Tips for Salary Negotiation, and International Women's Month!
Tips for Salary Negotiation, and International Women's Month!
Guest post by Winna Bridgewater, Principal Engineer at Syntasso
👋🏾 Salaam, we are Somalis in Tech and welcome to our monthly newsletter. Each month we’ll bring you the latest from the community, tech news and a community guest feature.
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🗞 Hot off the press
🏦 Silicon Valley Bank collapses
Startups favourite bank has collapsed. Silicon Valley Bank had a shortfall of $1.8 billion that it tried to fill via a stock sale. When that didn’t materialise the bank fell into receivership meaning it the US government had to step in.
This has had a big impact on startups with Gary Tan from Y Combinator stating over 1,000 startups are affected. What does it mean for the rest of us? Expect more startups to go under the tech recession to deepen.
Google announced that it will be adding AI to it’s workspace apps. Users of apps like Google Docs, Sheets and GMail will now be able to take advantage of generative AI to draft emails, documents or even images.
Similarly, the tech powerhouse also announced it will be offering developers access to it’s advanced AI language model PaLM.
🔒 TikTok privacy concerns mount
Over the past month, multinational, and national goverments around the world have announced or bans, or plans to ban the popular social media app from government workers phones. The list includes: Canada, the USA, the EU and most recently the UK.
Calls for bans stem over fears of privacy concerns regarding the collection of personal data.
👩🏾💻 International Women’s Month
On Monday, we hosted our first IRL event exclusively for women - Smart Salary Negotiations. Joined by our excellent panel of women working across HR, recruitment and senior leadership. We had an honest and transparent discussion about how women can feel empowered approaching salary negotiations.
For those unable to attend, fear not! We have a special newsletter feature from Winna Bridgewater, where she provides tips on how you can navigate salary conversations with ease! 💪🏾
Naag Nool
Every year, we’ve dedicated the month of March to celebrating the achievements of Somali women working in the tech industry. If you’d like to learn more about the women we’re featuring in this year’s campaign - head to our socials!
Tips for Salary Negotiation
Winna Bridgewater, Principal Engineer at Syntasso.
One of the most basic things I share with reports who are looking for a new role is: do not share your current salary, your salary history, or your target salary too quickly. The EU and US are passing legislation around pay transparency, and the UK launched a pay transparency pilot in 2022. Especially if you are a minority woman, the bleak reality is that you’ve probably been paid less than peers and less than you deserve, maybe even for many years. The compounding effect of that is profound.
Stay curious
Companies are hiring for a role that is already budgeted. They know how much they’ve earmarked to spend on the hire. They know what they’ve offered others coming into the same role. So, if you are asked about your pay history, be curious as to why the company needs the information. Because I believe if the company plans to make an offer based on your salary history rather than the job you’ll be doing once you’re hired, you will get an unfair offer.
Don’t divulge too much
If you’re in an interview and you’re asked what your current salary is (or even what your target salary is!) especially in the early stages, don’t give your numerical answer. What can you do instead? Rather than providing an indication of what you make or have made in the past, explain that you are looking for a salary that is competitive for the role in the industry. If they push for an answer, stay curious and ask why they need that information to proceed with the interview. You can learn a lot by asking how company decisions are made by asking questions and being curious during the hiring process.
Examples where staying quiet, can pay off.
I got to an offer stage with one company without sharing my salary. The recruiter did initially ask my ideal salary, and I answered that I was looking for a competitive salary for the role. There were no issues with this answer. They seemed to really like me, and I liked the organisation from what I could see in the interview process. I hadn’t asked about salary ranges at that point, and when the offer came in, the salary wasn’t high enough for me. I went back and shared that I would be excited to join the company, and that I knew I would add a lot of value, but the salary was low.
We had an open conversation about the salary bands, and they shared that the offer was at the top of the band for that role. I was glad to hear they had bands, and I felt comfortable still turning down the offer. They asked for a few days, and when they reached out again, they had a new offer: they fast-tracked signoff on a new role that was more senior, with more growth potential to me, at a salary was in the range I was comfortable with.
At another point in my career, I was interviewing for a similar role at two companies at the same time. I started with a recruiter at one company and a hiring manager at the other. Again, the recruiter did initially ask my ideal salary, and I answered that I was looking for a competitive salary for the role. She had absolutely no problem with that answer, and she shared the ranges for the role with me immediately. With the other company, the topic of salaries and ranges never came up during the interview process, and I was fine to wait to see what was in the offer and go from there.
I got initial offers from both, which was exciting and nerve wracking. One role was more senior than the other (with more pay to accompany), but both seemed like great opportunities. I went back to the company that offered the more junior role and explained that I had another offer that I was considering that would include more growth for me. They asked for a few days, and then they came back: they knew they needed a more senior hire for another open role and came back to offer me the more senior role with the higher pay. They made it clear that they were offering me the more senior role because of the experience I had and the feedback they got from the interviews.
Takeaways
With all three of the offers I described above, the salary increase was enough to make me nervous – considering a new role with a 30%+ salary increase brought out all my insecurities. I was sure I wasn’t worth what they were offering me. I was worried that I’d get in the role and fail, and they’d regret ever believing in me. I considered if I should tell them what I was currently making and asking them if they wanted to lower the offer. Crazy, right? Honestly every other person I’ve talked to who has been in a similar position has felt the same way.
But none of those companies ever knew what I had been making, and when I stepped back to look at the experience I would bring, I realised I had the skills to be successful in the role and that I would bring value to the company, and that’s all it comes down to.
If you’re nervous about negotiating, or you want to hear more about how people navigate the interview process in tech, this article has a lot of practical food for thought, and it’s one I go back to when I start thinking about new roles.
🐪 Maah-Maah
Haween la’aani waa hoy la’aan
Where there are no women, there is no home.
Mahadsanid 👋🏾