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I'm going to take over responsibilities from a colleague who's leaving. The colleague has told me what he earns and it's like double my salary.

He has got strengths I don't have but on the other hand I have strengths he was lacking.

My performance will be reviewed beginning of next year. So until then I will try to show my best and show which responsibilities I have taken over.

My question is how to make use of that information of my predecessor's salary to raise my own salary after the review? Tell my employer that I know?

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It's a factor to consider along with everything else, but it's not the only factor.

Experience in the company, qualifications and other things need to be taken into account.

I wouldn't outright tell anyone I know this information. Instead I would use it as a benchmark because you now know what the company is prepared to pay for these tasks and responsibilities to be covered. It gives you ballpark figures to negotiate with.

Lastly be very careful of trusting the accuracy of this sort of information. Plenty of people exaggerate to inflate their own worth in others eyes.

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  • To Kilisi's nice answer I'd like to add that salary is also dependent on other factors like how likely (capable/willing) are you to switch to another job for want of better salary, what was your starting salary cf your predecessor, what is the industry benchmark for the role, to name a few.
    – DS R
    Nov 5, 2018 at 10:49
  • Indeed, there could have been a bunch of extenuating circumstances to explain why one person at a company may have a higher salary (higher market rate when they were hired, longer at the company, sideways promotion, etc). It's useful to have a benchmark, but you should also check that benchmark against what the market is offering to ensure it's roughly in line with elsewhere - if you go in with the mindset that you want X amount, and it turns out X is unreasonable and nobody else is offering that much either, you might make your role a little more uncomfortable.
    – delinear
    Nov 5, 2018 at 12:12

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