I regularly hire women for 65% to 75% of what males make

http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/hvv2m/i_work_for_a_large_multinational_tech_company_i/

by amirmc • 15 years ago

601 277 15 years ago

But that's not a rule, it's because women don't negotiate well. This title can create a bit of unnecessary controversy, imho.

D_Drake• 15 years ago

Controversial titles drive clickthroughs.

Peroni4• 15 years ago

In the UK the pay difference between males & females under the age of 40 in Tech roles is nominal. There is a difference but it's not even remotely close to the disparity you would find 20 years ago.

That being said, over the past twelve months, female candidates consisted of approximately 5% of the people I represented. There are very few women in the industry and I've rarely come across any who are afraid to argue their worth. On the contrary in fact. Occasionally I have come across one or two women who were demanding a salary that was simply far beyond their worth and I imparted the same advice to them as I would to a male candidate and both women were incredibly offended by my feedback and refused to budge whereas almost every single male that I challenged actually listened to my advice and adjusted their rate to suit.

The idea of negotiating salary offers still appears to be a relatively unknown phenomenon here in the UK. You'd be surprised how few candidates stand their ground and push for more than 5% of the original offer regardless of gender.

chrislomax• 15 years ago

Interviewing recently (in the UK) I find the same to be true. Although we only had 1 woman in the interviews, she was double the asking price of the other candidates we were getting in that are male.

I can't say for certain why this is, maybe it was the role we were hiring for? The male candidates were more or less happy to move to us for the same price they are currently being paid where the woman actually asked for double what we were willing to pay for much less experience than the males.

v21• 15 years ago

Likely enough to be random variation as to have some real underlying cause.

ticks• 15 years ago

The concept of salary negotiation is alien to me. Given how difficult it is to find developer jobs in my part of the UK and given that employers are expecting to pay lower and lower amounts these days, I would consider a salary negotiation too risky. There's just too many people applying for too few positions.

That's why I like recruitment agents, when you apply for a job, you already know the salary (or at least the salary range). Obviously, there's disadvantages, like having no idea who you are applying for but that can be fixed with a bit of research.

Peroni4• 15 years ago

Obviously, there's disadvantages, like having no idea who you are applying for but that can be fixed with a bit of research.

It's a legal requirement in the UK for a recruiter to have your explicit permission to submit your CV to a company. The law is black & white but unfortunately most recruiters tend to be ignorant of it and those whe aren't simply ignore it as they know most candidates aren't aware of the fact. Never ever let an agent submit your CV to a company before they tell you who the company are.

Salary negotiations are incredibly simple. When you are offered a salary, simply push back and say you would be comfortable with 10% more. The worst that can happen is they will simply say that the budget won't allow it. The offer is still on the table and you've lost nothing.

danssig6• 15 years ago

It's attitudes like yours that are pushing the prices down. Your view is also wrong. There are lots of jobs and lots of workers to fill them. You could also just go abroad. There are lots of nice places to work and with English you can work in pretty much any big city in western Europe.

vidarh2• 15 years ago

I've hired dozens of developers (in the UK and elsewhere), and I've never taken an offer off the table because a candidate has asked for more. The worst I've ever done is not offer more than the initial offer.

There's almost always wiggle room - personally I've never accepted the first offer, and typically I've gotten 30%-50% more. Conversely, because I know there are people like me out there, I never offer the maximum I'm ready to pay - nobody has ever just quietly walked away if the offer wasn't good enough.

The only exception would be if I was hiring for specific very high level talent when the market is totally overheated.

> That's why I like recruitment agents, when you apply for a job, you already know the salary (or at least the salary range)

Recruiters are not your friends. While it is in their interest to get you the highest salary possible because it increases their commission, it is also in their interest to hire as many people as possible in as little time as possible, which means getting you to accept a lower offer if that's the quickest way there.

I am not saying not to use recruiters - I have successfully gotten got jobs via recruiters - but be very clear with them about salary expectations, and remember that just because a recruiter is involved does not mean the offer isn't negotiable.

On the contrary, if, when you get an offer, you make it clear you need more to accept right away, they will bat for you because they want that commission. Conversely, realize that they will at the same time bat for the employer if they think they can get you to sign right away. What matters to them is which side is most likely to cave.

Be nice to a recruiter and they also often will give you an indication of how far the potential employer is likely to stretch. I've several times had recruiters tell me "the instruction we got says X to Y, but I think they'll stretch to Z" where Z was a number I thought would've been outrageous to even ask for. In one of those cases, the company did in fact come back with an offer of Z after some strong hints + a very significant (far above normal levels) guaranteed raise at a specific later time.

Do practice interviews. Apply for a job you're not that interested in, and be actively unreasonable about what you ask for. You might sometimes find they don't think it's so unreasonable.

ramblerman• 15 years ago

if you read the actual text it ends with

the one person who got the most out of us was a highly aggressive, very smart, very confident woman

I guess they wanted to point out women, in general, aren't as aggressive in demanding higher salaries. Which whilst being an interesting observation seems kind of a non issue, there is no discrimination here.

marquis4• 15 years ago

The poster was clearly not discriminating. Reading this from a female perspective he was just telling facts, and I don't see this as HR's problem either. We women need to learn to negotiate, and learn how to do this while maintaining the need for social inclusion. There are still a lot more men in the tech business which does affect the manner in which you discuss money and it's hard even for me to negotiate (and I've been in business for years). It's a matter of telling your social-brain to shut up and put your personal-survival-brain first, maybe.

I don't see this as a gender issue so much as a personality-type issue, it's secondary that many women happen to have the personality-type where social concerns come first. When clients ask me for a discount we'll almost always give it, but I'll be much happier to work with a client who approaches the matter in a sociable way rather than a direct request for a discount (I find it tasteless, even though the money-brain side of me completely understands what is happening).

Just a side note: I have male employees who also suck at asking for raises.

rmc5• 15 years ago

I read that as being "Look women! You are not shackled by your sex! C'mon, you can do it! Haggle more!"

officemonkey• 15 years ago

I think this goes beyond just salary negotiations.

My wife typically comes to me when she has "business politics questions" (despite that she's been working longer and more successfully than me.)

Most of things we talk about involve how to get something (usually work or money) from a client without seeming like they're bothering them.

I'm definitely in the "just matter-of-factly send them an email." She's more in the "I don't want them to get irritated by me contacting them" camp.

