
I regularly hire women for 65% to 75% of what males make - amirmc
http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/hvv2m/i_work_for_a_large_multinational_tech_company_i/
======
patio11
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.

~~~
bethling
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.

~~~
phillmv
> 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_.

~~~
drewrv
Makes me wonder if maybe men get better at asking for raises,and dealing with
potential rejection, because they often are the ones who ask women out.

~~~
phillmv
No. I think it's a good analogy, but the correlation stops there – I think
I've asked a sum total of two girls out in my life. There are ample
opportunities for women to get rejected as well.

My theory goes that men as a rule of thumb have more opportunities to get into
LOUD OBNOXIOUS arguments with someone who is SO WRONG that you can't let it
stand. Somewhere in that process you learn to push a few boundaries. We're
just conditioned to be/are naturally more aggressive.

------
Peroni
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.

~~~
ticks
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.

~~~
danssig
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.

~~~
Peroni
_Your view is also wrong._

He voiced his opinion and it was a valid one.

 _There are lots of jobs and lots of workers to fill them._

In certain parts of the UK and moreso throughout Europe jobs are in fact quite
scarce regardless of your development ability.

------
lionhearted
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.

~~~
mturmon
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
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.

~~~
mturmon
If you still like the original place, you can always go back after a few
years, using your new rate as a negotiating tool.

The other option (while still at the original place) is to get an offer from
another company. Then, assuming you have your manager's support, take that to
HR and ask for an out-of-cycle increase.

Often by the time it gets this far, people are discontented enough to be at
the point of walking away anyway.

------
bravura
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.

~~~
caw
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.

~~~
patio11
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.

~~~
tptacek
... which is why nobody can quote a real price on a website when selling to
big companies; they all have purchasing groups that are required to secure
discounts.

~~~
nl
Which is why you need to keep your price _under_ the purchase authority for
department heads if you do want to sell to big companies via a website.

AKA "The Atlassian Model":

 _Scott realized that to get adoption, the software had to also be
inexpensive. This meant there was often no need to get approval from the
C-suite.

Another key was the simplicity of the sales process. “We have a standard
contract and there are no discounts,” said Scott. “We do not want to waste
time and money on legal."_

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2011/06/14/atlassian-1...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2011/06/14/atlassian-100m-business-
with-no-sales-people/)

------
Duff
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
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?

~~~
Duff
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.

~~~
migpwr
I am not trying to offend you, and am only commenting because I believe
stories like these hurt less experienced people who are trying to learn how to
handle salary negotiations.

I personally do not believe this actually happened. Nobody will ever follow
you out of an interview to beg you to take a job, or casually double a salary
offer in a stairwell.

There is no "hard ball" negotiating like this where you walk out and somehow
bring a company to its knees. It's just never that dramatic.

IF you receive a concrete job offer then you accept, decline, or counter. You
should know the pay range by the time a company puts an actual offer on paper.

~~~
Duff
Sorry that you don't believe it.

The guy went from an offer that was low-ball to an offer that was basically
market-rate at that time.

With a big company, there's no way this would have happened. But this was
company that was somewhere between "startup" and "mid size" business. They
hadn't really adopted normal corporate processes.

There was no paper offer. I reported to work on a saturday (to get oriented by
my predecessor, who had left the company already). My paperwork was on my
chair, and I turned it into the VP's secretary on Monday.

------
mhartl
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.)

------
joshfraser
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.

~~~
danssig
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.

~~~
nknight
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.

~~~
wyclif
The point is that, all other factors being equal, switching jobs as an
engineer is the _easiest_ way to get a raise. People tend to take the path of
least resistance.

~~~
nknight
Really? Easiest for whom? I find switching jobs painful and stressful, and my
largest percentage salary increases have come _without_ switching employers.

