I think in my case it's actual ignorance about what is "reasonable" to ask for. I've paid a lot of attention to how Mr. B. negotiates these things, and it helps a bit, but given that he's in an entirely different industry, it's not as helpful as I wish it were.
I do know, however, that a guy who got hired the year after I did started out making almost twice what I started at (and we had the same experience, though the Dean wanted him more). And that Mr. B. is currently negotiating for a job that will, if they meet his asking price, pay twice what I make, plus hefty signing bonuses.
Life isn't fair.
Here's a report of a study that claims to show that women who negotiate salaries lower their chances of being hired; similar negotiation does not negatively affect men's chances. I don't know if it's been replicated, but I can't say that it would surprise me.
Wow, that's an interesting study. From anecdotal evidence that I've seen, I think asking for less money also makes women less likely to be hired. I know I've heard "how good can she be if she only wants $X".
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Seriously, I tend to believe that any explanation that relies on the assuption that people who do badly in some situation are the sole cause of their own bad outcome tends to be flawed. (I actually found that study googling for another one that I swear I've seen, showing that even where men and women go into a salary negotiation making the same intial request, the women end up being hired at a lower salary. But I can't find that, and may be misrecollecting it.)
On the other hand, there's nothing to do about it other than to out more effort into negotiating, and let the chips fly where they may. The one job I've had where the salary was negotiatable (the firm where I worked with Idealist) I sucked it up and tried. I got nowhere. I'm a heck of a haggler on the purchasing end, but made no progress at all on the salary.
Screwed if you do, screwed if you don't. I know that my attempts to negotiate my pittance of a salary didn't get very far in part because I got the distinct impression that if I pushed it they'd be happy to allow me to just turn down the job. I might've been operating with new Ph.D. paranoia, of course. But maybe not.
Pwned. I'm the same as you, though, LB: great at haggling when it comes to buying, but I've never had any traction on the salary front.
More information would help. I don't know if young men walk out of college knowing how much they should expect to be paid, but I had no idea at all what a reasonable pay grade for what I did.
I suspect this lack of information also hurts the first-generation-to-go-to-college types, which may account for part of it. It's easier to know how much lawyers and doctors make if your family are lawyers and doctors, less so if everyone you know is a secretary or carpenter.
Here's another paper saying the same thing -- that by attempting to negotiate salaries, women are perceived as being less desirable employees.
At the end of the day, the market is your friend, and the market is your only friend. There are people who negotiate hard, and there are those who don't. It's impossible to believe that one always leads to the better outcome (higher salary/employment). I'm willing to believe that people are misinformed about how much harm negotiating will cause, and that there is a correlation between gender and that misinformation. But you're not negotiating forever, and your only option, one hopes, is not with a single firm. At a minimum, over the course of a year, you'll get a lot of information about your value to any company, and probably about the market rate for someone with your skills. If they aren't paying you right, see if you can leave.
Dammit -- here's the link.
And to 7 -- if I were going to suggest a structural fix, I'd like to see a change in the culture of secrecy around pay. This sort of soft differential would be much harder to maintain if everyone knew what everyone else got paid.
the women we interview consistently ask for less than the men. These women aren't slouches, either – they're all very capable and good at what they do.
So why does your organization ever hire men?
(I'm serious, not being a smartass.)
I found these Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers useful while negotiating a recent raise. I could see how they could be useful in negotiating for a new job, too.
12: okay, if there's an informational asymmetry being dealt with through a "you get what you pay for" attitude, I could see that. But Becks made it sound like there was some degree of confidence (on her part at the very least) that there women *were* worth more (or, more correctly, as talented as the men who asked for and were given more). If this is true, hiring men makes no sense.
11: I would also think that there's a sense that "we can pay X for this position," and if a woman asks for X-Y, that's great, but if a guy asks for X, and X has already been budgeted, no one is going to mind paying it. Add in the perceptions about relative competence, maternal leave, or the sense that one wants to hire people who one identifies with, and you've got women underselling themselves and still not getting hired.
12 gets it right.
As far as Tim's 9 goes, I don't know what things are like where you work but in my field you really don't have a chance to negotiate after your initial hiring. All raises are a percentage of your income (within a defined band) based on performance, not a raise to a certain salary regardless of what the percentage would be. That makes the situation worse because the gap between salaries just compounds. If I'm hired in at X and you're hired in at Y and we each get a N% raise per year, after 5 years that can be a huge gap. They only do an "adjustment" (meaning a raise outside of the allowed percentage) if you've fallen seriously below your market value (e.g., if your salary has grown so slowly that new hires are getting close to you and they're afraid you'll find out and get pissed). The only recourse is really to quit and find another job.