This isn't universal though. I've had two experiences where it's been reversed. One male I recently hired accepted a position when he knew money would be a problem and didn't bring it up even though it's a bit of a hardship for him right now. A female I'm in discussions to hire has told me flat out what her salary requirements are. I actually appreciate this kind of discussion.

AutoCorrect• 15 years ago

nah, that's just consensus building - another trait of the female of the species. I've seen it plenty of times before: it takes me 10 minutes to make a decision, and I call no one. It takes my wife two days, as she goes through her address book, calling friends and talking it out with them.

bravura2• 15 years ago

This phenomenon was studied in a book called Women Don't Ask.

http://www.womendontask.com/

'When Linda Babcock asked why so many male graduate students were teaching their own courses and most female students were assigned as assistants, her dean said: "More men ask. The women just don't ask."'

Incidentally, for a while, the authors would give a free copy of this book to women who would ask for one.

thomasgerbe2• 15 years ago

"More men ask. The women just don't ask."

I wonder why women do not ask more. Especially with something like dating. It happens but far less regularly than the other way around. I wonder if that leap of faith contributes to men being more comfortable to negotiate/ask for higher income.

suivix• 15 years ago

Testosterone, maybe? (I'm not trying to be snarky)

caw• 15 years ago

A professor of mine one asked the class: "How would you like to live your life 10% better?" Everyone was like "yeah, of course"

The professor's friend would always ask for discounts, everywhere he went. He would normally get a discount of about 10%. This was simply because he asked. His theory was that if he could get a discount, why not ask? It doesn't hurt anyone and you just have to get past the social stigma of "haggling."

So the professor's challenge for us until next class was to ask for a discount, or more simply "is that your best price?"

Some of the results:

A friend of mine got a free appetizer at a restaurant he frequents

At least 3 people found out that Taco Bell has a student discount program

One person used this in his salary negotiation (literally "is that your best offer?") and instantly got a 5K bump. He was going to take the job anyway, but got $5k more without any hassle.

patio114• 15 years ago

If you had called the office supply chain where I previously worked and I was being very strictly attentive to policy "Is that your best price?" would not have been the magic words but probably would have gotten you the accommodation I'm about to describe from 99% of our CSRs.

Basically, we sell the same stuff via a variety of channels, and the catalog you have in front of you (if you're a regular customer) is systematically above the prices available to other customers like, e.g., schools districts, small businesses in California, people responding to our fall circular, etc etc. The actual software mechanism for this was a three character catalog code, which would cause the system to reprice everything when it was changed. If you were ordering from CAT (the big published book that 98% of orders came from, and you said the magic words -- canonically, "Can you do anything about lowering the price?" -- I would tell you that we had a competitive bidding process and, if you'd give me one second, the computer would come up with our best competitive bid for your business deletes CAT, writes BID ahh, I see we can knock 10% off the order)

There was actually a Bids group, but you'd have to be ordering office paper by the truckload (literally -- some people do) to be worth their attention. The folks in charge of things had long since decided that it was cheaper to just give 10% to anyone who asked than to involve the folks in Bids on $400 accounts or lose business because a law firm secretary decided to do price shopping prior to placing her order.

Of particular note: there is literally nothing you can say, starting from "You're placing an order in CAT", that would cause you to pay more money than the CAT prices. Savvy purchasing managers understand this, which is why purchasing departments almost without fail spent the extra 5 seconds asking for a discount.

cgag• 15 years ago

I've been doing this for a while (I think it comes from my dad talking every where we ever went into giving him a military discount). I've gotten a good amount of free food (appetizers and desserts mostly) just by asking for it, as well as fairly large discounts. It works amazingly well.

Yet when it came to salary negotiation for my first (and current job, I was too scared to ask for more because I didn't think I held any cards. I was fresh out of college with no internships and from a pretty mediocre school, and in an area with close to 0 software companies. I know everyone says that they won't take an offer away because you asked for more, but it felt too important to chance it. In the future however I don't ever plan on just taking the initial offer.

raldi• 15 years ago

> It doesn't hurt anyone and you just have to get past the social stigma of "haggling."

I agree that this makes sense for salaries and used cars, but if you do it for small-ticket transactions, isn't that like saying, "Hey, you can save a bunch of money as soon as you get past the social stigma against tipping 0%"?

iwwr2• 15 years ago

Strictly on economic terms, how much of a discount would you get on a developer if he/she is likely to take 1-2 year off at some point? During that time, you have to hire another person, train them and then tell them to leave.

nupark2• 15 years ago

You're being downvoted, but this is quite honestly something I've witnessed C-levels worrying about -- "does she seem like she might get pregnant immediately?".

I have to disagree with the concern.

There's a cost to hiring humans. People get sick, have babies, attend weddings and funerals and take vacations. Men take paternity leave, women take maternity leave. These are the costs of hiring humans.

In my mind, our company exists to turn a profit, but it also exists to employ human beings. Treating them like human beings is money well spent, not money wasted.

iwwr2• 15 years ago

As an employer, I would do my utmost to attend to these human problems, especially it's a valuable employee. However, the costs, opportunity-wise, still exist and we pay them, willingly or not.

vidarh2• 15 years ago

Which is an interesting question, but it is irrelevant in terms of the linked post, which specifically points out that the person in question is hiring women at lower salaries because they don't ask and he's following policy, not because he's adverse to giving them higher salaries if they do ask (and he has the flexibility to at least narrow the gap).

dexen• 15 years ago

It may well be relevant -- if the women in question considered their negotiating posision weaker because of possible future maternity leave.

nknight6• 15 years ago

In the US, a year of family leave is, to say the least, unlikely, and legally required nowhere. But even if it were, most companies that last long enough to have somebody come back from a 1+ year leave most likely are, or have become, large enough that there's no reason to lay off the "replacement".

