A community of more than 1,600,000 database professionals and growing

The Voice of the DBA

What are you worth?

This editorial was originally published on May 19, 2014. It is being re-published as Steve is out of the office.

Each of us is reponsible for negotiating his or her own salary for a position. Often we don't have much leverage to exact a higher salary, and even if it's deserved, so many companies don't have the flexibility for managers to pay higher salaries than what is set in some range by their HR group. That's discussed a bit in this post from Chris Shaw that looks at hiring and salaries.

I've always felt that the way we handle salary was developed by owners and managers, and the process benefits them, not the employees. We rarely discuss salaries at work, with disclosure sometimes forbidden. Your salary adjustments over time seem to be highly based on your current salary. That means that your starting salary often determines your future salaries at a company, regardless of your abilities relative to others or the market. Even changes in supply and demand may not affect your salary.

A few companies have set salary ranges publicly within the company and some even disclose salaries among employees. It sounds strange to many of us, but I've talked with a few people that work in those environments and it's not a big deal. You earn your salary or you don't, and if you do a good job, no one complains. If you don't do a good job, then many of these companies are quicker than most to ask you to take a pay cut or leave. Personally, I like that type of environment.

I doubt we'll have open disclosure going forward, but fortunately many of us have the ability to change employers easily with our skills if the markets change and we feel we're underpaid. The flip side is that there can be competition for your job and companies might find it easier to let you go and choose someone else that provides the company a better value.

The only advice I would give most people looking to negotiate salary these days is that you should ask for what you're worth, even if it seems high to you. The worst thing that usually happens is the employer says no and offers you a lesser amount. However, if you don't ask, you won't get the salary you want.

Steve Jones from SQLServerCentral.com

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

Register now for SQL in the City Streamed

Redgate’s popular SQL in the City Streamed virtual event takes place again this December. Wherever you are, tune in on Wednesday December 13 to watch some of the best-known speakers from the database world present the latest technologies and tools from Redgate. Register free now

Don’t just fix SQL Server problems, prevent them from happening

SQL Monitor helps teams looking after SQL Server be more proactive. Not only does SQL Monitor alert you to current issues, it gives you the information you need to stop them happening in the future. Download SQL Monitor now and get a 14 day free trial

Featured Contents

Importing Files in Parallel with SSIS

Paulo de Jesus from SQLServerCentral.com

Run multiple instances of your package in parallel so that each instance processes a portion of the total number of files More »

How to record T-SQL execution times using a SQL Prompt snippet

In this quick tip, Phil Factor shares the SQL Prompt snippet he uses as a standard testbed for getting execution times for procedures and functions. More »

Dynamic Data Masking on Azure SQL Database

Additional Articles from Database Journal

Azure SQL Database’s Dynamic Data Masking (DDM) feature limits the exposure of sensitive information to non-privileged users. DDM can mask either the full value or partial value in a column. This method can also mask Social Security and Credit Card Numbers without making any changes to the application. Read on to learn more. More »

From the SQLServerCentral Blogs - Power BI Custom Visuals Class (Module 74 – Cylindrical Gauge MAQ Software)

Devin Knight from SQLServerCentral Blogs

In this module you will learn how to use the Cylindrical Gauge Custom Visual by MAQ Software. The Cylindrical Gauge... More »

From the SQLServerCentral Blogs - Synchronous VS Asynchronous Statistics Updates

SQLEspresso from SQLServerCentral Blogs

One of the things I’ve been able to implement to help with performance is changing from Update Statistics Synchronous to... More »

Question of the Day

Today's Question (by Avinash):

What's the output from this code?

 DECLARE @dt DATETIME , @bin VARBINARY(20) ; SET @bin = 0x00000020; -- binary value of 32 SET @dt = '2001-01-01' ; SELECT @dt + @bin ;

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

We keep track of your score to give you bragging rights against your peers.
This question is worth 1 point in this category: T-SQL.

We'd love to give you credit for your own question and answer.
To submit a QOTD, simply log in to the Contribution Center.

Design and configure SQL Server instances and databases in support of high-throughput applications that are mission-critical and provide consistent response times in the face of variations in user numbers and query volumes. Learn to configure SQL Server and design your databases to support a given instance and workload.

