Salary Negotiations Suck. You Should Do It Anyway.

When I landed my first job in the reproductive rights world in 2015, I was offered $40,000 a year. I knew that it would be just enough to cover rent (DC y’all), pay the monthly minimum on my student loans, and cover my health care expenses. Forget about groceries outside of pasta and canned goods. I had never negotiated a salary before, but I knew I needed to try. Not out of principle, but necessity. If I wanted to go to a movie or eat something beside mac-and-cheese with my roommates, I would need a little more wiggle room in my budget. So after thanking the HR representative profusely for the opportunity, I asked for $45,000. She laughed and said “This is a non-profit, honey.” I was mortified. I told her that I accepted the offer with deep gratitude and would start as soon as they needed me. 

I reflect on that moment now with love and compassion for my younger self — and a lot of anger. Just two weeks into the job, I found out that my direct supervisor made almost three times my salary and that our consultants made more in a month than I did in an entire year. 

Let me be clear: I do not believe that we should have to negotiate. I could use this entire article to talk about the criminality of capitalism and the lack of clear compensation structures as a tool of white supremacy, but I’ll spare you. The fact is, until we have transparent pay bands (shout out to the few repro organizations that do), union-style salary listings, and rad supervisors that always offer the top of the salary range, negotiating is a practice most of us need to engage in. We all deserve a living wage.

I come to this work—and my own negotiations—as a white queer cisgender woman. For folks of color, specifically Black women and non-binary folks, the stakes are often higher. Many Black folks in my own life have expressed the fear of racial resentment and backlash when negotiating, something their white counterparts don’t need to worry about. This reality can be even more crushing for folks who do not hold US citizenship and are reliant on employers for sponsorship visas. It can create a power dynamic that makes negotiating feel impossible. 

All of my learnings and the advice below come from my own lived experience and the work I’ve done supporting others in navigating the unfortunate and harmful professional charade that is negotiating. My hope is that you find some of the below guidance useful in your own negotiations, and that together, we can disrupt the capitalist heteropatriarchal system that makes this practice a necessity in the first place. 

Never Accept An Initial Job Offer On The First Phone Call

When I get an initial offer, my adrenaline spikes. I’m excited, nervous, and a little dissociative. I am certainly not in the best headspace to negotiate in that moment. It is very common—and reasonable—to ask a hiring manager if you can consider an offer for a few days before giving an answer. This gives you the space to choose a number for your negotiation that feels good and the opportunity to practice with a friend prior. You can, and should, ask the hiring manager if they can send you a complete compensation package, including an offer letter with salary, vacation, and health care benefits, before accepting a position.

Always Ask For The Top Of The Range

If there is a range on a salary posting, that means that the hiring manager has budgeted for the top of that range. When a job posting includes a range, it usually comes with the caveat that the offer you get is ‘commensurate with experience.’ This is usually coded language for a higher education degree or a certain number of years in the workforce. As too many of us know, a higher education degree—a bachelors or a masters—can be a classist barrier to salary advancement. My take: if you’re being offered the job, then you have enough experience to do the role. Therefore, you should ask for the top of the range. For many reasons out of your control, they might not give it to you, but you should be proud of yourself for having tried. 

Remember, when negotiating, you’re not asking for money out of the hiring manager’s personal paycheck. If you’re negotiating compensation at an organization, the extra $5,000 or $10,000 you're negotiating for likely comes from big grants and big donors, and it will likely mean a lot more to you than it will to the organization. 

Deciding On An Ask Number

If there isn’t a range, this can be tricky and it’s incredibly context dependent. As much as you can, do your research. Talk to colleagues at the organization to get a gauge on what the supervisor of the role makes, check job postings for organizations of a similar size, and consult with a mentor if you have one. 

My general guidance is to request $2,000-$5,000 more than what you’re hoping your final offer will be. So, if you’re offered $62,000 and you want a final offer closer to $68,000, I would ask for $70,000. Will this always work? Absolutely not, but it’s the method I’ve found most effective thus far at the widest range of organizations. 

They Hired You. Don't Worry About What They Think When You Ask For More.

I was recently leading a free webinar on some of the basics of negotiating, and a participant asked me about the resentment women and non-binary people of color might face when asking for more money. I told her that, as much as we can all acknowledge that should never be the case, it certainly might happen. But if a place of employment is going to resent you for asking for a higher salary as a part of your compensation package, then it’s likely not a place you’ll want to stick around for long. That organization is being run by some folks who have a lot of internal work to do if they feel anything less than neutral about your negotiation. If they resent you for negotiating, they would certainly find another reason to take issue with you later down the line. If you need this job, you might as well make as much as you can if you have to stick around a racist workplace for a minute until you find a healthier organization to work at. 

You Should Never Have A Job Offer Rescinded For Negotiating

This one is pretty straightforward. If an employer can’t or won’t meet you at the number you’ve proposed, they will either tell you that or give you a counter-offer. They’ve put a lot of time and energy into finding a great candidate, and the last thing they want is to start back at square one. If a potential employer rescinds your offer for negotiating, it is likely not a place you would want to work. I have only ever heard of this allegedly happening at one organization, the Feminist Majority Foundation (who has also done some hard union busting and is known for racist managerial practices). 

You Can Negotiate For More Than $$$

Sometimes, places really can’t do more than what they have offered. As we all know, resources are not distributed fairly across the nonprofit industrial complex, especially in the reproductive health, rights, and justice movements. If an employer can’t increase your salary, there are other things you might be able to negotiate for in your compensation package, such as professional development opportunities or a moving stipend. Additionally, you can negotiate for a 6-month review that comes with a set compensation increase. No matter what additional additional benefits you receive, it is critical that you get those in writing. 

If there is one thing I hope you take away from this article, it’s that you already have everything you need to justify your negotiation (they do want to hire you, after all!). Often folks of color should be paid more than their white counterparts, as the emotional labor they will inevitably be asked to engage in by white-led institutions is never compensated or quantified on a job description. So go get your money. 

There are a lot of incredible resources and individuals out there to help you navigate the tumultuous terrain that is a job offer. Check out the free Career Contessa webinars on negotiations. I also led a free webinar on negotiations that you can access here. There are tons of negotiation coaches that can help you out too; a quick google search should pull up some folks who do a sliding scale.

Carly Manes (she/her) is a practicing full-spectrum doula, community organizer, and negotiations coach. She has coached dozens of individuals across industries to successfully advocate for more equitable compensation packages. She is authoring the first-ever Children's picture book about abortion care in the United States, which is set to print in April 2021.