But LB, we learned today that we can't use structural modifications to change the culture! (Kidding.)
Rather than changing the culture of secrecy (or privacy -- it's really not my business what immediate peers make, and it can't be good for collegiality), I'd rather see more mentoring of young women.
The only recourse is really to quit and find another job.
I think this is really is the only recourse, ever - it's only the fear of it that will top off your salary in your own company.
Also, wasn't there a study linked somewhere in the blogosphere that indicated that, when a whole lot of shouldn't-have-to-be-controlled-for factors were controlled for, women made more, on average, than similar men? I think it might have been restricted to professionals, and the number that sticks in my head is 104%. I'm not sure how it relates, except as evidence (if I'm remembering correctly) that this stuff gets sticky quickly.
it's really not my business what immediate peers make,
Would you think it was your business if you found they were being paid more than you without good reason? I think you probably would.
I think it might have been restricted to professionals, and the number that sticks in my head is 104%.
This is news to me. I've seen studies that knock the gap back to something in the high 90%s if you restrict it to unmarried, non-parent people in the first few years of a career, but of course that eliminates the compunding effect of initial slightly lower salaries for women. I haven't seen anything that reversed the gap, though.
15- Unless Becks works in academia, or the government, I'm not sure I buy this. Most businesses try ruthlessly to cut costs in any way imaginable. No competant manager is going to even think of saying "we could fill this need for $60,000, but we've got $90,000 budget, so we may as well spend all of it even though we're not getting anything extra for that additional $30k."
Perceptions of relative competance, however, could of course explain this. Why/how such perceptions would still exist as widely as they do baffles me though.
I think there also is a big factor with the perception of relative competance, Urple.
Also, I know that my male co-workers relate to money differently than I do. They just want more to have more but I see it as what I'm being paid to give up part of my life. When I was on a project working 80 hours a week, I really really cared about my raise and was pissed off when I didn't get one as big as I thought I should. Now that I'm working more of a groovy, laid-back job, I don't really care too much. Of course, a bigger raise is nice but I'm not pissed if I don't get one like I was before. My male co-workers are all still about the bottom line but I don't care as much when I have the time to go out at night and do things like take guitar lessons.
Most businesses try ruthlessly to cut costs in any way imaginable. No competant manager is going to even think of saying "we could fill this need for $60,000, but we've got $90,000 budget, so we may as well spend all of it even though we're not getting anything extra for that additional $30k."
This is not my perception of how most managers work. In the larger firms I've worked in, managers are often happy to spend as much as they have in their budgets -- after all, it's not their money. This may be incompetent, but I don't think it's uncommon.
19: It was a relatively recent post (last 6 mos. or so); I'll try to remember where I saw it and try to find it. There were some onerous restrictions, though, and I seem to remember that it came up in the context of the correlation between career success for women and the lack of children (and possibly a husband). I remember it because of the reversal of the normal expectations regarding wages and gender, and (less clearly) because these women had made choices (or had happen to them or whatever) that most of us would recognize as severe sacrifices.
I'll have to find it at some point.
SCMT --
I found it but I'm running for a train -- google farrell gender reverse wage gap and you'll find it.
Would you think it was your business if you found they were being paid more than you without good reason? I think you probably would.
Not if they have to know mine if I make more than they do.
('But she'll have kids and need time off!' 'Oh, there she goes again, off to pick up the kids from school, and you know she makes more?' 'Probably an affirmative action hire.') No thanks. Would rather have a good mentor that knows the system, if I had my druthers.
I'd like to see a change in the culture of secrecy around pay
One of the many strange civilian customs I had to get used to when I retired from the military was the taboo about talking about pay. I suppose there are good reasons for it, but IMHO it is mostly a way that management makes it easier to keep pay down--you are less likely to stand your ground on salary demands when you are not sure what people of similar qualifications make.
I do not recomend this as a structural change--the government should not force employers to disclose all salaries--but it is a custom people should resist adopting.
#25: I just spent 10 fruitless minutes looking for something I mentioned, and you found it. That looks like it. You suck.
Also, I suspect that the information alone wouldn't get women comfortable with bargaining with an employer. It's too easy to rationalize. ('He's been here a few more months. Well, he doesn't use his daycare benefit, and I do. Well, women aren't as reliable, we should make less.')
28 see Urple's "why does anyone ever hire men?"
