This past week I attended the Start Smart Workshop, a salary negotiation workshop sponsored by the American Association of University Women.  The workshop was designed to help combat the gender pay gap and help women learn to negotiate their salary and benefit packages. The lessons and skills that were taught during the workshop were applicable to all people about to enter the working world and begin their first salary-based job.  The women running the workshop revealed that women on average make a little over 20% less than men for the same position.  This pay disparity is even worse for women of color.

The workshops’ leaders argued that one of the best ways to combat this pay gap was at the salary negotiation phase of accepting a job.  This happens after you have received a job offer.  The presenters said that women are often more willing to accept an initial salary offering than men.  They then went on to describe how you should prepare for a salary negotiation.  Their first point to consider, was that by the time you have been offered a job an organization has a vested interest in you.  They have vetted out other candidates and selected you as their favorite; because of this you should understand that you often have some leeway when it comes to negotiating a salary and benefits.

Prior to entering a salary negotiation you need to do your homework.  The first thing you should do is examine the job description.  If you have qualifications beyond those requested for the job; your qualifications give you some room to negotiate your salary.  You can use websites like salary.com to research the median salary for people in the same position in your city or region.    You also need to prepare a budget, determining how much it will cost you to live in the area where you work and what is the minimum salary you can accept.  Once you have done all this you should determine a target salary based on your qualifications, what others with the same position as you earn and your budget.  Once this is all prepared you will be ready to negotiate your salary.  For instance, you will know if you offered a salary significantly below the minimum salary you set up in your budget you probably can’t accept the job.  On the flip side if you are offered your target salary or even a dollar amount above your target salary you can still advocate on your own behalf for a salary increase.

Sometimes organizations will have a set salary cap for employees starting at a certain position or they just don’t have the ability to give you a higher salary.  If this is the case you should talk to the company about their benefits package.  Companies sometimes have more room to negotiate benefits packages than they do salaries.  The takeaway from the workshop was that being prepared is a key element of salary negotiation.  Educating workers about salary negotiation is a vital piece to reducing and eventually eliminating the gender pay gap.

–Harlan Belcher, Sustainability Intern, Sustainable Food Policy