On Negotiating as a Woman

Sometimes it takes the perspective of time before we’re able to see situations for what they really are.

Recently, I had some insight into my job negotiations last year and I realized why women can have such a hard time negotiating for pay.

Last year, I started a new part-time gig as an ESOL Teacher for a school district in the next town over (an ESOL Teacher is a Teacher for Speakers of Other Languages, also known as an ESL Teacher). I applied for the job because my hours at my first district are quite low, and this district was very close to my house. I suspected the district was fairly desperate for a teacher.

The interview went great, and the superintendent who was interviewing me essentially offered me the job halfway through the interview. Despite this, when it was time to talk dollars, though,  I wrestled with myself a bit before telling her my hourly rate.

There were a couple of reasons for this.

One is, I’m new to being paid hourly. As a contractor, my hourly rate is higher than my salaried wage. This is because I’m not fully compensated for all my prep time for my classes. I’m not paid for miles, insurance, retirement, or any other benefits. If a child doesn’t show up for class, I’m not paid. The school district doesn’t have to pay half of my Social Security wages, which is a full 6.2% of my earnings they would pay if I were a W-2 employee. When I started working as an ESOL Teacher, the hourly rate felt high to me and I had no experience in the field, so no one to ask.

But over time, I’ve realized that my hourly rate isn’t as high as I thought. At the end of the year last year (2016), my first full year as a contracted worker, I realized that I made somewhat less per year than I did as a salaried worker. This is because I worked 15 hours per week instead of 25, and didn’t work summers.

Since I’m paid and compensated hourly, it was difficult for me to know exactly how much I’d make as a contractor until the year was up. I often don’t know exactly when I’ll work because of testing, field trips, and holidays. I can estimate, but it’s just that–an estimate.

However, when I was negotiating with this school district, I was still wrestling with the “large amount” of money I made per hour. So when the superintendent looked at me and asked my rate, I had an internal struggle. I don’t know if she could see it on my face. I finally told her my rate, but rounded down to the dollar below.

Something interesting happened after that. She started in on a bit of a verbal tear. “That’s a LOT of money,” she told me. “I don’t know if we can pay you that. I don’t know if my current ESOL Teacher makes that much money. I can’t pay you more than her. I don’t know if we have the budget for that. I just don’t know if that will work.”

As she spoke, I began to feel uncomfortable. Was I being unreasonable? Was the hourly amount I charged too high? I was somewhat comforted by the fact that the other school district I worked for had set the rate, but I knew that her school district was much poorer, and had way less resources. If the other ESOL Teacher made less than I did, that was too bad. I didn’t want to put her job in jeopardy.

I’ve done this many times over the years. When I joined a non-profit, I knew that they didn’t have a lot of resources, and I saw the yearly budget, so I felt guilty that asking for more salary meant that it would be cut somewhere else. I felt bad that this “poorer” school district couldn’t afford my rate. But these were stories that I’d made up, and not necessarily representative of the truth.

And more importantly, they had nothing to do with my worth, with the immense value I brought to these organizations. 

Luckily, I’d had a talk with myself before coming in to the interview, and I’d told myself that this job wasn’t for me if I couldn’t earn a certain rate. I’d thought of the lowest possible rate that I’d accept in my head, and it was about $10 less per hour than I quoted her. But something kept me mostly quiet in the negotiating room. I don’t know what it was, exactly. But I let her rant and allowed myself to be quiet. The only thing I said was, “my other district set my rate.” In hindsight, I shouldn’t have shared this fact, but I’m sure I wanted her to feel that I wasn’t asking an unreasonable amount.

I’m a person who usually jumps to fill the silence, but this time I just waited. It turned out to be an excellent strategy.

She ranted a bit more, and I finally said, “I hope you’re able to make this work in your budget, because the student [I would be working with] certainly needs the help.” She threw out how she might need to offer me a lower rate, because of her budget. I was non-committal and made vague comments like, “I hope we can find a way to work together that works for both of us.” We ended the meeting, I repeated that I hoped she’d be able to make it work, because I’d very much like to work with their district, and I left.

About two days later she emailed me and formally offered me the job. At the rate I’d given.

This year, after I’ve been working in the district for about four months, not counting the summer, I’ve had several people in the know share that this superintendent is known for, shall we say, inflating the facts, or misrepresenting the truth. She is a very nice person, don’t get me wrong. But after having a few months to think about the negotiation, I realize that she tried her best to bully and shame me into a lower rate.

I’ve also realized that my hourly rate is very reasonable, and I will be able to charge slightly more when I complete my Master’s degree. I finally asked my mentor what a reasonable rate was, and she assured me that I was charging the going rate, and suggested what I should charge with a Master’s degree. While it was a little uncomfortable to talk dollars with her, learning that information made me feel much more secure in what I’m charging.

I recently finished a book called Know Your Worth, Get Your Worth: Salary Negotiations for Women. It’s written by a friend of mine named Olivia Jaras (she’s Chilean like Mr. ThreeYear). In the book, she talks about the variety of reasons women have for undervaluing themselves. About 31% of women don’t negotiate the pay they’re offered when they start a job. Some of this is because women feel uncomfortable negotiating, but some of it is related to the fact that women don’t realize what they’re worth in the market. There’s a story in the book of a C-level executive who realized that her colleagues were earning hundreds of thousands of dollars more than she was because she hadn’t negotiated her salary when she took the job. She hadn’t done any research on her market worth so she grossly undervalued herself.

The title of the book is truly the crux of the matter–as women, we don’t often know or recognize our dollar value in the employment market, so we accept less pay. 

ESI (Earn, Save, Invest) has created this awesome tool to help you understand just how much you’re leaving on the table if you don’t negotiate. His “Impact of Career Growth Calculator” can show you the total amount of money you could expect to receive over your career, and how much you’d receive if you were paid more an invested the difference, a wealth-builder super whammy.

In the past, it was my strategy to always negotiate my pay, as a matter of course. When I lived in Chile, I was offered a job at the prestigious Catholic University’s Business School, and the dean offered me a salary that I thought was very fair. But I negotiated for about 5% more pay just so I wouldn’t accept the first number he threw out.

But over the years, my strategy has changed. When I rejoined the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom for seven and a half years, I felt grateful to be offered any employment, so I accepted the first offer I was given. I felt so happy to find a flexible part-time job and I wanted to make it work. I later negotiated and increased my salary by 25%, but it was low to begin with, so I didn’t increase it much. When I changed careers in 2015, I didn’t realize I could negotiate my hourly rate, and I had no information about what other ESOL contractors were earning. I did negotiate that my school district pay for five of my master’s classes, but I did it out of desperation (there was no way I was paying for those courses myself). 

Olivia’s company offers a service that uses proprietary information to give women a really good idea of what they should be earning. I haven’t used it yet, but I’m thinking about it when I reset my hourly rates.

One of my takeaways from Olivia’s book and my negotiating experience last year is that unless we’re armed with knowledge [and by that I mean cold, hard money facts], we don’t have the upper hand in negotiating. And I think we do ourselves a disservice as a gender, because we can tend to shy away from talking about money.

If, instead, we were more forthright about salary in networking meetings and when mentoring younger female professionals, we could help each other understand our worth in the market.

Another take-away is that as women, we often hesitate to negotiate because we want different things from a job. I want flexibility and limited hours and I know there aren’t as many of those jobs available. However, I’m learning that what’s more important is my personal worth in the market. One thing I know about myself is that I do an excellent job at my job. I need to do the work to find out what the market is willing to pay for that.

How about you, fellow female workers? How do you negotiate pay? Do you feel you’re fairly compensated?