27: I agree. Particularly with friends and work friends. There are limits, and different jobs may require modification, but in general, more information is good information.
30: May you make 117% of the going rate for your male colleagues, Becks.
I also totally agree with 27, including the part about how the Man keeps you down. (Though somehow I haven't got around to looking up the salaries of everyone in my department, which is public record since we're all state employees.)
32 - That's much better than your previous effort. Well done.
I think, by tradition, it's "The Man."
20: Not consciously, no. But there are psychological tests (not that I have a link to back this up) that show that once a person has decided to spend Xish on something, the money is spent in their mind. And it makes sense to me that if, in an employer's mind, x job is worth X pay, the person who asks for X will get hired, even if the person who asks for X-Y is just as capable of doing the job.
Oh, and I agree: salaries should be public information.
The Clinton pamphlet's advice does seem to add up to, basically: arm yourself with information to increase your options. So if nobody is disclosing that information because of some sort of privacy culture around salary, it becomes difficult to figure out what to ask for.
Perhaps related: in my department, one of the junior faculty once told me that the reason we had so many crusty old tenured professors hanging, hanging, hanging on was because since retirement packages were strictly confidential, the professors wanted to hold out for the best possible deal. I'm sure this pattern isn't uncommon, but it's certainly had a bad effect on departmental morale here.
"why does anyone ever hire men?"
To move the heavy boxes.
I am a man (or at least male) but not historically any good at negotiating a higher salary -- until this current job, when I held out for 5/4 what I was offered, that seemed like a bit of a victory.
I hate haggling and as a result am terrible at it. I've relied on nepotism instead.
42: I can't use that to my own ends. I'm on a mission from God.
I hate haggling and negotiating. I figure that in the end, things will probably even themselves out. That being said, I haven't ever had competing offers or worked for a really large company where I was locked into pay scales.
The market is your friend. The market is your only friend
It really warms my heart to hear this, Tim.
The advice I would give is: you are always looking for another job. Everyone you meet through work is a potential new employer or reference, and every 12-18 months at least you should seriously look for a new position to meet new people and to price yourself on the open market. If your employers aren't freaked out at the thought of losing you, probably it's a crappy place to be anyway.
As I am conservative in temperament, I don't always follow my own advice, but when I have it has been worth it.
[[obviously, this advice may not apply to illiquid or highly structured labor markets. You aren't going to negotiate yourself a better salary during residency]]
The one job I've had where the salary was negotiatable (the firm where I worked with Idealist) I sucked it up and tried. I got nowhere. I'm a heck of a haggler on the purchasing end, but made no progress at all on the salary.
Given that it was a law firm, I suspect I know the answer, but who named the first number? In my experience, that's one of the biggest factors in successfully negotiating salary.
Josh,
What does it mean when an interviewer names a figure first versus when the interviewee does?
Elaborate, please!
They say the person who names a number first loses. If it's an employer, their number becomes your bottom possibility, and you adjust upward, asking for something a little higher than what you actually want, expecting them to try to split the difference.
If you name the first number, they'll either offer it (which means they were willing to go higher) or they'll talk you down.
I was invovled in an in-class experiment on this, at least under the conditons of the experiment, the person who made the first offer got less than they would otherwise have gotten. But it depends on bargaining ranges and assymetry of information. I'm sure you can find game theory research on it.
Worse than I'd feared, then! Go in with a debating point, an intial opening, or a high-ball position and you'll get screwed, one way or another. I'd better go to bed.
In my experience here in the UK, very few people really make an effort to negotiate salaries when starting a new job.
I generally do it as a matter of course (although I didn't in my current non-teaching job) but most people don't, I think. Quite often I've started a job and then discovered after a month or two that I am earning more than people who've been there a couple of years, for no other reason than that when I was offered the job, I asked for more money.
My younger sister once told some job interviewers, *before* she'd been offered the job, that if they did offer her the job, she wouldn't take it unless they upped the money by 30%. Despite being underqualified for the job, they gave it to her, and gave her the payrise.
I think they were just amazed and impressed that she would be that assertive in the interview. I suspect they'd never met any 18 or 19 year olds [this was only her second job, I think] with that kind of attitude.
The question I've most often heard Mr. B. use when asked to name a salary is "what range did you have in mind?" Or he'll start by talking about how he wants a job that he can be fully dedicated to and invested in, and that will reward his skills and devotion accordingly, that he thinks he brings unique background and interest to the position, maybe "I understand that the industry average is X-Y, and I believe that my background and skills justify a salary at the high end of that range..."
