Salary Story: I Thought I Didn’t Have Enough Experience To Negotiate, I Was Wrong
In our series Salary Stories, women with long-term career experience open up about the most intimate details of their jobs: compensation. It’s an honest look at how real people navigate the complicated world of negotiating, raises, promotions and job loss, with the hope it will give young women more insight into how to advocate for themselves — and maybe take a few risks along the way.
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Age: 26 Location: London Current industry and job title: Marketing consultant, beauty. Current salary: £55-£60,000 Number of years employed since school or university: 5.5 Starting salary and year: £18,000 in 2016 Biggest salary jump: £14,000, from £18,000 to £32,000 in 2017. Biggest salary drop: None, it’s never dropped. Biggest negotiation regret: At one point in my career I applied for my dream job at my dream company, despite having only three years experience when they were asking for five to seven. I didn’t think I stood a hope in hell of getting the job, so when it came around to negotiation stages I was just so shocked to even be having that conversation and eager to take a big jump in seniority that I let them lowball me by £20,000 less than the job was advertised for. It was only a £2,000 increase on my current salary for a much more senior and stressful role, which after taking into account the additional commuting costs, meant I actually lost money compared to my previous role. Best salary advice: Don’t let having less experience than advertised for discourage you from negotiating your worth. In my career, I’ve had a couple of roles where I was under-qualified on paper, and so let myself get underpaid for them. At the end of the day I was still doing the work, and doing it very well, and whilst I might not have had the years experience from the job description I was still more than capable, so I should have fought for the going rate for those jobs. They’re offering you the job because they think you’re the best person for it, probably rejecting more experienced candidates in favour of you. Therefore, you should be paid the same as other candidates with more experience would have been.
After six months of job hunting after graduation, I finally landed my dream job on the digital team of a large beauty brand. It was a year-long internship and everyone was paid the same, so even if I had the confidence at the time (which I didn’t) I wouldn’t have been able to negotiate. £18,000 in London was painfully low, but I managed to make it work in order to gain experience.Towards the end of my internship, the company expressed an interest in keeping me but took several months to come up with an actual job offer. I think they were trying to keep me on my low salary for as long as possible. I started interviewing elsewhere, and when they found out I was immediately pulled into a room and offered a job on the spot, which was very flattering.
However, I had no idea this was coming as it was a job in a different area to my current one, so when they asked me what my salary expectation was, I hadn’t been able to do any research and had no clue what the going rate was. I think I said “ummm” for so long that just as I was about to open my mouth to ask for £24,000, they broke the very awkward silence by telling me the going rate for that job was £32,000, and asked “would that be okay?”. I tried to play it cool and nodded and said that was acceptable, meanwhile inside I was freaking out about what a large number that was. In hindsight had I negotiated I could have gotten more, but I was so shocked to be offered that much that the thought never occurred.
A year later they started shutting down the brand I was working on, meaning I had to find a new role in the company. I was offered £35,000 to move to an entirely new department, or I could stay on the same salary and move back to my old team as Assistant Digital Manager, and in a month’s time when the annual salary reviews happened, I was told I would be given the chance to negotiate. I took the financially risky choice to move back to my old team because it was the career path I wanted.A month later I was handed an envelope with no warning from my manager containing my pay rise. It was £1,000 more than my previous salary, despite having been told I would be given the chance to negotiate and having turned down a better paying role. I was so upset and confused I didn’t say anything, and just decided to leave the company. This was definitely due to my lack of experience at the time that I accepted a new role without negotiating the salary, but I was just glad to not be made redundant that I didn’t really think it through, and I was naive to think the company would follow through on letting me negotiate.The day I decided to leave the previous company I got a message from a recruiter about my dream job at my dream company. It felt like fate, only the job was asking for five-seven years experience and was advertised at £55-60,000 and was a big step up in terms of seniority, so I didn’t think I stood a chance.
I interviewed and did the most insane level of preparation every step of the way as I was determined to prove my worth. It worked, and they offered me the job, only they explained that as I had less experience than the role was typically hired for they couldn’t offer me the advertised salary. They offered me £34,000 and I went back and asked for £36,000. We finally settled on £35,000. Looking back on this I can’t believe I was this silly. I think I was desperate to leave my old job and so flattered to be offered this new one and the big career jump that I didn’t see that I could have asked for more. After the costs of commuting (I walked to my previous job) I was out of pocket every month to do a more senior, and much more stressful role.
A year after I joined the company I asked for a pay rise, as I knew how underpaid I was compared to the other people in the company doing the same job. I originally asked in Feb 2020, so when the pandemic hit I dropped the subject. That summer the company was doing very well, so I brought it up again. I felt I was pushing my luck to be asking for a large pay rise during a pandemic, but I also knew I was incredibly underpaid. I asked for £45,000 and after a month it was approved. Maybe looking back I should have asked for more, as the job was originally advertised at £55-60,000, but I felt incredibly lucky to get a £10,000 pay rise during a pandemic so didn’t want to push my luck.At the start of 2021 I went freelance. It’s early days so it’s hard to predict my exact salary, but my current projections look like I’ll earn between £55,000 to £60,000 a year. I never thought I’d be able to earn this much freelancing, especially so early on. It’s hard work and incredibly scary, but I enjoy not having to try to prove my worth yearly in order to earn more.
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