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Posted on: October 4, 2011
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Posted By: Laura Hoopes

Mara Jeffries' Tips on Negotiation

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Dear friends of women in science,

I'd like to make Mara Jeffries' article on Salary Negotiation: The Cost of Avoidance and Tips for Success, from the recent AWIS Magazine, more widely known. I promise to hold back from presenting every article in that issue to you, although I am tempted. There's a great article on women professors in geosciences, and ...OK. Enough.
So Jeffries takes on a problem almost all women have: dislike of tooting our own horns, bragging, asking for more. We all seem to start out feeling that if we are doing things well, the guys will notice and reward us. But the system just doesn't work that way. They save the money for squeaky wheels, and silent wheels that work hard and well are rewarded only with more work.
Here are some of Jeffries' tips: First, you must ask. Second, don't low-ball yourself, ask for a lot. Realize that the boss will probably negotiate down from your ask, so don't start where you want to end up. Third, don't reveal information the boss could use against you. He/she does not need to know your entire salary history, even if it asks for that on the application. The starting offer may be your current salary plus eight or ten percent, even if you are jumping way above your current rank, so you'd end up in the low end of the new range. Put your strengths forward and you can get up to the middle of that range or even higher.
Get background at sites like www.salary.com or www.payscale.com, being sure to consider both skill and location (because there are huge differences in costs of living at different places in the US). And Jeffries recommends you set your minimum salary based on this research as well as setting the salary you are negotiating to get. The salary you name may be higher than either of these. Also think about whether, if offered less than your minimum, you would settle for more vacation time, more benefits such as moving expenses or a set up bonus, start up equipment, etc.
The article has many more bits of useful advice, but the only other one I will highlight here is, get it in writing, whatever they offer you. If necessary, send them a letter summarizing your understanding and ask them to confirm the terms.
I know this kind of thing is very hard, but if you are accepting a new position, they will never want to please you more than at that moment, so be generous with your future self. Best of luck!
cheers,
Laura Hoopes
Comments
4  Comments  | Post a Comment
Community

Hi FBP, Patsy, and Janda,

I think that most women aren't too comfortable with negotiation but can improve with practice; that's why AWIS and other workshops can be so valuable when they give people a chance to practice. I know Janda that people do get jealous some times, and I'm sorry to hear that they've made you feel bad about doing something I think is good. Hope it goes away with time. It might help if you are generous with any equipment you got on the big startup.
best,
Laura

From:  Laura Hoopes |  October 20, 2011
Community

I negotiated everything and I got a lot more than the starting offer, but I think now maybe I pushed too hard. Sometimes people express resentment because my starting offer was so much better than theirs. But they admit they didn't negotiate. I don't know, maybe moderation even in negotiation works best.

From:  Janda Rain |  October 20, 2011
Community

Sounds really helpful. I am clueless about where there might be flexibility, so these tips really help.

From:  Patsy R. |  October 10, 2011
Community

OK, when I took my first faculty job I just took the offer. But later offers, I really negotiated, and it's a good thing I did. What they offered to begin with was way lower than what they were willing to give me, and I needed more to make my lab work. I had to learn negotiation for myself, but when I went to a workshop on it recently, I recognized a lot of the tactics, and this article does a pretty good job of describing them. Men think of this stuff as a game. Women don't, but we need to.
FBP

From:  Female Biology Professor |  October 10, 2011
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