I remember the first time I had the courage to negotiate an offer. I was working through a search firm with a male recruiter. I had done the math six ways to Sunday, looking at base, benefits, and total compensation. I had all my reasons lined up including the most important, the value and results that I could bring for the price I was requesting. Yet, when I laid it out, the recruiters first response was “Well, we don’t want to be greedy now do we?” and my emotional reaction was instant shame. I wonder why? We are conditioned, especially as women, to not ask for more. We are lucky enough to be here right?! No!!! We did end up meeting in the middle and I negotiated higher than the original offer, but later found out that not only was my salary lower than my peers, I was THE ONLY candidate they had brought in for the role and the CHRO most definitely would have gone higher.
Unconsciously, that experience led me to believe that negotiating just wasn’t for me. It was for people who had the prestigious education and experience to back up their price. So despite mentoring many women as they went through the same process, I was feeling the imposter syndrome of not being willing to advocate for myself. What I’ve since realized is that while I believed women should ask for what they are worth, I also held some unconscious beliefs that I needed to be a different person in order to do that for myself. A person with better schooling, bigger job titles on my resume, and more power behind my words.
My instant thought driving the shame that day was “I am being greedy”, but was I? I now know that I went into that job and delivered results. In fact, in the short time I was there, my role expanded significantly and those same peers who were making more than me, were also coming to me for advice and counsel on how to handle complex situations. I trust that I will always figure out a way to deliver.
But there is a difference between my unconscious reaction, heavily influenced by unconscious bias, and the reaction I got to consciously choose. The lens of which I was unconsciously viewing the situation from was very skewed with perceptions on hierarchy and power. I went into the conversation believing that the recruiter had the upper hand, coming from a feeling of inferiority. I was going to ask the question but I had outsourced my opinion on whether that decision was right or wrong to his response. Thus, the shame when he responded the way he did.
With awareness, I can decide ahead of time that no matter his response, I can choose to support myself in the effort. I decide that negotiating is the right thing for me and his response is fueled by his own bias, not an indicator of my worthiness for the position. Could the result be the same and I change my perspective, yet still choose to meet in the middle? Yes, but the difference is retaining power and authority over the decision. Instead, I entered into the job with resentment for not being paid what I believed I was worth. I gave away ownership of the decision to him with the thinking that I had to lower my price in order to get the job. We always have the power of choice. I could have stuck to my guns and said “I appreciate that, but I know I will deliver at a level worthy of this higher price.” and had the guts to walk away if the hiring manager wasn’t willing to go higher.
This might happen to you. You might step outside of your comfort zone and ask for something – a raise, promotion, a higher salary on an offer, or even a challenging project that you would love to sink your teeth into, and the person on the other end might say no. I wonder what you are going to make that mean?