Karen James Chopra: Now this is going to depend on the situation and on the level of compensation that you are at, what the standard cost of living increases are within the company. So it is a little hard to say, "I wish that were a 10% raise or a 20% raise. "I have worked with people where we are looking at 25-50% raises because their situation is such that they are severely under-compensated for where they need to be. For other people, even a 10% raise can make a big difference if the base salary is adequate. So there isn't a rule of thumb, but what I would say is the raise needs to be more than you could expect to get in the given year. That is if company usually gives 2% or 3% raises for just cost of living, you at least want to go to a 5 or 10% raise to reflect increased performance. That's really beyond what you can expect and that is a significant amount of money for most people.