Developers in particular are rarely terminated individually for economic reasons. There's always something for them to do, some way to extract value from them. Companies don't usually start dropping good people until they're dropping a bunch of them at once, and usually deadweight layoffs have preceded.

a3camero2• 15 years ago

If you're curious about other jurisdictions; in Ontario you generally get 17 weeks pregnancy leave and then both parents can take 35-37 weeks of parental leave: http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/pubs/guide/pregnancy.....

budley• 15 years ago

I also hire people for as little money as I can.

thetrumanshow• 15 years ago

Yes, but consider, they may very well alter their effort-level to suit the salary you pay them, thereby saving energy for things that matter more to them.

marquis4• 15 years ago

When we've had budget issues and need to hire someone I try to find a balance between what we can afford and the effort we're looking for. A good way to do this for us is to hire less than 40 hours a week. A savvy employee enjoys this, as it leaves them time to work on their own projects (which we fully support) while having a base income. We've had this system now for a few years that has worked wonderfully, and even though we've lost some great people to their own startups I'm really proud of them and we keep goodwill that allows us to call them back in a contract basis if needed.

MarkMc2• 15 years ago

Sheryl Sandberg (COO at Facebook) gives an excellent talk about different attitudes that women have in careers: http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few...

patio114• 15 years ago

Having been a male engineer for a couple of years now, it is very disquieting to learn that there is any population of people anywhere who are getting ROFLstomped by male engineers in negotiating savvy. A potted plant could handle a salary negotiation better than many people (myself included at one point) -- at least the potted plant wouldn't divulge a salary history when asked.

c4urself• 15 years ago

Crap, i didn't know you could choose _not_ to divulge salary history! I'm horrible at salary negotiations, any links/advice for getting a better salary deal?

copper• 15 years ago

patio11 is indeed the right person to ask that particular question :)

If it helps any, here's my absolute favourite justification that HR gave when I asked why they needed my salary history: it was, apparently, needed to figure out where I would fit in the org chart (you'd think that that was what interviews are supposed to determine, but apparently not.)

patio114• 15 years ago

I should probably make that a blog post, as it would get overly long here. Here, one wee little hack for you: next time you get asked for salary history, just repeat verbatim "As a matter of professional courtesy, I'm going to respectfully decline to answer any questions about specific policies of my previous employers. Someday, someone is going to ask me about yours. When that happens, you can trust me to keep your confidences."

desigooner• 15 years ago

HR's job is to hire someone at the very least amount possible. They have a range to go by with and at quite a few companies, the difference between upper salary limit of the position that was budgeted and the salary that the hire was made either goes into a pool that is split between the HR recruiters at the end of the year or they get a certain %age of the amount as bonus.

Always do your research on similar positions at the same company or different companies through a site like glassdoor.com before even negotiating. You should not be going in blind. Also do research on how much people are making at a role that is similar to yours in terms of work / title / experience. Remember that if there are 2 same positions at a company or even in a department or a team, difference between their salaries could be big.

If you're asked to divulge salary history, don't tip your hand. I've made this mistake a couple of times and I have regretted it / having had to settle for a lower salary. If insist on you giving them a number, quote a number that's 10-15% higher than your annual salary (Have to be careful of the company not finding out your current salary through some other means).

Always tell them about the value you bring to their organization and your experience and that you deserve this much $ amount because of how much the future company will benefit from your skills. Talk about positive recommendations & performance reviews, performance bonuses, awards & accolades you've earned at your current/ past jobs or at school. Do not bring in a comparative number (this company is offering me this much) unless you really need to as it sort of casts a negative impression about you being all about money. Potray how highly you're interested in the position but you feel that the offer is on a conservative side as far as the market rate goes.

If they cannot offer a higher $$$ figure, and you really like the profile, you can negotiate better benefits like full health coverage vs. partial, higher # of vacation days (some companies allow you to cash out some vacation days at the end of the year), commuter benefits, etc.

Just be confident and do not hesitate to ask for more (as long as it's realistic and comparable to the going rate). Also, rehearse the negotiation with a friend or just simulate the conversation in your mind before you actually do the talking with the hiring manager.

Disclaimer; Some of this might not be right. Please feel free to correct any erroneous statements I've made. :)

jaryd• 15 years ago

http://salarytutor.com/

gyardley• 15 years ago

There have been tons of books written on negotiating, most of which contain more useful content than any advice thread or blog post. Given the huge difference negotiating makes, these books pay for themselves hundreds of times over.

I'm a big fan of anything written by Roger Dawson. Yes, it's written in sales-y self-help style, which you'll probably subconsciously resist, but the content is gold. Here's a link to his 'Secrets of Power Salary Negotiating':

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/secrets-of-power-salary-nego...

wccrawford2• 15 years ago

At my current job, I divulged my salary during the interview, and I'm positive I make less money because of it.

However, what I'm getting paid is still quite good and way higher than I was making... Partly because I asked for more during the negotiation. So I'm not upset about it.

For my next job, however, I won't be telling my previous salary, and I'll be using that 'I don't divulge company policies' line. I've never found it a good idea to tell people that stuff anyhow, friend or co-worker.

mixmastamyk• 15 years ago

An oldie but goodie: http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hasalary.htm There was a better one, which I can't find now.

secretasiandan• 15 years ago

I'm not sure what maleness has to do with this. The issue is there is a class of people who are, relatively speaking, much better at something than other classes.

I'm tempted to say that the author is not suggesting that there is a proactive push on his company's part to take advantage of this disparity. You could argue that they are by lowballing everyone, but some fraction of the people end up taking the job so it must not be a totally bad deal for those who take the job and fail to push the lowball offer higher

My question is, what do you feel is to be done about situations like this? In particular, at what level should society act to 'right' the situation?

Edit : by disparity, I mean the gender disparity : There is not a proactive effort to get women to accept lower salaries.

ohashi2• 15 years ago

That's an interesting question and I don't really have an answer, but just a few thoughts.

If we assume the problem is social (a behavior learned by participating in the society) then the next question is whether it's directly related to something specifically learned/taught or whether it's a result of a lot of different things that are taught.

My suspicion is that it's social and the result of a combination of many things. To try and reverse engineer society's beliefs to change that specific behavior is probably unlikely and perhaps we would be losing out on some positive behaviors in the process.

To specifically fix that issue, one would probably have to campaign and educate if you wanted a more 'free' solution. A more paternal solution would be mandating equal pay for equal work and enforcing it across genders.

I don't really know what the solution is, but I do know that I don't see an easy fix.

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

>what do you feel is to be done about situations like this? In particular, at what level should society act to 'right' the situation?

I think everyone, male and female, should be more aware of the importance of negotiation when it comes to salaries and raises, so a good thing colleges and trade schools could do for their students would be to have some emphasis on that.

