Reader Mail: Talking About Salaries Is Good (If Sometimes Distressing)
A Billfold reader writes with some upsetting news!
I’m wondering if you can help me with a bit of news I just learned that is making me. So. Depressed. I have Master’s, I work in a research type role and have been at my current job for almost two years. I tried to negotiate a higher salary when I started but they shot me down, since the role was new to the company. Fair enough. At my first review I got a 3% raise, which at my salary is nothing.
I got a grad student intern a few months ago, which to me was great and the first step in lobbying for a FTE working under me, which I could then leverage into a pay bump. My intern just got a full-time job for when she graduates, at a competing company. Her role is going to be similar to mine, as far as I can tell. So, yay for her! But she also told me her starting salary: It is $10k more than I am making.
HELP. I feel like a chump.
My company is notorious for underpaying, but I love my job and I feel like I could really grow the role and make a career here. I need an action plan! Can I use this nugget of info in a salary review? How? Do I go talk to my boss right now? Do I take it out on my intern by relegating her to coffee duty for the rest of her time here? Salaries: why are they such a bitch, and how do I productively talk about them to the people who matter?
Logan: I guess the real question from our girl here is: Can she go to her boss and ask for more money solely based on knowing that another company is paying someone in a similar role with less experience $10,000 more? I think … no.
Mike: Right. Which is why I think she should start applying for other jobs, and then get an offer, and use that offer as leverage to get a raise.
Logan: Yes. that sounds sensible, if a lot of work.
Mike: Because it’s not like she’s unhappy. She loves her job!
Logan: Well, she wasn’t unhappy until she realized she’s being paid less than an entry-level employee at a similar company. But maybe she isn’t. Maybe the companies are pretty different, despite sounding almost exactly the same. She should make a list of why the salaries aren’t really comparable. Maybe the second company has terrible healthcare, evil clients, is in the suburbs, etc.
Mike: Yeah, I like lists. And another list she should make is one about why she loves her job.
Logan: A two-column list about why her life and job are better than the intern’s life and job. That would make me feel better.
Mike: Also, I think she should think about her situation. Is she struggling financially? That’s unclear. Is her job paying all her bills? Does she want more money just because she heard someone else was making more money? You can be happy with what you have sometimes. I was happy in New York on $30,000. I was happy in New York on $40,000. I once turned down a $60,000 job in another city because I was happy with my $40,000 job, and wanted to stay in New York.
Logan: But would you have been happy knowing someone with less experience than you was making $10k more??
Mike: I don’t think you can think about it that way. There is always someone out there who seems less qualified than you, or seems so lazy, or terrible, and they are making more money than you. I think if I discovered that someone in my own company was earning more than me and had less experience, then yes, totally. But that’s not the case here.
Logan: So she should apply to other jobs, use this information to request a higher salary when she gets that job offer (“I know the market rate ix $x, I want $y”) and then she can use that job offer to get more money at her job she loves, maybe.
Mike: Yeah. And if not, I really do think she can remain happy in her job if it’s paying the bills.
Logan: Especially if she makes a list about how much more awesome her life is than her overpaid intern.
Mike: Totally.
Logan: One more thing. I’m guessing she wishes she never found out about her intern’s salary. But I think it’s really important that she did!
Mike: Oh, yes. I earned $70,000 last year. Like, who cares if people know. People should know. Knowing what other people make is really useful.
Logan: This is the part where I’d say what I made last year, except I don’t know. (I haven’t done my taxes yet.) It was … not a lot. But if someone can leverage that information into a better life for themselves, HAVE AT IT.
I don’t think this person needs to be happy with what she has. If someone doing her job is making 10K more than her that is pretty insulting. The LW should make those lists to attempt to see all the moving pieces, but I think you’re assuming too much good faith on the part of the company. Her boss might not be Mr. Burns or anything, but of course they are going to pay their employees a little as they can get away with!
I love Jen Dziura’s career advice and her Bullish columns, and one thing she suggests is making long-term requests of employers. Like saying “In seven years I need to find a way to double my income.” because people are more likely to agree to things far in advance and it gives the employer something that they want – assurance that you are a safe investment because you’ll stick around. So if the LW wants to build a career there she should be up front with that, it will probably help her case.
What about talking about salaries within your organization? I’m good friends with a lady who has the same job title in a different department (our actual duties are fairly different). My boss has strongly hinted that I’ll be getting a raise, to the tune of $200-$300 a month, in July. Obviously this would be cause for celebration, except I feel like I can’t tell anyone because I am 99.9 percent sure no one else in my position (probably like 15-20 people across the company) will be getting more than 2%, which is the standard cost-of-living raise every year (mine would be about 5-6%). Of course this is all assuming HR actually follows through. But still, I can’t talk about it, right?
@backstagebethy Convincing employees that discussing compensation is somehow gauche or inappropriate was the greatest trick the devil ever pulled.
@melis I assume by “the devil” you mean “capitalism”?
@stuffisthings I ALWAYS MEAN CAPITALISM
LET’S RIOT
BY DISCUSSING OUR SALARIES AND BENEFITS
@melis Oh man, I really wish I could tell you in this public forum what organization (that I don’t work for) provides my benefits.
For the record, though, I agree with you 100% re: rioting.
@stuffisthings oooh email me, private-like, at mallory dot elis at gmail dotcom!
@melis When I get home — I really need to work on my “bar pitch” on why the place I work for isn’t actually evil, for when I meet fellow lefties. Usually I just get a smug smirk or an “it’s OK to sell out” speech.
