Salary, Gender and the Social Cost of Haggling caught my attention today. I have never in my life explicitly negotiated a starting salary once it was offered (although I have made faces, raised my eyebrows, etc when generally discussing salary) and always put it down to fear of confrontation, at my own expense. Now it seems as though I may have subconsciously been correctly reading my coworkers-to-be, and that in fact my worry about talking myself out of a job may have been justified. Who knew?
Does anyone else have experience with salary negotiations, successful or otherwise?
— Allison
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6 comments:
Great article. I have successfully negotiated for more money a couple of times, but not recently (things have changed a bit in the high-tech sector in terms of demand since the mid-nineties boom). This last time around, I also successfully negotiated a bit more - but I didn't do it myself - I had my recruiter (a man) do it, and it went very smoothly.
Even when I have negotiated for more, I've done it in what I think is an appropriate manner. What I mean is, if you ask for a lot of money, there's an expectation that you will give a lot of talent, energy and time. If I really believed I was superiorly qualified, the people hiring me usually did to. They'd already be offering me the "going rate" for my services. If I wanted something more, I would ask for an "attachment" - such as more stock options or relocation money, which I usually got.
My experience is that people put a lot of thought (and sometimes HR consultant dollars) into their formulas for the amount they offer people for salaries. These things are usually based on what people made at their previous job, so there can be less room to negotiate the salary itself. At a small company, you might be about to get 3-5 thousand more if you ask (or have a recruiter ask for you), but at a big company trying to escape your "pay grade" designation could just mean an outright rejection.
If you perform at a superior level for a year, and your boss's reviews support that, I think its important to ask for more money and more responsibility, if you are hoping to get that. People can't wait for positions to open for them...male or female.
Lastly, I think how a person communicates is key. People think of a confident posture and speaking style as "masculine", but I think they can be feminine too, depending on how they are presented. If you dress modestly, smile earnestly, express interest in others, and speak confidently and open-mindedly while standing up straight and keeping a sense of humor, people will listen, respect you and think well of you (for the most part - some might get jealous - but then, I guess that's a form of flattery).
I guess the problem I always had was worrying about pricing myself out of a job. But so many companies ask for salary requirements up front that if you're out of their range for that position, you probably won't even get the interview, anyway.
Recruiters are very helpful, because they get a bigger cut the more you make, so it's in their interest to negotiate successfully. Also, they do it all day every day, so they can generally tell what the market will support and they know how to approach companies.
I find the larger issue of how to be a straightforward, confident, successful, professional woman who isn't a "bitch" is a fine line to walk though, and I think salary negotiation is only one part of that. It is interesting that their is an empirical difference between the way men and women who negotiate are perceived, though.
I found the insights here common sense from my perspective, but thought they would be very helpful to other women in my industry trying to make it in leadership positions. Maybe you've already read it.
To summarize, though, I think the important thing is to be perceived as a woman with "womanly" strengths (consensus building, team focus, personalized experience) without being perceived as a woman with stereotypical weaknesses (underconfident, wishy-washy, overemotional, scatterbrained, disorganized, flirty). While you can't please all the people all the time, you can come close enough to encourage your own success.
I've never asked for more money, but I always ask for better work hours..i.e. mucho flexibility.
I mentioned this article to my dad (who's a small business owner) and he admitted that employers tend to ask prospectives what they need as a salary not out of curiousity, but because they know you'll ask for less out of fear of not being considered. This translates into them getting to pay you less.
Personally, when i was hiring folks at my last job, them asking for more than i would pay didn't turn me off. But I did choose not to call people in who were OVERqualified simply because I knew it would be a waste of time since they wouldn't accept the pay i could offer.
oh, um, can i also mention that the name 'mamabear' exists simply because the only other blogger blog i have is the private blog for my daughter...to announce funny and exciting stuff to her relatives.
how excruciatingly embarasing that blogger wouldn't let me use a different use name. oy.
There's nothing wrong with mamabear as a name :)
> underconfident, wishy-washy, overemotional, scatterbrained, disorganized, flirty
I have and continue to be all those things and more, so I don't know that it's a matter of being perceived as having those weaknesses, if you know what I mean.
More important for me to work on actually not having them.
> mucho flexibility
This is a form of additional compensation, isn't it? I ask for that as well. I have to. However, I worry that it could backfire -- that if a woman comes into a professional situation battling the initial prejudices that CJ enumerated above, asking for this might generate more of a handicap than otherwise?
I have no choice, but I can see why this would matter in terms of gender relations.
> I did choose not to call people in who were OVERqualified
This becomes very tricky when you're too senior for entry-level jobs and your professional field takes a nose dive in terms of opportunities. This has never been a problem for me before but I could see it becoming so in the future.
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