change job

On our job portal for jobs in Oman and GCC most of those who register as candidates are currently employed but not happy with their job.  The number one source of their happiness is, obviously, the $$$.  They register and upload their resume on www.jobibex.com hoping to get called for an interview that would lead to a job offer with an elevated salary.

The brutal truth is very few registrants achieve this objective.  The simple justification for this disappointing outcome is that companies are not to pay higher than the market.  I will elaborate on this point in the following point.

3. You get exactly what you are worth, no more no less; 10 Ways to Hike Up Your Market Value in 2024

If you are worth, say, RO1,000 per month in a given market you will most be offered a number that is close enough to RO1,000 with 20-30% higher or lower over the short term.  This depends on your CV writing and interviewing skills.  The sector you work in also plays a major role in your offer letter.

However, on the long-term, you would get exactly RO1,000.  The market would soon realize your true worth and would be reluctant to increase it.

Therefore, you need to get busy boosting your market value that would be recognized over the medium and long-term.

4. Mind your language

How many languages do you speak? Are you expected to speak English in your domain? If yes, how is your level of proficiency? Are you capable of expressing yourself verbally and in writing?  Do you make a lot of mistakes communicating in your domain’s key language and think it is OK as long as you are understood?

To cut to the chase, if you cannot master the language used in your work you might be perceived as talented and competent assistant or someone who performs basic tasks.  Nevertheless, you might never make it to the top regardless what they have taught you!  Higher salaries are given to those who can be promoted to manage people and businesses and not those who perform basic tasks.

In addition to mastering the main language, you must learn second, third language or even fourth language.  It really pays off, especially, in today’s multinational corporations era.  Companies of all nationalities are establishing operations abroad and hiring nationals.  If you are in Oman and a French or a German company is sitting up a branch in Oman, do you think they would ignore a candidate who speaks their language?

Fortifying your skills in a language you already speak or learning a new language is not hard these days.  There are many free mobile apps that can help you.  So, instead of raking up your mobile on those farms and war simulation games, get an app that teaches foreign languages.

5. Keep your mouth shut

“Silence is not empty; it is full of answers”.  The biggest mistake individuals make in any situation be it on a job or on a job interview is saying more than what they should.  Speak less and let your work do the talking for you.

You might not see the relevance of this point here.  However, it is worth mentioning that our experience in recruitment shows that the number one reason for failing a job interview is that the candidate said more than necessary.

Even when you are doing your job and interacting with your colleagues and supervisors avoid excessive talks.  Do not try to compensate for hard work by making statements about how competent and brilliant employee you are.  If you are qualified and genius prove it with your action not your word.

6. Check your IQ

Obviously, this does not mean taking one of those online IQ tests.  You rather need to access your abilities and skills in the workplace as well as your social skills.  According to experts, there different types of intelligence, each of which is important in its own right. These include IQ, Emotional Quotient (EQ), Social Quotient (SQ), and Adversity Quotient (AQ).

You might be a brilliant civil engineer but you might lack the skills to deal with construction workers.  Similarly, you could be a great financial controller but you are terrible at managing your time and always have to run late and tend to pile up unfinished tasks.

Always test yourself to identify areas for improvement.  The best way to do that is by sincerely asking people surrounding you to give their unbiased view about you personally and professionally.  Be receptive and open to criticism.  However, you do not have to take every comment seriously as some people’s opinion might be totally irrelevant or subjective.

7. Leave your comfort zone

If you are happy with your salary and your job you might decide to stick to your comfort zone and watch others bypass you.  The only way we grow is through experiencing pain.  The biggest pain in life is the decision to leave our comfort zone.

If you are operating on autopilot mode and are comfortable to do everything in your own way you are simply repeating yesterday.  Even worse, you have locked tomorrow to be exactly like yesterday.

If you the habit of getting up every morning just to get to your workplace just in time you are not allowing any time to prepare for the working day ahead of you.  Plan your days, weeks, months and years.  As a matter of fact, you must plan the hours, minutes and seconds of your life.

