How much more salary should I ask after 1st year?

Background is that I've now worked one year at a Nordic REPE firm (~100 employees, AUM EUR 2.5 billion) as an Analyst after graduating in January this year. Current base salary is EUR 5.5k/mo and I am expected to receive annual bonuses worth 4-5- month salary (i.e., all-in comp ~EUR 90k p.a.). I will be having performance reviews and salary discussions during this month, and it would be very fruitful to know how much more salary I could ask without losing my face?

We have a very small team in my country, and I have been involved in multiple transactions in a key role and learned quite much during the year. Additionally, my responsibilities for the coming year will increase as I will be executing smaller deals more or less by myself (including sourcing, modelling, IC materials, coordination of DD, bank discussions, price negotiations with sellers etc.). 

Given that my responsibilities will increase, I've received very good feedback from colleagues, inflation is roughly ~10% in my country and I also think that my base salary is already slightly lagging (maybe 200-400e per month) compared to some of my friends working at other REPE firms, how much more salary should I ask? I was wondering something like 6.5k or even 6.7k, is this realistic?

What kind of salary increases have you received and what should I expect?

 

I'm in the US, so lightly different cultural norms, but a couple of questions:

1) are you in some sort of structured analyst program or were you just hired out of school?

2) any other 2nd year analysts that you could ask about the process?

3) have you already had your yearly review so you can learn about how you are viewed by your bosses?

If you haven't had a review yet, that is the time to broach the subject about raises/promotions. As an analyst, I personally would ask the questions generally, but be prepared to discuss numbers if it comes up naturally (e.g. if you get a good review, and you ask about promotions and raises and they tell you, oh you should expect a 5% raise, that is one thing. If you have a good review and the discussion is more of a "what do you think is fair", that is another thing. And if they say you suck, then don't bring up promotions or raises at all and instead direct your questions on improvement).

 

1) Nope, just hired straight after school. The firm typically only hires people with 2 years of full-time experience, but I was lucky enough to apply there at a time when they were lacking resources. And I also have conducted several top-tier internships during studies which ofc helped.

2) Yes, but they still haven't told much about exact numbers. Currently have just said that the very least they require is the inflation

3) Not yet, it will be kept during this month. Just wondered that I need to take the time now to come up with solid arguments to be able to capitalize a proper raise

 
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I'm also in the US so this might not be universal in all countries. The very least you should ask for is inflation adjusted increase, otherwise you would quite literally lose money working there. Then again, if you think you might be a casualty of recession layoffs then maybe taking a haircut of 5% increase is better than no income from being fired lol. Similarly to stated above, the reviews are the best time to bring it up and you'd be able to gauge if they think you're doing well (better performance means more room for you to ask for a raise). If they think you are doing great, then potentially asking for a 15% raise isn't out of the question (10% inflation and a slight bump after that for performance and increased responsibility next year). If they think you are doing fine to poor then I would just ask for as close to inflation adjustment as possible. 

If you are only in your first year then I would expect no promotion, unless it was discussed during the hiring process that you would come in as a senior analyst and move to associate within a year or 2 kind of thing. Within the same title the salary increases aren't going to be wild, so expecting to move from 90k to 120k isn't likely. 

 

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