by moving

I've always found that despite merit, squeaky wheels always get the grease. My greatest career advancements have always come through changing firms, or at least through presenting job offer letters to current employers and asking them if they are willing to make a counter offer.

Sometimes you may get a "promotion" (or title change), but no change in pay. That's the time to move on.

I'd agree that moving from firm to firm early on is often the quickest way up the ladder (though if you move on in less than a year, or if you have more than 3 or 4 jobs in your first 5 to 6 years, not counting student jobs, then you may actually hurt your mid-career prospects.)

If you don't want to job hop then I think your strategy depends largely on the culture of the firm. In some it will help to ask - though you want to phrase this more as a "what can I do for the firm?" kind of thing. You want to say something like "I feel I'm ready to take on the next level of responsibilities around here. What more can I be doing?" Then, if a raise/title doesn't come along with this then you wait until you've been doing these new duties well for awhile and then approach the firm with what you're doing now for the firm, why you are valuable to the firm, and how this differs substantially from your earlier responsibilities.

But, there are some firms where asking won't usually help. These are usually very large, long-established firms with a lot of long-time upper-level managers. These firms often have blanket policies such as "it takes 10 years to become an associate" or "all project managers must have worked in production in this firm for at least 5 years first." In these firms you can occasionally negotiate a raise on the basis of skills that nobody else in the firm has - for instance if you're the only one in-house who can edit the website - but you won't generally get very far trying to move up the ladder faster than those above you.

Wow - great info. I've always been curious and obviously haven't experienced promotion. I do know that some have asked to be promoted - but this isn't in line with my beliefs. Is it outrageous to expect to be "awarded" promotion? Would that be a true promotion? Is this unique to architecture?

work hard and always ask the question bi-annually.

I'd definately avoid the strategy of presenting another firm's offer in order to force a counteroffer. I saw a study on this that showed that most employees who accepted a counteroffer and stayed with the first job actually left or were terminated within a year anyway. This strategy leaves a bad taste with the employer, who may make the counteroffer because he's on the spot and concerned about the short-term workload and hassle of finding and training your replacement - but later he'll feel resentment about it. By doing this you're also indicating that you were unhappy enough in the first place to be looking for other jobs. This can ultimately make you look like a bad risk for future promotion.
If you truly want to switch jobs then do your search discreetly and when you've accepted another offer resign professionally.

In medium to large firms you often get classified by your starting position, especially if you start as an intern. They may never see you as anything more than production. A lot of times, changing environments especially after you've gained a new creditial such as your license is the best way to get the additional compensation you deserve. Plus its a nice bit of fresh air from the niche you may have been placed in before.

the smaller the firm usually the harder you need to push for promotion but this can vary. My last review was great with lots of exceeds expectations etc. but my boss sure acted surprised when i asked for a raise.. heh.
In my experience you won't get it if you don't ask. I heard the phrase "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" but if you ask for more compensation and back it up with some #'s it can help your boss evaluate what you are doing for the firm/ what it would cost to replace you etc.. employee wages are seldom the issue that gets a principals attention.. often they have no idea what fair compesation is. Most understand the importance of having employees feel they are valued fairly. If not decide weather or not it is worth staying.

It's useful to know the hourly rate at which the firm bills clients for your work. But: if you're going to use this information in any negotiations:

1. consider whether it is a good idea to reveal that you know this info. In some firms it's common, firm-wide knowledge and may be on a fee sheet that is available to all. In other firms it is treated as a big secret (sometimes because the firm is billing wildly different rates to different clients. Other times because it could reveal salaries of employees to each other.) If you got the information inadvertently/accidentally then don't use it in any discussions.

2. make sure you understand that a firm generally needs to bill in the range of +/- 2.5 times the employee's base salary in order to profit - and in some cases much higher than this. I've seen lots of interns complain that they're getting "ripped off" because they're paid say $18 per hour but the firm is billing them at $45 or $50 per hour.
Remember: the costs to the firm to keep an employee are usually another 25% to 50% beyond the employee's base salary. The firm pays the employer's share of taxes, social security and medicare on you. Plus unemployment insurance and worker's comp insurance. Then there's your health insurance and any other benefits. And your vacation and paid holidays and sick days - for which you work no billable hours but still must be paid.
Salaries of billable employees also subsidize those of the people who are only partially billable or aren't billable at all - such as accountants, some computer technicians, receptionists, and principals who spend all or part of their time on marketing. They also subsidize time spent on non-billable projects such as creating boards for award shows, working on uncompensated competitions, creating marketing materials, etc.
If you have spent a lot of time as an intern working on tasks like creating/editing office CAD standards, filing the product library, creating 3D models for marketing purposes, etc. then you may be seen as not meeting your target billable hours yet in the first place - so make sure you can convince your employer that you're moving more toward 100% utilization on current projects!
Then beyond the costs associated directly with each employee there is also the firm's overhead and expenses (everything from rent to telecomm to software to paperclips to liability insurance.)

When you ask for a raise your employer has to be convinced that he can raise your billable rate. In small firms I've seen clients balk at invoices that charge even $35 per hour for employees that the client sees as junior staff or in any way "in training." It's as much a perceptual thing as what your work is or isn't "worth." If you come across as young and inexperienced it can be difficult to bill more.
This isn't as much of an issue in a large firm where you might be more "behind the scenes" in the first place.

Ormolu, well said.

More anecdotal evidence that there are a lot of inconsistencies in management styles between firms : My current firm hasn't changed their hourly billing rates in close to 5 years, then in our reviews they claim the level of profitability is shrinking. That's a direct cause and effect that they've refused to acknowledge.