Beyond that, however, what can you do? Anything where the government tries to step in and rectify the situation reeks too much of affirmative action. At the end of the day, you are responsible for your own salary negotiations. I'm all for helping people be better at it, but I draw the line at any sort of active interference.

bh422222• 15 years ago

OP says nothing about engineers. "Large multi-national" - OP could be hiring for anything.

ajdecon• 15 years ago

OP's throwaway account is named " techmanager12345", and in the comments says,

"Ouch! Sorry to hear that the world is tough there! I have never heard from anyone in media, I tend to only know about engineering/tech type jobs."

bethling3• 15 years ago

As a woman engineer, who's a really bad negotiator, I'm not surprised. I know "how" to be better, but I do wilt and get scared when I've gotten an offer - I think only once or twice I've ever made any sort of counter.

I don't know why I don't act in my own best interest though. It wouldn't surprise me if there was some societal element to it, but it really seems strange/weak/victim-ish to blame something external for what really does feel like a personal shortcoming - after all my own sister doesn't seem to have the same sort of "conditioning".

Are there tips out there to help getting over the fear of negotiating? Not really thinking about looking for something else at the moment, but there always seems to be a "next job" out there somewhere.

jdp23• 15 years ago

Check out "Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want", by Linda Babcock and Sarah Laschever.

Their earlier book "Women Don't Ask" is well worth reading too.

rictic• 15 years ago

<i>it really seems strange/weak/victim-ish to blame something external for what really does feel like a personal shortcoming</i>

I totally agree about taking personal responsibility.

However, when it's also a reproducible difference over a large set of people then it's worth looking for systematic causes and working to address them as such.

larrys2• 15 years ago

"Are there tips out there to help getting over the fear of negotiating?"

Start by practicing in situations that don't matter in order to gain confidence.

drusenko2• 15 years ago

Spend a couple weeks in a third world country and go shopping often. Start with a local to see how it's done and then practice by yourself. Street vendors are the absolute best negotiators (even over very small sums of money).

julsonl• 15 years ago

I don't know if it's a cultural thing, but a lot of women I know from back home (third-world country, like drusenko mentioned) are excellent negotiators. They have the have patience, charm and downright persistence to squeeze every single penny from whatever purchase they are making (even salary negotiations). It's scary.

phillmv2• 15 years ago

> I think only once or twice I've ever made any sort of counter.

Argh! This kills me inside.

>Are there tips out there to help getting over the fear of negotiating?

It's the same with asking someone out.

The worst that can happen is they say no, and if they make such a big stink out of it you were better off with someone else in the first place because they are douchebags.

WalterBright• 15 years ago

The way to get over fear of something is to do it, again and again. The fear will go away.

Put yourself in situations where you can negotiate - start with going to garage sales and negotiate the price of something.

It's like the cure for paralyzing fear of public speaking - start doing it. The fear will pass, guaranteed.

johngalt3• 15 years ago

To defeat the fear: I wouldn't recommend a book or a class. Instead find the best negotator you can and spar with them until you get over the anxiety. Find something arbitrary to negotiate over like who's buying lunch (I'll buy drinks if you buy appetizer etc...). Once you've got the basics go to a car dealership and haggle with the sales guys. See what works to get you the lowest price. They are skilled negotiators and will talk to you for free. Alternatively, go on a few job interviews where you have no intention of accepting the position. Since you have nothing to lose, push salary negotiations HARD. See what it will take to have someone actually rescind an offer. Finally ask for a raise at your current job.

Don't worry, even the big toughguy negotiators had to learn the process and were afraid of it at some point too. I've negotated 50% increases at three different employers (two during intial hire, one as a raise) and it didn't come to me naturally. There was no magic testosterone gift that made it easy. The guy across the table is just as worried as you are.

re: socialization factors I blame the school enviroment where grading is fair and you ostensibly get the grade you deserve. This normalizes the behavior of 'just do good work, and you get the pay/grade you deserve.' Kids that wheedle the teachers for an A- when they deserve a B are reprimanded. In the real world it's completely different. Managers will give you a D everytime if you let them.

sethg3• 15 years ago

Before my last salary review, I spent $50 on salary.com to generate a report customized for my job description, location, education, company size, etc. I brought the report to my manager and showed the vast distance between my pay, even after taking my raise and performance bonus into account, and my median expected pay. Then he asked me to email him the PDF of the report. Then I had another meeting with my manager and his manager.

My basic negotiating stance was “I appreciate what you guys have done so far to get me an X% raise in this cycle, and I hope you can use this information to convince the corporate higher-ups that I deserve more.” The managers were sympathetic but made no promises.

And four months later, I got a call from my manager telling me that I had been approved for a 10% off-cycle raise.

There are ways to be more hard-nosed and get even more, but as you can see, simply knowing what you are worth in the marketplace and articulating that value can go a long way.

jdunck2• 15 years ago

You are not seeking a job to make friends, you are seeking an fair exchange of value for time/product/skill.

Seek situations where you can practice negotiation where the stakes are lower than 25% of your earning for 1-2 years of your 50ish-earning-year life (pretty easy to do).

Keep in mind that countering is not personal - you are both seeking your interests, which will rarely be totally in common.

Keep in mind, also, what the best alternative to agreement is. If you shoot too high, they will either come back lower, or say no, or go silent. What is the next step? Seek another opportunity. That is a much better alternative than accepting well below your potential (presuming you have savings or otherwise security).

Avoid getting into negotiation situations where your best alternative is bad, even unacceptable. That is when you will be forced to take the worst deal. It is generally avoidable, so plan ahead.

But above all, practice. Doing it once every 1-5 years with high stakes is a great way to fold or go all in or otherwise poorly play your hand.

jacoblyles2• 15 years ago

Get the card game "The Resistance" and play it with a group of negotiation savvy friends.

joshfraser2• 15 years ago

I've coached several of my female friends in how to ask for a raise. Often they'll complain that they're not making enough but are scared to ask for more. I'll tell them "your boss might say no, but they're not going to fire you". Of course, if your boss does say "no", it's a good opportunity to ask what progress you need to make to get the raise you want. You then have a concrete roadmap for getting where you want to be. For the guys on here, encourage the women in your life to speak up. Often they just need someone to tell them it's okay and that they're worth it.

danssig6• 15 years ago

I don't like this advice personally. If you want more money you need to change jobs. Asking what progress you need to make to get the raise you want is normally just going to get you strung along doing extra work for nothing.

nknight6• 15 years ago

Uh, while I realize the most common method for getting a raise in Silicon Valley is to switch jobs, the idea that it's the only mechanism or the most desirable one is very bizarre.

