3 Ways to Start Getting Paid Your Worth
I need to share this with you, our community because this can't continue and only YOU can put a stop to this ridiculousness.
I'm a contributor on a well-known career/business site for women. One of the women in the network asked for advice. She had her eye on this organization and they had an opening she was applying for.
Perspective and context for you.
The woman had 20 years of experience in corporate America.
She was applying for a job that required only 2 years of experience (in the same field).
Her thought process is she would get into the company and get promoted.
I read her post and before I replied, I went through the comments from other contributors and they were as upsetting as the ask. Noone deterred her from making the choice to go after the job and accept both the salary cut and title cut. Instead, the advice she was getting was on how to overcome the objection about the gap between the job opportunity and her plethora of experience.
As a specialist for professional women, I don't believe the path to success is a straight line on a graph. Often, we have to take steps sideways or steps down the ladder in order to advance. But never, ever should we, as women, go back to the bottom rung.
We need to stop contributing to the wage gap which WIDENS as women age.
The increase in our experience and expertise should be a direct correlation to our increase in salary and title. Period. While some of this is out of our control, we do have more control than we believe we do.
3 Ways to Start Getting Paid What Your Worth
1. Stop being loyal to organizations for decades. Research shows employees who stay in companies longer than 2 years get paid 50% less over their lifetime
2. Negotiate for a salary in alignment with your worth and what you contribute to an organization. 60% of women say they've never negotiated their salary
3. Don't keep taking on more and more work and responsibilities without a pay increase to reflect the work
Look, I know our generation has been taught to play nice, be nice, work hard, blend in, be a wallflower, say yes. However, we have to break these beliefs, we still have time to go after and get the professional success we deserve.
