This is a throwaway… just in case.
TL;DR— colleagues make more money than me. Unsure of how to approach salary renegotiations with the President without revealing I know what the others make.
I started at a small 30-person company back in mid 2016. I landed the job at $60K. I caught on to the program quickly, executing tasks and picking up more responsibilities. I haven’t had prior experience in this industry but I fit well with everyone and have learned a lot and quickly.
In December, the company hired John to come in. He is about 7 years younger and only had a sales job prior to working with this program. This was his only job after studying accounting in college for 4 years. He was hired to do the same exact things that I do, as my alternate — analysts. Then we hired Amanda in January of 2018 as a senior analyst. She does pretty much what we do, and is taking on her own responsibility of tasks separate from us. She has a masters and a bachelors (For the record, I have a BA). She is coming from a consulting firm, after having worked their for 7 years. She’s about 4 years younger than I am. Neither John nor Amanda have experience in the industry.
I’ve spent a lot of time training them and giving them the ins and outs of the job. We all get along great. John is excelling at every task I give him. Amanda is still triple checking every correspondence by me, lacks confidence, and does not take initiative. She does well what she’s given, but won’t really go out of her way.
One outing with John delivering documents to another building, we talked about how much we hated working in sales. He mentioned how the company really took care of him bc he was only making $55K at his last job. So curiously, I asked how well they were taking care of him. He’s making $80K. My heart sank and I felt worthless. I guess they initially wanted to hire him for accounting and told him that the starting salary was $80K. Well, they changed their mind and put him in my program. They asked him what his desired salary was, he said, “well you told me I would be making $80K.” And that’s how he got there.
I found out a little later that Amanda was trying to get pregnant for many years now and to no avail. She mentioned how her pay increase from the company should help with IVF treatments. I said, how much are IVF treatments and she said upwards of thousands of dollars. I said, your increase will help? She said, yes she went from $71K to $85K with being hired by our company. This didn’t hurt as bad bc Amanda has her Masters, so she’s not exactly an equal. But now I know I’m going to end up doing her job and my job if the treatment works. The job that she isn’t picking up very easily.
We don’t have yearly reviews. But I make a point to meet with the company president to check in and let him know how everything is going with our program. That meeting is happening tomorrow. And I need advice.
I obviously shouldn’t know how much John and Amanda make. But I do.
Do I bring that up? How do I even approach this? What if I don’t bring up their salaries but ask for a well deserved raise and he comes back with $70K? Could John – who is the same position as I am, be paid more because he’s male and I’m female?
Help.
Thank you for the advice and your insight!! I’ve got the research done, not bringing up the other salaries, and look forward to my meeting today!
Joe:
You don’t deserve to be paid more just because someone else is paid more.
But the flip side is you don’t deserve to be paid less just because you’ve stuck with the company and they’re the new blood.
Negotiate based on your own strengths and the value you provide. And if you think the value you’re providing isn’t being reflected in your salary, then it’s on you to consider going elsewhere.
Definitely don’t argue based on their salaries. You can use it as a gauge of how high you want to go, but a salary negotiation should be between you and your boss.
h/t HRPartyPooper