It also seems to imply that wanting more money is somehow mutually exclusive with wanting to continue working in your current job and/or for your current company.

You're also demonstrating another classic weakness in engineers, failure to recognize social capital. In asking for that information, you put management in the position of articulating their expectations, and when you meet or exceed them, it pressures them further to agree to a raise.

Management isn't just running some simple equation to determine your salary, they're exercising their own judgement as to what you're worth to them and what will keep you working there productively. That judgement can be altered through psychological means.

CWuestefeld2• 15 years ago

I've been in exactly this situation, and there is a positive side. When you do what was asked, either you get what you want, or it becomes clear that you're being screwed. Once you know you're being screwed, it's much easier to move along.

zinkem• 15 years ago

>Asking what progress you need to make...

Where I used to work, this was a polite way for competent people to say "promote me or I'm leaving."

You get them to tell you what you need to do, some concrete thing, and then you do it. Once it's done, if you haven't been promoted then it's a good time to find another job, I think.

afterburner5• 15 years ago

"You then have a concrete roadmap for getting where you want to be."

... whose criteria for success can be easily gamed by the evaluator in order to string you along. Well, that's the pessimistic view at least.

billswift2• 15 years ago

And how it that worse than not having any criteria to go by, so they don't even need bother "gaming it".

chrismealy• 15 years ago

I've done the same. I've had a couple of friends get a $10-20k bump as a result. Sometimes all you gotta do is ask.

finnw3• 15 years ago

"They're not going to fire you" isn't always true. I have known one person who has been fired for asking for a raise. The exec involved only needed to do this once, because it was talked about among employees for years and probably dissuaded a hundred others from asking for raises.

joshfraser2• 15 years ago

Most of my friends I've given this advice to are not engineers and aren't in a highly competitive position where they can easily "just change jobs". For engineers, changing jobs often works to increase your salary, but there's something to being said for staying at one company long enough to build something great. There's more to life than just money.

berntb2• 15 years ago

Is it really smart for a company to press down salaries so far that they underpay?

My experience is that if someone is underpaid, they won't be around for long. It is expensive with high churn rates.

tobtoh3• 15 years ago

As a manager, I thought this initially too. But here's the kicker - the employees sit there and take it. Sure they may complain about being underpaid, but few will move to another job.

I remember in my previous job, I had a senior sysadmin who had been with the company for 10 years and earning $70k ... we were hiring new sysadmins off the street for $100k. He complained about it and I tried everything I could to get him a payrise because he was a good performer - but company policy was that pay rises could not be more than 10% without exec approval. So the best I could offer him was $77k - in my justification for more, I compared market rates, how much it would cost the company if we had to replace him ($100k in salary alone let alone recruitment costs) etc - but the reply back from HR was 'we bet he won't leave'. And sure enough he didn't. It really saddened me - the fact is he could get a job elsewhere that paid way more, but he was too 'comfortable' in his position.

In my experience, people tell themselves all sort of stories why they don't leave - I'm still learning lots, I like the people I work with, I need a little more experience etc - all of this may be true to a degree, but going by the number that complain about being overworked/underpaid, a lot of them simply are excuses.

Companies know and understand this - and hence people often may get underpaid.

Woost2• 15 years ago

This is something I'm going to have to deal with soon. I'm not looking forward to it, but I know that I'm getting significantly underpaid compared to new hires. I'm also better than those new hires.

I'll probably leave and find a new job if it comes down to it, but I'd really rather not. That said, if I do leave, there's nothing they can do to bring me back: Saying "oh, you're leaving? here's an extra 50k to make you stay" tells me that they think I was worth the new number in the first place. A place trying to get away with underpaying until their hand is forced is not a place I want to work.

3pt14159• 15 years ago

This is the best comment on this whole topic. Everyone needs to know this.

Jem• 15 years ago

You just described me. I am underpaid by about £5k but I don't move because I like the people I work with. Are the people I work with worth £5,000 a year?

I'm pregnant at the moment though. It don't think it would be wise to willingly enter the job market in my current 'condition'.

berntb2• 15 years ago

Thanks for the answer!

>>the reply back from HR was 'we bet he won't leave'.

So if I understand it correctly:

HR makes educated guesses about who will quit if they are underpaid and seems to have a good batting average?

This is studied at University, I assume. Any good course literature I could buy as Christmas presents for friends?

danssig6• 15 years ago

It comes from the short term view pretty much all companies have these days. They underpay, have nice looking budgets, manager gets promoted. The churn costs the company but the person who caused the problem has already moved on.

mootothemax• 15 years ago

When I was offered my current job, I replied that I thought the pay was on the low side, and asked if they could improve their offer. Two hours later, I received an email with a 15% improvement!

I'm really not very good at negotiation, but getting a 15% raise just by asking? I'll be doing that again :)

dan002• 15 years ago

I'm just sick of stuff like this.

An employer is expecting that an employee is loyal, but nevertheless he's trying to noble the potential employee from the beginning.

But you would be dumb doing it the other way, right? Sorry, but this kind of smartness harms the whole society.

So all the humble and self-doubting people are getting less than the loud and playing ones. Sure, the loud ones are the better, more loyal employees, right?

But you have to learn to be louder! No I don't have to and I don't want, because I like it the way I am.

thomasgerbe2• 15 years ago

It has nothing to do with loudness. It has everything to do with having a spine and it being a business. It really is not that hard to negotiate and I am an introvert. Yet a lot of women I know do not even try.

Duff4• 15 years ago

Sounds like one of the upsides of working at a place where I work now, where there is a salary scale.

Places that play these kinds of games with salary really annoy me. For my first post-college job, as a DBA, I was offered $29,000/year (this was in 2000). I knew they had just lost key people and had a bad reputation for compensation, so I laughed and walked out of the room.

In the parking lot, we agreed to $65k + stock. Most of my colleagues didn't bother, and got stuck with lousy pay for a couple of years.

polshaw• 15 years ago

Thats quite a nice improvement you got there. Care to elaborate on what happened (who said what, etc) between walking out and getting the offer?

Duff4• 15 years ago

The interviewer followed me, and asked in the stairwell what it would take to get me hired. I said that I had multiple opportunities in the Boston area north of $80k, but wanted to stay local. He countered with "I'll get you $35k, and review your compensation in 3 months". I kept walking.