Pick up your copy of this great book today at Amazon today.

Yesterday's Question of the Day

Yesterday's Question (by Steve Jones):

What is the range of hours for the time zone offset in a datetimeoffset datatype?

Answer: +/- 14 hours

Explanation:

The offset is plus or minus 14 hours.

Ref: Stairway to Advanced T-SQL Level 9: Compare, Modify, Derive and Validate Date and Time Values

Datetimeoffset - click here

» Discuss this question and answer on the forums

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.

SQL Server 2016 : SQL Server 2016 - Administration

HA and DR Solution - Based on the discussions that we had internally we initially decided to move with a SQL FCI for our non...

Migrate SQL Server to new server - Hello All, I would like to upgrade my SQL Server 2012 to SQL Server 2016. I created new machine and i would...

SQL Server 2016 : SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL

Date Ranges - Simple, but seemingly impossible - Hi all, I've done a lot of research and tried so many things for around a week. I'm desperate at this...

Adding batch numbers based on row count and column values - Hi, I have to insert sales order data from a staging table to a base table where further processing is done...

sp_WhoIsActive and build warnings in VS Database Project - I just tried adding sp_WhoIsActive to a VS database project (for a non-system database – not sure whether that is an...

SQL Server 2014 : Administration - SQL Server 2014

Memory pressure - Could WaitForDelay function cause memory pressure like I'm seeing this below? I have a sql server agent job that generates...

Encrypt a column in sql server? - Hi All, Need help in encrypting a column and share the encryption key with the person whom I want to...

Linked servers cannot be used under impersonation without a mapping for the impersonated login - Hi all I have a stored procedure that selects data from two instances. If I run the stored procedure it works...

Integration Services Catalogue (SSISDB) - Cannot return free space to operating system. - We have the SSISDB database which stores log information of jobs that are run. It was initially set to retain...

SQL Server 2014 : Development - SQL Server 2014

Need help with T-SQL - I have more than 200 tables in one of our database and those tables contain a column name 'FirstName' and...

SQL Server 2012 : SQL 2012 - General

how to take backup databaseobjects(tables scripts,storeprocedure and functions etc) in sqlserver using sql scripts - Hi All, I have one doubt in sql server . how to take Script database objects automaticaly using sql script and...

Import multiple excel files in one go - Hi all, i have around 50+ excel spreadsheets with 1 sheet in each, the same headings but varying amounts of data...

import .BCP files into sql server -

SQL Server 2012 : SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL

How to find the first recurring character of a string. - I have a query that finds the first recurring character in a string. For eg : if @str = 'ABCCDA' then i...

SQL Server 2008 : SQL Server 2008 - General

Excel 256 Column Layout - Hi IN a SSRS report when i am trying to export to excel it gives error since no of columns...

SQL versus program - Hi all, I'm posting my question in this 2008 forum because we're running SQLServer 2008R2, but it is more a general...

SQL Server 2008 : T-SQL (SS2K8)

Join two tables with complex derived keys that don't match - Guys, I need to join two tables together - Master and Detail Master Table: ID =7000776601*1*6994 Code=P*W*S Instances=6994ý12510ý12874ý13245ý13609ý13973ý14337ý14701ý15009ý15072ý15436ý15800ý16164ý16528ý16899 Details Table

Msg 8152, Level 16, State 14, Line 7, String or binary data would be truncated. - I'm having a weird string truncation issue that we've fixed, but it driving me nuts and was hoping somebody may...

SQL Server 2008 : SQL Server Newbies

Dynamic variables in SQL server for HTML - I am trying to recreate and automated email. The email has gone from having, one column with headers and one...

SQLServerCentral.com : SQLServerCentral.com Website Issues

Is there a user guide for blog content formatting? - The "powered by telligent" link at the bottom of the blog edit page goes to what appears to now be...

This email has been sent to newsletter@newslettercollector.com. To be removed from this list, please click here.
If you have any problems leaving the list, please contact the webmaster@sqlservercentral.com.

This newsletter was sent to you because you signed up at SQLServerCentral.com.
Feel free to forward this to any colleagues that you think might be interested.
If you have received this email from a colleague, you can register to receive it here.