smart went crazy

NPR recently ran a story on women and pay raises/promotions, a topic that has been near and dear to my heart for a few years now.

I am loathe to admit this, but for many years I was an absolute steal of an employee. With a background in non-profit work and education, I bought into the line that we had no money or were facing a deficit or any other number of excuses (real or imagined) about our financial situation that caused me to never once ask for a raise for the first eight years of my career. I’d never negotiated a starting pay either.

My mentors over the years had been wonderful for many things. I learned to teach well, to write well, and to become decent at graphic design – a skill that does not come naturally to me. But not a single one of them taught me how to network or negotiate.

Networking came naturally. I’m an extrovert and genuinely like most people. But negotiating…ugh…

I’m going to admit that I didn’t really understand that negotiating existed. I thought, essentially, that if I was offered a job that I needed to jump on it and take it or it would somehow evaporate. Asking for money was so foreign that I didn’t even think to do it, and if I did I was ashamed of seeming greedy.

Now, that said, I am in the process of turning that around. And for those of you who are like I was, I want to take you with me. I’m going to start with a number.

40. As in 40%. As in my income has increased 40% from three years ago when I changed how I thought about myself and my worth.

A little over three years ago, a colleague got it through my thick skull that I had too thoroughly absorbed the societal expectation for a nice, Midwestern woman. She was right. “Don’t push too hard,” my mother said when I told her how much less I made than younger, less educated male counterparts at my organization, “they might fire you.”

I finally realized the quandry I’d put myself and been put in. Push yourself hard at work, do a great job, get praise and accolades and attention – but not money. Pushing for money will make you disliked or worse. (The research NPR cites supports that, to be honest).

I want to tell you how I did this, and YMMV. I also want to acknowledge that this does not override the discrimination that many women face that is very, very real. Like a friend who worked somewhere where all the men got raises and the employers told the women, and I quote, that the men “needed it more because they are heads of households.” What that points to is the need to be more strategic and more adept at manipulating a situation. And that sucks.

I’d also really like if others shared their strategies in comments – or stories. And make sure we know if you’re male or female, because I hate to say it, but that matters in what strategy you take.

Without further ado:

• As a public employee, I was lucky enough to know that I can find out any individual’s salary in my organization. I found every person who did equivalent work to my job, and analyzed their salaries in relation to myself, considering their education level, skills, and ROI to their departments. All but one made more than I did though I was in the mid range for experience and high range for education.
• I determined what my pay should be and talked to my boss. I said, “You know, I’ve been looking at our salary structure here, and I am doing X and Y and Z – like Persons ABCDEFG in my role, and I’m exceeding them in A and B and C. I know you value the work that I do for the School and you know that I’ve done X and Y and Z to improve/streamline/make awesome what I work on and I would like my salary to be in line with those doing comparable work.”
• I got dicked around for almost a year and never pushed. When excuses were made, I said I understood and would be patient. [This was a mistake. If I had not done what I did below, I wouldn’t have gotten anything.]
• I used my network to get another job offer and negotiated for the first time ever
  • a salary was offered
  • before telling my boss, I said that “I would be more comfortable taking on the new and additional responsibilities if my pay was X.”
  • they said no, that the offer stood [This was fine. It was the first time I experienced what people kept telling me – that they expect you to negotiate.]
  • I gave my boss the offer letter
  • My boss offered me more
  • I turned down the other job [This was a mistake. I found out when I ran into one of the hiring committee members later and he said – “Why didn’t you let us counter offer? We really wanted you.” – to which I made up some excuse, but I didn’t even realize that was a thing.]
• A year later, I’d finished half of my PhD and had expressed the desire to move into a new position within the school that I knew I could do well and help a lot at. It was promised and dragged on and on.
• I started looking for another position
• At the same time, I wrote up a statement to push them on it, talking about my experience, the innovations I had done that benefited them, the skill sets I brought, and included my CV as a reminder of how much I had done to improve my own skills, our department, and our visibility at our university and at the national level.
• I became a finalist for another position and was immediately offered a promotion, a salary adjustment, and a raise on top of that.

I want to note that none of what I was asking was excessive for my background/profession. In fact, my old boss said I could have gotten more. He’s right, but this kind of financial self-advocacy is a work in progress and I am emotionally exhausted from all of that.