In the parking lot, we reached an agreement. IMO, it was the first time someone had walked out on him, and he got flustered. I worked in a busy sales job when I was in college, so I was used to dealing with his style. Once they start following you, you've won the negotiation.

Basically, his strategy for any purchase was to dramatically low-ball and act very important. It worked enough that he was very proud of it -- he would extract huge concessions from unwary vendors.

afterburner5• 15 years ago

Nicely done, although it sounds like you agreed to work for gigantic jackasses. :)

Duff4• 15 years ago

It was the best and worst job that I ever had. The guy wasn't too bad of a boss -- he pretty much left us alone, and was pretty effective managing the company execs. I had an opportunity to fix a bunch of stuff that was screwed up (due to turnover, mostly). There was no dev environment, so failure was not an option. It was an amazing learning experience.

On the other hand, I was paged 8-9 times a week to fix stuff. This came down once we fixed some problems, but it wasn't very good for my social life. I took off after a year.

ahoyhere3• 15 years ago

I'm so tired of the double standard.

If men are raised and "socialized" that they are the rightful leader of the family, and it's not only okay but right to hit their wives, we hold them personally responsible for their actions.

If women are raised and "socialized" not to negotiate, we blame society. Because… women aren't smart enough, or whole humans enough, to do anything but what they're told?

Ladies, take control of your own destiny, or be a victim of your own making. It's your choice.

Skalman• 15 years ago

There are a couple of differences that make your reasoning invalid:

- Women having a lower salary isn't as visible or as visibly wrong as men hitting their wives

- Hitting one's wife is an action, while not negotiating salary (well) is a non-action

Both things are wrong, and we need to try to inhibit both on the society level (by trying to raise responsible men, and women to negotiate salaries).

Though, I'm very certain that I, as a man, also need lessons in negotiating salaries - I'm quite gullible/trusting.

ahoyhere3• 15 years ago

The comparison doesn't matter.

The fact remains: if men do what "society" has "conditioned" them to do, we hold them personally responsible. If women do, we rush to take care of them and save them from themselves.

The moral of the story: women are delicate flowers who cannot decide for themselves, and must be protected.

_delirium3• 15 years ago

We do also blame society in the first case, don't we? We don't exonerate the man in question, but there is quite a bit of general hand-wringing about whether our society raises boys to be violent, even to the extent that some people propose questionable solutions like banning violent video games.

vacri2• 15 years ago

You're complaining of a double-standard where men aren't allowed to hurt other people but women are allowed to hurt themselves? You have a strange definition of double-standard.

ahoyhere3• 15 years ago

Oh, because men hitting their wives don't also hurt themselves? Please. The toll of committing violence is high.

"Poor women, we can't let them do what society tells them to do!"

mikeash• 15 years ago

When an individual man beats his wife because he was raised to think it's right, we hold him personally responsible.

When a large group of men all beat their wives because they were raised to think it's right, we start looking at just why so many men are raised this way, and see this as a larger problem. This is only right.

Same deal with women and negotiating: an individual woman who's a bad negotiator is her problem, a large group of women who are all bad negotiators is a problem with society.

Note that the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. In the cases of large groups with a problem, we can and generally do place blame both on society and on the individuals.

drivebyacct22• 15 years ago

Wow.

"Ladies, take control of your own destiny, or be a victim of your own making."

One of the more ignorant things I've read here ever. You clearly don't understand the sociology of the issue at hand here. Do you think that women just wake up and go "Woe is me, I'm going to lay down today and take whatever I get"?

pbiggar• 15 years ago

Funnily enough, the "take control" idea is a very similar idea to one Sheryl Sandberg talks about:

"when you blame someone else for keeping you back, you are accepting your powerlessness"

Of course, she's not acting like an ass when she says it.

mahyarm• 15 years ago

It's very not okay to hit your wife in most parts of the developed world, it's taken very very seriously by police. The threshold of response is significantly lower than other hints of crime vs. violence against women.

stfu• 15 years ago

I think the same statement could be made about introverts. Not quite sure if this is a gender issue or just a personality/mentality issue.

vaksel2• 15 years ago

I think a large part of the problem is that there is no way to figure out how much each person is actually worth.

Sure we have sites like indeed and salary.com that can give you estimates for the position and you also have glass door that gives you some salaries in your area...but they aren't solid numbers.software developer" makes, is pointless since there are so many alternatives, a VB developer is going to be making less than a Python developer.

Same goes for glassdoor...sure the numbers help, but you don't know if the number you are looking at is current...or if it was added 10 years ago when the site launched.

So here is a startup idea...create a site like salary.com but one designed solely for programmers/developers. Then create an interface, where someone can build out a job description/location to get a good feel of what a fair salary would be for that specific position.

pbhjpbhj2• 15 years ago

>no way to figure out how much each person is actually worth //

You're not buying a person though. In employer terms you're usually buying the completion of a particularly series of actions. These actions can be analysed and given a money value.

vaksel2• 15 years ago

yes, but employers don't have an incentive to give a fair value for this.

rmc5• 15 years ago

I think a large part of the problem is that there is no way to figure out how much each person is actually worth.

The Labour Theory of Value is not correct. 'Worth' is not based on how much you put in, but also on what the company is doing, and what their other options are. etc.

Things are worth what people will pay for them.

michaeldhopkins3• 15 years ago

This article is behind the times. By the time most professional women have learned to ask for raises like some men do in 2011, those men will have moved on to a more advanced strategy to make more. It's similar to how an expensive university degree is becoming less useful just as women are earning more than 50% of them.

My point is that these men are competitive and they have momentum and the current salary-negotiation-education strategy won't result in parity. I don't see any reason it has to be that way, of course.

michaeldhopkins3• 15 years ago

I expected this to be downvoted because it's so awkward. It's hard to think about what will be the winning strategy five, ten, twenty years from now, a lot harder than complaining, but it's important for a group to do if they want to catch up with another group.

dan002• 15 years ago

"... those men will have moved on to a more advanced strategy to make more."

Yes, I think it will go this way. A perfect fit is also the article about the neuroenhancers on hacker news. If you don't want to get behind, you will have to take them.

But what kind of life is this, or will it be in a even more competitive future?

If your self-worth is mostly based on making money or your career, than you will have to go this way.