Finally, review your plan and identify areas for improvement and try to detect what went wrong.  Kill bad habits that make you the same person as yesterday.  Embrace new habits that will form tomorrow’s you.

Although this sounds easy but it is the most difficult step one has to make to enhance their market value.

8. Get certified

If the last certification you got was your academic degree or vocational certificate you went to you should consider upgrading.

There are sets of professionals (academic and mostly non-academic) certifications for every sector in today’s world.

Find out about the right certificate for you and pursue it.  Apart from expensive MBA programs that I would not recommend for everyone, the cost of professional certifications are within reach.  If your employer is willing to fund you it is certainly a bargain.  Even if you have to pay for it yourself consider this as one of the most profitable investment that you could and should make.

This site contains a comprehensive list of certificates and programs for almost each sector.  Evidently, not every program is relevant to your area but you can use the list as an indicator.

9. Coup with technology: Hike Up

Hike Up; Technology has a solution for almost every problem in your workplace.  It could be as simple as browsing for information or as complex as learning a complicated programming language.  Become computer literate and stay tuned about new tools out there.

Keep an eye on new technology that save time and money for your company.  This will convince your employer to pass you part of the saving as bonus or increment.  Investigate existing programs, machines or methods your company uses and verify and identify areas for improvement to achieve higher efficiency.

It is important to note here that your employer does not expect you to shoot raw ideas and suggestions but rather taking full ownership and responsibility of implementation.  Become the agent of change and lead throughout the entire process.  Keeping up with technology requires more than casually suggesting ideas and barking orders.

10. Put yourself in your employer’s shoe

Your employer, for most part, is an organization that strives to survive over the long-term by achieving its objectives.  Nothing is personal, irrespective of how you view it.  When you value yourself to the extent that you focus on continuously and recklessly enhancing your value, your employer will have no choice but to replicate your action.  This would reflect on your paycheck sooner or later.

To reinforce this point, imagine yourself as the owner of the company in which you work.  Ask yourself if you really deserve the pay you demand.  Then ask yourself if your company is better off letting go you or you should strive to retain you by offering a higher pay.

While collecting data for our annual publication “Oman Salary Encyclopedia” where we list salary scales of hundreds of jobs across all sectors we always notice some mismatch and irregularity in salaries of similar job titles and titles in similar sectors.  For instance, a senior accountant in company A is making 2 times the salary of a senior accountant in Company B although both companies are of similar size and are operating in the similar sector.

Furthermore, when investigating the causes for the discrepancies we find that in most cases the one with higher pay is forced on the employer.  It could be the result of acquiring another company with higher pay structure or the employee has been with the company for many years and have accumulated annual salary increment. Therefore, companies with this kind of salary disparity starve to get rid of expensive staff. They refuse to overpay a staff while the same staff would cost their competitors much less.

In other words, if you wish to move to another employer hoping to get higher salary you must carry yourself as someone who deserves higher salary than what your current employer is paying you.  Show them that you are underpriced and they will buy you at a discount.  Otherwise, nobody would be willing to bear the cost of your elevated salary.

Conclusion; Hike Up

Hike Up; The climb can be hard at times.  It requires sacrifice and a lot of effort.  Nevertheless, it all depends on you.  If you want to increase your value in the job market, all of the efforts start outside of the workplace.  Just like the recent years, 2024 will require you to be more competitive as many regulations and market parameters likely to change.  In Oman’s job market for instance, expat visa requirements are becoming less rigid than before.  That makes the competition in the job market tougher.

Given our experience with offering recruitment and headhunting services in Oman, UAE, Qatar, Saudi, Kuwait and Bahrain, we know that the mere action of wanting to change jobs does not always result in better job offer or higher pay.  Job seekers have to really work on themselves before putting showcasing themselves to other employers, Hike up.

So take the initiative and help yourself improve your prospects while demonstrating to your employers (or future employers) that you have what it takes to be a real go-getter.  If you feel that you have done everything you could but your boss is not sharing the same view, just move on. Hike Up;  Another boss is waiting who is willing to appreciate your true value is waiting for you., 10 Ways to Hike Up Your Market Value in 2024.