@backstagebethy So I used to work at a place that was, shall we say, financially fucked up. Layoffs everywhere! Never hiring enough freelancers! Etc.! I was good at what I did there and get basically a 7 or 8% annual raise, which post-2008 is not shabby. But my boss pretty much told me I was the only one getting a raise that big. And that was totally a lie, I found out after quitting! I guess it’s a technique to keep people from comparing raises or whatever? Or from asking for more? (“Listen, you should feel guilty for even accepting this raise given how nobody else is getting ANYTHING.”)
I mean, who knows, it could be a springboard for all my counterparts to get raises…but I shouldn’t be making (roughly) the same as a person who only supports 6 people, when I support 17+, and I think that’s what my boss is trying to correct. But to bring that up at our monthly admin lunch would be awkward, I think–”Hey I think I do more work than you” etc. But also I want these ladies to know that it is possible to get a raise, despite all evidence to the contrary, because they’ve got bills to pay too, you know?
@backstagebethy I am all about talking about my salary with my coworkers (see here). It’s not weird, if you don’t treat it like it’s weird. It got to a point where talking about our salaries felt as normal as talking about what we were going to do on the weekend. This is the goal. This is how it should be.
@backstagebethy Tell the coworkers you’re friends with, you don’t need to publicly announce it at a meeting.
As a side note, I always think it’s funny when people try to be coy and avoid saying what they make because it’s usually really easy to guestimate someone’s salary from a few tidbits. For example, my guess is that you make (300 * 12) / 0.06 dollars a year, no?
I should start a booth at the carnival, “TELL ME YOUR FLEX DOLLARS AND I’LL GUESS YOUR INCOME!”
(not saying that you personally are trying to be coy)
@stuffisthings Ha I didn’t even really know how much I made till I did the calculations for this post. But it’s approximately $31,000. For the record.
@backstagebethy Then $300/mo would be an 11.6% raise, wouldn’t it? I’M ON TO YOUR CANNY MISDIRECTION.
@stuffisthings Wait would it be? Because that’s ridic. I’m bad at math, but I definitely make approx $31K and my boss definitely said $200-$300 per month. Dang. 11%.
@backstagebethy
$300 * 12 = $3,600, which is a little over 10% of $31,000.
So, congratulations on the big raise!
I think everyone should be less cagey about what they earn. On the other hand, working in a place where everyone knows what everyone else makes (in my case, a grant-funded NGO) seems to cause a LOT of tension, especially between overeducated entry-level staff and higher management, who are perceived to not do as much work.
I guess this is why salary talk is more common in other countries, because salaries are generally more equal.
That totally works, getting an offer and going back to your company to match it. There was a cost though, when I did it, in bad feelings. People running the two co.s knew each other. And the guy who tried to poach me made a big deal about, “We’re going to run an ad, and we want you to answer it.” And I said fine. And I told them that I would let my company try to match the offer before I accepted, but they weren’t really worried. And then my company did match it, and now everyone’s mad. My co. mad at them, and them mad at me.
Weirdly, my company also made a big deal about, Did they recruit you or did you go to them? Which seems immaterial to me. We all knew each other socially. I knew they were looking for people. We had lunch. They emailed me first, and that makes them slime? They wanted my people to think I’d answered an ad, because that would make them blameless?
It all made me feel very nice and appreciated, though I did feel like I needed to kick ass around the office for a good long time. I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been pretty sure I’d be forgiven.
The big question is, How wrecked would your company be if you left? Especially on shortish notice. Be sure to mention the proposed start date. That will make them really shake.
@NoReally Yes. Always ask yourself the “how wrecked” question, and then use the answer as a giant crowbar to lever out more money/benefits/whatever. (Unless you’re unionized and have to go with the flow, I guess.)
No but wait, it doesn’t matter only if you’re not struggling financially right now and whether you can pay all your bills right now. You also have to think about how much you’re able to save for retirement–that shit gets real scary when you start to get older, or at least when you start to think about getting older. You also have to consider that your future earnings are dependent on your current salary–your raises and staring salaries at new companies are based on what you earn now, so you are giving up a large chunk of income over your whole career if you don’t get paid what you are worth.
@pineapple_enchiladas Exactly this. And it may also be possible to negotiate on other benefits if the company won’t give a raise. That’s not ideal, but could be useful – an extra week of vacation, stock grants, etc. In 2000 I took a techie job for a little less salary than I probably should have, but negotiated a 60% telecommute. Not driving to the office three days a week saved me 8 hours in the car per week, on average, 270 miles per week in wear on my car, gas, clothes (smaller work wardrobe), and $60 a week on lunches out with my co-workers. Now all these years later I’m 100% telecommute with salary that’s right on target for my position and skills, and I have saved thousands and thousands of dollars by being able to not commute for the last decade.
@pineapple_enchiladas Yeah… I’m confused by the advice in this column. It’s clear that the writer could be making more $$$, and that would be a good reason to ask for a raise. Even just, “my salary is not commensurate with my responsibilities x, y, and z, so I think a bump is appropriate.”
My brother is currently applying for his first jobs out of school and I can’t WAIT to help him negotiate his salary. It’s so important to get everything you can… not fun, but I try and think of negotiating raises as part of my job – it just has to get done.
So like, I think there is a caveat to this. Which is to say, it’s okay to talk about your salary (despite threatening language) provided you’re discussing it with people who have the same job and it is actually beneficial information. Like, it’s not helpful to talk about that stuff with people who make less than you in different departments or companies, it just makes you look like an asshole.
@smack Agreed. I think the LW also needs to get him/herself some more salary information–right now s/he just has two data points: their own salary and one other person’s. That’s not enough to know if your salary is fair or not–maybe the other person is just a better negotiator than the LW. But if you have some solid data, like from glassdoor.com about industry-wide salary levels, that’s something you can actually bring up with your boss. Also, if a company is known for underpaying people, maybe you really don’t want to work there long term! There’s a lot to be said for feeling like you are valued and fairly compensated.
Glassdoor! The best!