It’s a pretty shocking fact that when women don’t negotiate their compensation miss out on an average of £600,000 more over their working life time.
Men are eight times more likely to negotiate their starting salary than women which has a massive effect on an individual woman’s earnings and on the collective gender pay gap. At She Wins we were so surprised to find this out that we decided to do something about it. We’re all about empowering women to negotiate for the salary and bonuses they deserve.
There are many reasons why women don’t negotiate as often as men or why they find there are more barriers in their way. The good news is that there are many ways the situation can be improved so that women can increase their earnings to be equal to their male peers.
Our ‘New Job Negotiation Online Course’ is packed full of expert advice and exercises and we’ve picked out a couple of practical tips just for you:
- Benchmark your salary expectations with lots of market data relevant to your level of experience, industry, unique skills etc. Knowing your worth is backed by real data will give you confidence to ask for what you want and deserve, and it will also make you and the other party feel comfortable that you’re discussing something that’s both fair and market standard.
- Fight difficult questions like “How much were you paid in your previous role?” with smart answers: “Considering my skill set, experience and what I achieved for my employer, my previous salary was way below the market value, my true value is [your highest salary based on the benchmark you found]. The fact I was underpaid is one of the reasons why we’re having our conversation today.”
- Get more offers on the table. A lot of women tend to feel uncomfortable to shop around for multiple jobs at the same time. This makes them vulnerable and more likely to accept the worst offer from the first employer they like. If you have multiple offers and you know that at any given moment you can just walk away from the table to a great option B, you will also come across more confident and calm.
So good luck! And if you really serious about not leaving any money on the table you might find it useful to take one of our online courses or coaching programs at shewins.co
About the author
Kate Pljaskovova, co-founder at She Wins (shewins.co), company empowering women to negotiate for what they deserve and educating businesses to negotiate fairly with women when hiring and promoting them.