In other words, you dodge the question and try to get them to say "we were thinking that this job would pay in the range of x-y." Then you acknowledge that, maybe talk a little more about your particular skill set (or whatever), and hope they offer you a bit of time to think about it (or maybe ask for it. His usual line is, "okay, thank you for that. I will need to discuss this with my family"). Then you come back at them with an offer that's somewhere above the top end of the range they offered--not too much, so it's in the asme general ballpark, but enough to give them some room to try to either come up to your price or offer you some kind of other goodies to make up for it.
assymetry s/b asymmetry, even (especially?) at the mineshaft.
Have a look at Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever for a in-depth survey of all kinds of results on women's reluctance to negotiation and belief that these kinds of things are decided for you based on merit (external locus of control) and that asking means you are a bad greedy person.
You could also hit Val Henson up for some money towards the cost of the book: I think she's exhausted LinuxChix's capacity to buy it.
They say the person who names a number first loses
In January this year, I signed on the dotted line for a new firm. I start in April. During the initial contact I was asked how much I wanted. With B's phrase above in mind, I started to prevaricate and then for the first time in my life, I thought, "Oh what the hell..." and thought of a number: More than double my current salary for an essentially similar role. I was being cheeky and I think there was en element of trying to test the upper-bounds of the market.
Well, when they didn't blink, said that it was what they expected and threw in a car I found it sort of hard to breathe for a while.
After the interview, I found myself angry at myself and at my current employer. At my self for being the obvious fool in the game and at my employer for selling me for a dupe.
I think it is true to say, most of my experience bears out the fact that talking money is considered implolite, even when it is the right thing to do. I had to get to 40 before realising that it is ok to play the game.
in academia, isn't it pretty straightforward?
what i've heard:
if you only have one offer, you can't negotiate. if you have more than one offer, you can negotiate, and it should work pretty well.
56: Well, that's what happened to me, but the thing is, they didn't *know* I only had the one offer. But I did, and it seriously impacted my willingness to "risk" negotiating.
Given that it was a law firm, I suspect I know the answer, but who named the first number?
Sadly, in terms of my revealed negotiating skills, they named the first number, and I had another offer in hand from another firm (who had named, essentially, the same number) and I still made no progress. Part of what happened, I think, is that big lawfirms pay in lockstep -- all associates at the same level make the same salary, and the salaries tend to match even from firm to firm where the firms are comparable. Given that, and that the two comparable firms I had offers from, even though they were small enough that flexibility was possible, came up with the same number, I was willing to believe after a certan amount on negotiation that there really wasn't any flexibility in the offer. I don't know if I was wrong, but I do still feel like a bit of a chump.
How does bonus play into the salary negotiation? I work in an industry where the year-end bonus can be as much as multiples of the base salary (though that has alas never been the case for me, at least if we're speaking of integral multipliers) -- when you name a salary should it be the total yearly compensation you're looking for or the base?
The rule is that you always want a larger percentage as base than as bonus, because future raises are usually a percentage of base. The problem with negotiating over the bonus is that you're really negotiating only the first year's bonus -- you have no control over what happens in later years. (Cf. hiring at the same firm I was talking about above. Ideal, another associate, and I were all hired essentially simultaneously. We all talked about bonuses while negotiating salary, and each got a signing bonus which we each understood to be that year's end of year bonus moved up to our hiring dates. When the next end-of-year rolled around, it turned out that all three of us had 'misunderstood' the hiring partner -- the firm didn't give end-of-year bonuses as policy. There's a reason I don't work there any more.)
This is a fascinating discussion. Particularly apropos for someone who will be exiting law school in a year, although as I understand it the first-year associate salary is pretty much set and not open to negotiation.
My initial thought is something like is something like Becks', that I just don't usually care about making more money, but then I was thinking that well, I would obviously choose a job paying X+Y over X given similar jobs, so why not negotiate for that X+Y? Seems to me there is some kind of "negotiating makes you greedy" mindset going on, especially when the pay is already good. Like, I would definitely want to negotiate in the 30-40K range, but given that lawyers at law firms are making upwards of $125K starting out it seems ridiculous in my mind to be asking for more.
Big-firm associate salaries are set in stone, as far as I know, so if that's where you're headed, this isn't something you need to worry about this year. (Other than in a general 'preparing for future life' sense.)