But is this really the best possible life, the best spend life time?

michaeldhopkins3• 15 years ago

Yes, it's acedic to measure the worth of oneself and peers by money alone. But given that men and women are both in it for money, competing for equality/inequality measured by sex, it's necessary for the runners up to aim for the leaders as moving targets.

cq2• 15 years ago

This is bullshit: it is passing the buck. This is strictly blaming women for their problems, without acknowledging the structural sexism that exists in virtually all tech fields.

cq2• 15 years ago

Here's an example of what I'm talking about regarding this topic: http://acceptableparity.blogspot.com/2011/10/four-ways-men-s...

dpritchett7• 15 years ago

That article is painting a fantasy where there's no information asymmetry or self-interested players in an organization. In reality no one's got the time or interest to follow along behind every employee (male or female) going over their work product with a microscope in hopes of identifying and elevating talent.

The closest you see in the real world is fast-track programs where a few anointed employees are given challenging high-profile assignments and challenged to prove themselves before the next promotion. This approach doesn't scale, but it's better than nothing and so it's hard to resent companies for attempting it. As an employee outside of the fast track, it's up to you to change your situation. Often it's easier to get on someone else's fast track (i.e. at a new employer) rather than trying to catch a train you already missed at your current employer.

Given the limited attention and political capital your managers can use to help your career growth, one simply must take it upon themselves to craft and drive their own vision for career growth.

jff• 15 years ago

Plugging your ears and shouting "NAH NAH NAH IT'S ALL JUST STRUCTURAL SEXISM" won't change what has been clearly observed and commented on by numerous employers, employees, and researchers. You're just pulling the old "why are we sending probes to Mars when people are starving on Earth?" bullshit, as though it's not possible to work on two problems at once, or as if there couldn't be two causes for women being paid less.

pedoh• 15 years ago

I wonder what would happen if you tried to make the negotion process as transparent as possible; something along the lines of:

"Look, I've read all of the negotiation strategy books, and clearly you're an expert in your field, so let's agree on the value that I bring to your company and find the right compensation package."

danielrm262• 15 years ago

Ok, I'll be that guy.

1. Testosterone promotes risk taking (http://goo.gl/s2gf4) 2. Men have more testosterone. 3. Salary negotiation is a risk game.

Now for the important part: this doesn't mean it's right. That would be the naturalistic fallacy, i.e. that because something is natural it must be o.k.

So, yes, absolutely combat this. Learn techniques to overcome the disparity. But do not, in a forum full of smart people, wonder WHY this is happening. The answer is obvious to anyone who doesn't mind unpleasant truth.

sethg3• 15 years ago

As others have pointed out in this thread, there is practically no risk to asking for more money.

mcantor2• 15 years ago

Yeah, but there's a perceived risk.

danielrm262• 15 years ago

According to who? When in the position of counter-offering, it feels to most people like it's extremely risky. Risk in this context isn't about actual danger, it's about how much danger is perceived.

bethling3• 15 years ago

But that may not always be obvious to people - in my case, for some reason I worry about my future manager "seeing" me in a negative way. Or perhaps they will decide that I'm not a team player and revoke the offer.

What makes it completely loony, is that I have been the manager, and I never looked at it that way. But yet, I assume everyone else has a very different view of things than I do.

deltaqueue• 15 years ago

I'm a bit bewildered there's an entire discussion about this based on a reddit post. While the OP's circumstances may be true at his or her company, is it still universally accurate? I don't actually know the answer, but based on several articles released in the last year I would wager this discrepancy is no longer uniform for all industries:

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/02/she_m...

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-09-29/strategy/3007...

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/01/young-single-women-ea...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2010-09-01-single-wo...

There are still some statistics floating around that compare salaries without factoring in control variables (mostly based on generic census data), but these tend to be less accurate.

mikeryan• 15 years ago

I think you have to look at this on a per industry basis. There are many industries which don't even have price negotiating. The government, unionized jobs, a lot of manual and blue collar positions just pay a certain rate for a particular job.

highfreq• 15 years ago

Another factor could be that earlier interviews weed out the forceful negotiators among the women, because that personality trait makes women less likable. On the other hand, a lack of aggressiveness makes men appear weak.

marquis4• 15 years ago

There are many ways to negotiate without appearing aggressive. I'm sure 50% of the population can alert you to some of these methods.

baltcode• 15 years ago

From a free market perspective, do the women then have a competitive advantage in being hired? (Since the company can get the job done for less). Also, why does the company simply hire at the lower end of the wage level since they can apparently get a lot of women and some men to work for that kind of pay?

wanorris• 15 years ago

It's hard to fill technology jobs in the current competitive marketplace. So it's easier to take a mix of market rates and below-market rates and keep an average that is still below market rate than it is to exclude people who want market rate and still fill all the positions with qualified people.

I can't really speak to other fields, though.

lionhearted• 15 years ago

I've hired a lot of people recently, so maybe my opinion here will be interesting.

With one notable exception, all the women flagged "negotiate me down" signals harder and more often than the men. I asked, "So your salary ask is $X monthly?" And instantly returned, "Yeah, but we can talk about it..."

That just screams "negotiate me down."

I don't do it, because I want to pay my people top of market, have them think of themselves as the best, and build a culture of inspired performance. I actually negotiated that woman's pay up 25% of her ask (which was too low), but even with cultural considerations in mind in a high-margin high-dollar industry, it was still painful for me not to negotiate down.

To be very blunt and crass about it, hopefully for helpful illustrative purposes, it's like the guy who has a, "Please don't kick me" sign on his ass. You can restrain yourself not to, but it's painful.

mturmon2• 15 years ago

Agree. Here's another way of looking at it.

If you're going to be their manager, it's in your interest to have their salary outcome have parity with other people doing similar work. Later on, if the employee gets unhappy with their comparative situation, it's much harder to fix a disparity with annual raises than it would have been to do the fair thing to begin with.

If their pay is too low, you have made yourself a persistent problem that will be hard to fix.

djb_hackernews• 15 years ago

Thanks for this. I recently left a pretty damn good job except that I was extremely underpaid. They tried to point out they were trying to fix it with a generous annual raise, which was nice, but no where near enough.

I've been struggling trying to explain the situation to myself but you nailed it.

petervandijck• 15 years ago

I've also had people negotiate themselves down.

I'm thinking 110K. He says 85K "but with some extra vacation that can be 80K".

