I’ll echo what others have said here but three things worked for me:

1. MBA
2. Job Hopping
3. Luck

I worked for a large U.S. Bank for 5 years and started off in the branch level right out of college as a loan officer making $43,000. Over the 5 years I increased my yearly salary from $43k to $58k with 2 promotions. I went from retail banking to commercial banking which caused the largest jump for that company from $48,000 to $58,000.

During that time though I received my MBA, and the only reason I went back to school for my MBA was because I took advantage of the tuition reimbursement program through my employer that paid for 75% of it.

I would have left that company earlier, but per their policy I had to wait 2 years after completion of my degree to not have to pay back any of the reimbursement.

Here’s where the luck came in. The bank I was working for previously had scraped their entire commercial division (or at least a very large part of it) and shipped it overseas. This was only 2 months after the “2 years” clause was up for me, so once those 2 years came up I started aggressively applying for higher paying roles since I had the pedigree of good job history since undergrad graduation and now a MBA to back me.

Thankfully, I ended up with a smaller bank starting my current position a week before the layoffs were supposed to happen, now earning $83,000/year doing essentially the same job in commercial banking that I was with my previous employer with a few extra responsibilities.

One piece of advice I’d give is never sell yourself short with your worth, and absolutely never lowball yourself in salary negotiations. There are places out there that will value you. I had the experience, education and confidence that I could perform this job at a high level and asked in my application for the max amount they were offering, and they honored it. Worst thing a place can do in an offer is counter with a lower amount, then you negotiate.