It's Equal Pay Day. Here are strategies for how to negotiate a better salary

By Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz

April 4, 2017 9:35 AM PT

When she started her career, Andee Harris was happy just to have a job. She took the first salary offered, no questions asked.

Years later, Harris knows better, but she wishes she had known it then.

“Women always underestimate their skill set and what they’re worth,” said Harris, chief engagement officer at HighGround, an employee engagement software developer based in Chicago. “We take what we’re given and don’t think about this as a process, and that starts us off from a point of disadvantage.”

Failure to negotiate salary — and the cascading effect that has as a career progresses — is one of several factors cited when trying to explain why women earn less than men across many industries.

Women, on average, earned 80 cents for every dollar men earned in 2015, a penny improvement over 2014, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families. That’s based on Census data on median annual salary for full-time year-round workers.

Tuesday is Equal Pay Day, which symbolizes how far into the new year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year alone.

Some of the pay gap stems from the concentration of women in low-paying industries and occupations, and their rarity in executive ranks. The disparity shrinks considerably in analyses that control for factors such as years of experience, education, skills and management responsibilities. Taking those factors into consideration, women in California earned 2.3% less than men in 2015, according to data released in December by PayScale.

Here’s some advice from four women on how to negotiate for more money effectively.

Start early

Young women who start their careers at low pay often find it haunts them as they move up the ladder, as raises and new offers tend to be based on prior salary.

Harris encourages young women to be savvy from job No. 1.

They should go into a negotiation with an understanding of their skill level, confidence that they can do the job and data on what that job should pay. Companies such as PayScale and Glassdoor have lots of market pay data. To further aid negotiations, last year Glassdoor launched a tool called Know Your Worth that calculates your market worth based on your employer, location, education, years of experience and other details.

At higher levels, Harris recommends having an attorney review a contract, especially when compensation packages involve stock options. She has noticed men are more willing than women to bring in an attorney, which she thinks is because women are afraid of being perceived as threatening.

Harris said it also has been helpful for her to confer with a group of close friends in the same profession who cheer her on: “just someone who can say, ‘You can do this.’” .

It’s not about you, it’s about them

Negotiating is much more effective when you focus on the needs and interests of the other side rather than your own, said Victoria Medvec, co-founder and executive director of the Kellogg Center for Executive Women at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Research your boss’ goals for the coming year and explain how you would help achieve them. Keep the conversation on the boss’ interests and avoid veering into what’s fair and not fair, because that can make the other side defensive and reduces the likelihood that you get what you want, Medvec said.

In addition, pay should be only one part of a broader package you’re negotiating, which could include flexibility, vacation days and responsibilities, Medvec said. Aim high to leave room for your employer to concede. Women often fear a bold request will be rejected, but “no” often means you’re doing it right.

“‘No’ is the first step in negotiation,” Medvec said. “You have to see ‘no’ not as a wall, but as a window you crawl through.”

Know what you want

Since she was a child, Perry Yeatman has had the clarity to know what she wants and the confidence to ask for it — traits that can be lucrative.

“Long-term satisfaction is dependent on our ability to put on the table what you really want,” said Yeatman, founder of Your Career, Your Terms, a resource to help women move up in their careers. “The company won’t guess, so they will solve for a different problem.”

The ask should be backed by data that your performance merits giving you what you want, she said. That’s easy when you have a revenue-generating job with clear performance metrics, but many women are in support or operational roles and it’s incumbent on them to agree to clear, quantifiable measures to track performance from the outset.

It’s not just about pay

Go in with “multiple levers” you can pull as you negotiate — that can be salary, bonuses, perks, assignments or sabbaticals, said Renetta McCann, chief talent officer at Leo Burnett.

“If you go in with just one element it will be an up or down yes or no,” she said.

Remember that it is a continuing, two-way conversation. Set up a meeting with your manager to talk about pay and consider your responses to the possible reactions. Be prepared for multiple conversations.

Collect information as you go. Ask your boss how the salary you’re being offered was calculated, or what the boundaries are. Ask human resources to tell you what it can about the compensation structure.

Make a multipronged argument that merges proof of your contributions to the company with what you want to be paid.

“In my experience, men at the senior level seem more naturally inclined to merge the conversation about what their contributions are and marry that to what they think they should be paid,” McCann said.

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