Big-firm associate salaries are set in stone
That's pretty much true. Indeed, at most firms, there is not a vast amount of flexibility in partner compensation. Some firms (a minority, now, I believe) do it lock-step based on senority. Most do it based on work generated and hours billed. Obviously, you can affect your pay in the latter model by generating more or working more, but there is not vast room for negotiation.
Necessary and usual caveats--these are generalizations; of course, there is some negotiation; your mileage may vary.
11: See here for a company that doesn't do pay secrecy. Their pay policy is completely open and probably pretty fair, with various levels for different skills of employee with defined criteria for the levels. You get payed exactly the same as everyone else at your skill level.
I don't know what the resistence is to open salary information, unless it's to avoid letting employees know they're getting screwed. (Apologies if I've been pre-pwned. Catching up on thread.)
Also, I was actually responding to 10.
Actually, not to stray off-point and focus too much on the law firm thing, but the lockstep-ness (I just made that up) of the payscale does dissolve at the higher end of seniority for associates. It depends on factors like credentials, as firms are becoming snobbier about schools (and GRADES!), advanced degrees (MSEE's are particularly in demand) and potential for business development. Of course, given that most senior associates have drunk the Kool-Aid of their current firm, most don't think to go elsewhere. Given the hubris of firms, they are not open to associates re-negotiating their salary, even if it means that they will lose the associate to a competitor.
In my experience (which I won't disclose here - email me if you're really curious), attorneys are TERRIBLE negotiators on their own behalf. Very few have any sense of the market or their individual worth, even though salary info is generally available.
Curiously, the ones with great credentials seem to assume when applying for a job that they're the ONLY person with great credentials who is applying for that job. Then, when they get an offer and discover they're one of a handful of people interviewed, they freak out and usually take the first offer. "If I negotiate, they'll just give the offer to someone else."
Female lawyers are the worst, I'm sad to say. I have told them what the market will bear, what they can reasonably ask for, etc., and they still refuse to negotiate. I even told one woman that her unwillingness to get things included in her offer that were implied (as included in the job) during her interviews would hurt her. They were hiring her to serve effectively as a negotiator for the company, after all.
She acknowledged all of this. "I get it, I get it..." And then she told me her mother couldn't believe she was even considering negotiating her salary. Her mother. I realized then and there that she'd never negotiate.
She took the original offer.
57: i get the impression that departments often talk to each other and know who's getting an offer at other schools independently...at least in my field. so your handling of the negotiation sounds wise to me, bphd.
not that i have first-hand experience.
(MSEE's are particularly in demand)
What does lawyer do with a Master of Science in Electical Engineering?
Intellectual Property, as it's now called, I think.
If that's what MSEE stands for, you do intellectual property work -- software patents and related litigation. If the acronym refers to something else, I don't know it.
Moira-
Did you see the studies I linked in my first couple of comments, way up top? To the extent that women fear negotiating salaries, their fears may be justified.
Intellectual property counseling for semiconductor, hardware, etc., companies, which includes all patent law matters like patent prosecution, advising on patent portfolios, etc. Patent attorneys used to focus mostly on one or the other, but now they also do a lot of patent litigation as well which can really add to your 'book' of business. Imagine, a client suddenly gets sued - or needs to sue to assert their IP rights - and the case is worth millions of dollars. Suddenly your book is HUGE. Until it settles.
(Of course, this can put litigators in the strange - and often unethical - position of weighing settlement options against their own interests: settlement may good for the client but bad for your book. You're in the middle of salary negotiations, for example. What would you do? What if your dream firm wants you only if your book is more than $1m, and this case puts you over the top?)
RE 71 and the studies:
So, women are reluctant to negotiate - for a universe of reasons, including the oft-realized fear that they will be penalized for doing so. However, unlike other industries/professions, I don't believe that female attorneys are penalized for negotiating their salaries any more than a male attorney would be (and I'm referring to in-house/company positions where the salaries are not lock-step).
Perhaps it's the culture of advocacy - you EXPECT an attorney to show some backbone. They're hired guns, after all. Their abililty to advocate directly goes to their qualifications of the job for which they're being considered. That's not true of the computer programmer, the academic, the nurse.
The point made by Babcock, et al, re more senior women negotiating more than their younger counterparts, tracks what I've seen. They are often the best negotiators at this level because they gather more data to support their demands.
(That said, I still stand by my 'women are the worst' statement above - all things considered, the more junior female associates seem to rationalize what's being offered as being sufficient. It's the difference between 'that'll do' versus 'this is what I want/deserve.' Yes, not all women do that, but males associates rarely say 'that'll do.')