In our turn Wage storiesWomen with long -term career experience open for the most familiar details of their work: compensation. It is a honest look at how real people tour the complex world of negotiation, increases, promotions and job loss, hoping that it will give young people more picture of how to support themselves – and perhaps take some dangers along the way.
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Age: 29
Location: Orange County, Ca
Current Industry and Job Title: Recruiter, health care
Current salary: $ 105,000
Number of years employed by school or university: Seven
Salary boot: $ 40,000
Higher wage decline: n/a
Larger salary jump: $ 62,400 to $ 86,000 in 2022.
Greater trading regret: I should have done more precautionary research when I apply for seats to understand market interest rates.
Best wage tips: Talk to your friends and colleagues (who you trust) about your salary. I am always the first to offer my salary and how much I do because we will never know what to ask for and wait if we do not know what is there. Money is such a “taboo” theme, but this keeps women in the dark and asks less than they deserve.
First job: Organizing Cooperation
Salary: $ 40,000
Year: 2018
I made a tone of political organization in college and initially I wanted to go on the path of international relations, but the universe didn’t have it! Fortunately, I landed on a large well -known progressive think tank with a white youth hand, where I became the organizer of reproductive rights, the prevention of firefighting violence and the Republic. I was there for a little over two years. The transition to a big city to $ 40,000 did not feel amazing, but I was just excited to have a job in my field a week before my graduation. Based on market research, I appreciated about $ 35,000- $ 50,000 for my first job in the non-profit sector, so I felt okay for that. The only negotiation I did was ask about a relocation bonus that met with a “we don’t do it here”. As soon as I started, I learned that this think tank, while being fancy and well known, gives under the market salaries because of its prestige. I had friends in other progressive problematic tanks with a few $ 50,000 salaries (without the support of the Union). I had an increase in pay in my time here due to trade union negotiations.
Promotion: Senior Partner Organizer
Salary: $ 50,000
Year: 2020
I had organized a multimedia campaign and had published many policy research documents, so I used it as leverage to promote a higher role. I gave myself that it “exceeds expectations” in various categories of reviewing my performance with data measurements on the size of the projects, the media, the amount of projections per paper, etc. My above has ended up giving me enough “improvement”. At the end of the discussion, while discussing “my next chapter” I began to use a phrase like “I am happy to create more processes and work flows to better support the person who comes after me”. The Executive Director then asked me, “Are you thinking of leaving?” I mentioned that I was upset about the expectations and the fact that I would not promote and question my development in the organization. Less than 12 hours later, she called me back to the office and had elaborated on the final review of my performance and promoted me to the highest organizational partner.
Job Change: Higher Policy Coordinator
Salary: $ 50,000
Year: 2020
I no longer enjoyed things and I wanted to focus more on political and government relations, so I entered another non -profit organization specializing in young federal and state legislators. I focused on the reform of criminal justice bilateral policy and I really liked to work with state legislators. Initially I was offered $ 48,000 with $ 2,000 signature bonus. I asked for $ 50,000 flat without signature bonus, as I wanted to stay in my current salaries. This turned out to be a small cut of pay because my benefits cost more here. I really wanted from the old job, so I didn’t negotiate very hard for the role.
Job Change: Application Administrator
Salary: 62,400 $
Year: 2021
The salary in the job description was actually $ 50,000, but because I moved to southern California they had to give me $ 62,400 by law. California has minimal wage requirements for employees living in the state (even if the company is not) as a type of protection for Californians. These zones change each year to calculate inflation, in 2025 the minimum wage if the company has more than 20 employees is $ 68,640. I had left Washington DC and wanted to try a non -profit political and change in project management. I liked the miserable, sexy nature of the political organization, but I struggled with the lack of measurements, structure and measurement of success.
Project management felt the industry agnostic and was a way to rotate from the small non -profit space, in larger, more corporate arrangements. I managed to plan leadership development for nearly 13 customers, including some major world companies. It was the most corporate non -profit organization I would give … and I was miserable. I found the management of the project was not for me. I didn’t like guard and hunting for adults for so many customers. The size of the company, 2,000+ employees worldwide, also finds it difficult to do anything quickly. I just lasted about six months before I went to my manager to give up, but he asked me to stay as a contractor to complete a project for one of my clients. For the next three months, I completed the customer and got many other ad-hoc projects for the social impact arm about event planning and Dei initiatives, I worked about 30 hours a week for three months at $ 40 per hour. The project manager (a good friend of mine) argued to pay me $ 40/h for my contract! After myself and several PMS left, the organization made a massive recruitment to relieve the number of PMS customers had to own. I was happy to be the sacrificial lamb that pushed for this change.
Job Change: Recruitment Officer
Salary: $ 86,000
Year: 2022
While doing conventional work I began to apply to non -profit and speculative companies. I was open to anything and everything. My partner is in charge of hiring and encouraged me to try more formal hiring. I honestly fell on the company that knew nothing about health care, computer science or traditional staffing offices. I was initially offered 80,000 (this is the bottom of the band) and I negotiated at $ 86,000. I was told to choose a non -round number, which I landed at $ 86,000. I am the lowest paid in my position but I am also one of the youngest at least five years. The recruitment team is very close to each other, so many of us were transparent to our salaries. Some days that was the lowest paid he felt gross, but I recognized my level of experience compared to others was valid. I never brought my salary with my administrators or leadership because I felt I didn’t have enough ammunition for an urgent case.
Raise: Recruitment Officer
Salary: $ 105,000
Year: 2025
In addition to an increase, I got a bonus (after taxes) of $ 6,000. I had a slight increase last year, but that was a huge increase. I went through expectations of my 2024 performance review. This was a pleasant surprise and I was no longer the lowest paid recruitment officer for the team. I was so proud that I hit $ 100,000 before I was turning 30 and the hard work for over two years had finally rendered. I argued that they exceed expectations during the revision of performance with my profits measurements, satisfaction ratings by my positioned advisers and praise by team members. Usually expectations is to increase value by 4+%, but since I was so low in the wage zone, I think they had to accelerate my promotion to be more in line with my peers. From my knowledge, my wage band is $ 89,000-$ 120,000 and most of my peers are in “Midway Point” according to leadership.
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Wage History: I approach the negotiation as a game