Personally, I still offer the salary I think is right. But the lesson is: don't negotiate yourself down. Don't say "but I can lower that" immediately. Wait for them to say "that's beyond what we pay" or something.

ericdykstra2• 15 years ago

If women will do the same work for less money, why don't we see companies that rely on high volume and low margins hire a lot of females (so that 90%+ of their employees are female)?

A 30% cost savings on staff seems like it could be a huge competitive advantage.

If such a company exists, I would love to have someone point it out.

codergirl• 15 years ago

Because there aren't enough females in the field?

ericdykstra2• 15 years ago

I'd think that if the average female was making 70% of fair salary, a company could offer them 80% and get enough to fill a vast majority of their positions while still saving an incredible 20% on those employees, giving them a great competitive advantage.

johngalt3• 15 years ago

I discovered this a few years ago, about a large number of women and some men.

My wife got a job and the employer glossed over salary negotiations with an "assumed sale" of minimum wage! I asked why she accepted that, and she said "There wasn't an opportunity to negotiate salary. They just gave me the 'standard rate'." She's not a meek woman. No one had ever told her that you could ask for more. With my help she got a 2x raise just by assertively asking for it.

She's bragged to her parents about it and I learn that her mother had never negotiated a salary or raise in her entire life. So I ask all my female friends: same thing, my mom: same thing, then my ardently feminist sister: same thing! It was a twilight zone moment for me.

The reasons why varied, but they could be generalized as an expectation of fairness combined with a small amount of irrational fear.

thenduks• 15 years ago

I'm not sure I really see the problem, or even how gender is at all relevant.

I generally don't bother negotiating salary either. Money isn't (even close to) the most important thing to me and I will take the first offer that puts me in a comfortable financial position -- assuming I actually want the job and I am excited to work for the company, of course.

Clearly there are males who don't negotiate hard and females who do. It's not about their gender, it's about their negotiating tactics!

Seems to me the correct title for this would be "I regularly hire people who don't bother negotiating higher salaries at 65% to 75% of people who do." (And that's ok!)

tycho77• 15 years ago

Oh thank goodness! It's all the women's fault. I was afraid people would have to address the residual sexism left in the corporate world.

Not to detract from the story, which by all anecdotal evidence in this thread appears to be valid, but this is a dangerous train to jump on - I would say akin to blaming racial disparity on 'cultural issues'.

mhartl• 15 years ago

If this practice is generally true, it suggests an obvious gender arbitrage strategy:

    1. Hire women instead of men.
    2. ???
    3. Profit.

Unlike the usual case, here ??? actually has a value:

    ??? = Save massively on labor costs vs. your competitors.

As other companies discover the same strategy, demand increases for a fixed supply, thereby bidding up the equilibrium wage and hence dramatically improving the negotiating position of women. (Nothing improves the results of your negotiation faster than a better negotiating position.) In a competitive market for labor, the equilibrium is for everyone to be paid based on their productivity and their risk profile. Whether the latter factor favors women or men isn't a priori obvious; for example, men are more likely to die in a fight or a car accident, whereas women are more likely to take time off to have kids (and so on).

Unfortunately, market interventions typically have the opposite of their intended effect. Rules that punish companies for paying women less than men increase the risk of hiring women; rules that punish companies for not hiring enough women increase the risk of interviewing women; rules that punish not interviewing enough women increase the risk of recruiting women. All of these factors, ceteris paribus, lower the wages of women. (Those who depend on the gender rage industry, on the other hand, make off like bandits.)

prophetjohn• 15 years ago

So for those who think this is a societal problem or a symptom of structural sexism in the tech field or etc., a genuine question. The OP seems to state that he negotiates with all people in the same manner, but the women are less likely to fight for themselves. What kind of solution do you suggest to combat this symptom of structural sexism? Should HR managers negotiate easier with women? Offer a higher starting point for negotiation?

It's a genuine question and interested in what people would see as a fair way to combat these kind of systematic biases toward women. I think there should be a way to combat these effects of society, but I certainly can't come up with a solution to this problem that seems fair to all parties involved.

moonchrome• 15 years ago

A very obvious question arises - why aren't they preferring to hire women - it sounds like they are ideal employees - lower pay expectation for the same work and rarely ask for a raise.

___o___• 15 years ago

Why does HN keep pushing these sexist posts to the main news area?

hendrix• 15 years ago

What is the big deal? This is a reddit post in the feminist subredditum.... IMO this is just fear-mongering and exploiting the sensitivities of the (mostly male & slightly nerdy) tech workforce. The point is that women are NOT being actively discriminated against. If women do not want to ask for more salary, that is their own fault. You could say the same for recent immigrants/visa-applicants who do not want to piss off their employer and will work for pennies so that they can remain in the country.

rbanffy• 15 years ago

A long time ago, I hired a PhD from a highly prestigious Brazilian university. She passed the interview with flying colors, way beyond my expectations, and I was a bit ashamed to tell her the maximum budget I had - it was much less than someone with her experience was worth. She seemed more than happy to take my offer (which was as far as I could possibly go). Later I learned I was paying her more than 4 times what she earned as a researcher at the university. I don't know whether her male colleagues earned much more, but I was shocked by how little she made as a scientist.

To this day I am bittersweet about this. I am embarrassed I never paid her what she deserved - and I should have, for she is an outstanding professional - but I am also happy I helped her transition from an dead-end job at an academic institution to a fast-paced tech company and that this transition had a very positive impact on her career (last time I heard, she had a team of kick-ass programmers solving some devilishly hard computer-vision-related problem). I left a couple months after hiring her, but it's still a great story.

Well... There are better stories around here, sure, but this is still a good one.

codezero• 15 years ago

Women aren't the only ones who suffer from this, and I don't even know if it is something that can be attributed to all or even most women.

I remember when I worked at Red Hat, several years after being hired, I found out that there were people making half as much as me... it blew my mind. I asked for a lot when I got hired, more than I was worth, but I stuck to my guns and they gave me slightly less than I was asking.

The people who made half as much only asked for half as much. What manager wouldn't hire them if they were willing to work for half the salary? These were great people, too, by the way, they worked hard and were very skilled, but they were interoverts and were happy to take the "prestige" of working for a company like Red Hat as a sort of currency. Fuck that. Word hard, but don't aim low, ever.

I regularly hire women for 65% to 75% of what males make

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