And how is that the point anyway? danssig didn't say anything like that, he
just said "If you want more money you need to change jobs.", and assumed the
strategy in question would be blindly applied by an ignorant worker and result
in exploitation. Do you have some insight that allows you to discern he meant
something vastly different from what he said?

~~~
danssig
>I find switching jobs painful and stressful

This is just because you don't do it enough. I used to hate it enough that I
once sued a company to try and make them not lay me off. Now I change every
16mo-5 years and I _love_ the interview part. I would never stay _anywhere_
(besides my own company) for more than 5 years as IMO it makes you appear not
very sought after.

>and my largest percentage salary increases have come without switching
employers.

I find this _very_ hard to believe. All companies have caps on how much of an
increase you can get per year, per performance raise, etc. When you move it's
mostly dependent on your negotiation skills (which get better the more they're
used). The biggest raise I ever got in a company was during the dot com bubble
(they were afraid we would leave). I got 28% (massive, massive exception to
get this. Performance raises were the highest you could normally get and were
capped at 15%). I moved to another company a few years later and more than
doubled my salary. My latest move brought me another 40%.

>and assumed the strategy in question would be blindly applied by an ignorant
worker and result in exploitation.

Everywhere I've ever worked was this way.

------
danielrm26
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.

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

~~~
bethling
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.

~~~
sethg
If the testosterone hypothesis is true, then men who try t negotiate their
salary _also_ falsely perceive that they are risking their jobs, but they do
it anyway. I find that hard to believe.

------
iwwr
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
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.

~~~
iwwr
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.

------
officemonkey
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
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.

------
mootothemax
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 :)

------
johngalt
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.

------
dan00
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.

~~~
thomasgerbe
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.

------
rbanffy
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.

------
MarkMc
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...](http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html)

------
stfu
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.

------
vaksel
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.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _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.

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

~~~
esrauch
Neither employers nor employees have incentive to give a fair value in one of
the directions. I'm sure there are plenty of overpayed employees that aren't
exactly falling over themselves to get a pay cut, nor companies falling over
themselves to give employees a pay raise.

------
pedoh
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."

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

~~~
thetrumanshow
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.

~~~
marquis
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.

~~~
lurker17
We need more like you.

~~~
marquis
Oh, that made me blush, thanks.

------
highfreq
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.

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

------
deltaqueue
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://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/02/she_makes_more_money_than_he_does_so.html)

[http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-09-29/strategy/3007...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-09-29/strategy/30074989_1_computer-
science-men-tech-companies)

[http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/01/young-single-women-
ea...](http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/01/young-single-women-earn-more-
than-men/)

[http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2010-09-01-single-
wo...](http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2010-09-01-single-women_N.htm)

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
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.

------
creativityhurts
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
Controversial titles drive clickthroughs.

------
ramblerman
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.

~~~
marquis
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.

------
baltcode
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
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.

------
ericdykstra
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
Because there aren't enough females in the field?

~~~
ericdykstra
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.

------
codezero
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.

------
michaeldhopkins
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.

~~~
dan00
"... 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?

~~~
michaeldhopkins
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.

------
prophetjohn
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
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.

------
thenduks
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!)

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

------
ahoyhere
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
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.

~~~
ahoyhere
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.

~~~
king_jester
Negotiating salary and hitting someone are not the same thing. One is a
violent act of assault and the other is a conversation to decide your rate of
pay. Furthermore, some people do make excuses for men who commit violent acts
on the basis of their social situation and upbringing, even though it is
flawed to do so.

Also, I have personally seen and continue to see news stories, editorials, and
blog posts about social conditions for men, esp. in regards to men taking part
in "traditional" female roles, such as child care, certain types of labor, and
even certain kinds of hobbies.

It is deliberately misleading to say that social conditioning and social
issues treat one gender one way and another gender the other way, not too
mention that such a position completely erases and doesn't acknowledge the
existence of those who are not cisgendered and have a different experience in
regard to their social experience.

------
berntb
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.

~~~
tobtoh
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.

~~~
Jem
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'.

~~~
tobtoh
There are lots of very good reasons to stay in a job even if you are being
underpaid - it very much depends on your individual circumstances - in your
case, I would probably stay too.

Just make sure you periodically evaluate your reasons and circumstances to
make sure you over time that you aren't falling into a trap of 'comfort' for
not leaving.

------
cq
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.

~~~
cq
Here's an example of what I'm talking about regarding this topic:
[http://acceptableparity.blogspot.com/2011/10/four-ways-
men-s...](http://acceptableparity.blogspot.com/2011/10/four-ways-men-stunt-
womens-careers.html)

~~~
dpritchett
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.

------
hendrix
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.

------
tycho77
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'.

