Salary Story: I Wish I Knew Negotiating Annual Leave Was Possible
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: Birmingham Current industry and job title: Charity sector, fundraising manager Current salary: £34,650 Number of years employed since school or university: Five
Starting salary: £12,057 in 2017 Biggest salary jump: From £21,000 to £30,200 in 2020. Biggest salary drop: N/A
Biggest negotiation regret: I’ve always been happy with salary negotiations but I wish I’d negotiated on annual leave after leaving one job that had generous flexi-time, to one that wasn’t generous at all. I don’t think I even knew at the time you could negotiate on non-money-related things. Now, I wouldn’t join a business that didn’t offer good holiday and prioritised work/life balance.
Best salary advice:Apply for jobs you don’t hit all the criteria for (yes, even those with big salaries). If they like you enough they might be willing to train you, or put you at the bottom of the salary band, or even fit you in elsewhere in the business.
I was disappointed the salary was so low, but it was part time and was a foot in the door for where I wanted to be. I never intended to stay for long and I was happy to take any job in the sector at the time! Two months after starting, my colleague who did the same role as me, but full time, left. I got promoted to the full-time position and hired a team assistant. This was very lucky as I wouldn’t have been able to stay working part-time for much longer, financially.I applied for a manager position but as I was still fairly young they offered me another role at coordinator level, but with a manager job title and boosted salary (with a £2,000 bonus). I still reported into the actual manager. I didn’t negotiate this salary, because at the time it felt a big jump up but in reality with the benefit of hindsight the salary still wasn’t great compared to other sectors.I changed jobs to work at a bigger organisation. I started at the bottom of the salary band for the role, but I also had a £4,200 car allowance on top.The organisation gives annual increases but only small percentages, and I was happy especially as this wasn’t something I had initiated. After two years, they decided to raise the salary band to stay competitive meaning, I got a £2,000 pay rise. My salary is now £34,650.
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