He hey via fam It's mandra here. I am so excited to tell you about this special guest episode of CNN's Diversifying and Diversifying if you have not heard, it as a brand new personal finance podcast from CNN Audio hosted by My Girl, Delian Barros, also known as the money Coach. You may have seen her and if you haven't, where have you been hiding under a rock? On TikTok and Instagram, Delian shares amazing investing and fire tips so that you can get off that hamster wheel and fulfill
your financial dreams. And I was honored to be a guest on CNN's Diversifying with Delian earlier this year, so today we are going to share that episode with you. It is called Negotiating Your Way to Success. In this episode, we talk about all of the ways that you can actually negotiate for more at work, whether you're looking for a new job or you're asking for a raise on
the job. Can't wait for you guys to hear the show, and if you haven't yet, please follow and subscribe to diversity find This show explores how the traditional rules of money management don't necessarily apply to new generations. And again with Delian as the host. You cannot go wrong. Go check out Diversifying. You can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.
A record number of Americans quit their jobs in the last year, including me, in what's now being called the Great Resignation. The pandemic has made a lot of people realize that the demands of their job weren't lining up with their salary expectations. Even before COVID, leaving a job has been a great way to climb the career ladder and increase your pay.
I'm an excellent quitter. Six times I quit, and I never quit with nothing else lined up.
Mandy Woodrow Santo's is a career coach, former hiring manager, and founder of the Mandy Money business and brand. She also co hosts the podcast Brown Ambition, which focuses on helping people of color build wealth.
Of course, quitting.
Isn't the only way to get more money or benefits. It's just one form of that scary but critical thing called negotiating.
I have learned that taking charge of your career often does mean walking away when opportunities are no longer giving you the financial or career advance Men opportunities that they may have when you first started.
I know not everyone can afford to quit their job or walk away from a lackluster offer.
Don't worry, those aren't the only options. Today.
We're talking about how to get what you're worth at work, from salaries to signing bonuses to titles.
I'm Delian Barrows. This is diversifying.
Mandy's career began in journalism at a small newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia. She left that job after only two weeks for a better offer, and since then has never missed an opportunity to ask for more money with each jump of the professional ladder.
Looking back over my career, I've went from earning thirty thousand dollars to over three hundred thousand dollars in total compensation in a decade.
That's incredible. I mean, can we just take a minute.
Thirty thousand to three hundred thousand dollars that is just one of the most impressive salary negotiation stories I've ever heard.
The reasons I quit always had to do with a couple of things. One, I wasn't getting the opportunities for advancement in my current role, or two I wasn't being paid what I perceived to be my value at the time, And when those two things were true, I was typically ready to move on out. Now. I wasn't like hitting the job application boards. I was still continuing to do my job really thoughtfully, but I never stopped sharing my work.
I was joining professional organizations, I was staying connected to colleagues, and through those connections I would have opportunities come to me.
Do you think that forced you to choose between your career goals and your financial goals?
No, no, not at all, I think. And you know what when I talk about that, about having ten x to my compensation over ten years and ten exing my net worth along the way, people tend to immediately want to know, well, what do you do. You must work in tech, you must work in Google, and they want to immediately find a reason why your success doesn't matter
to anyone else and how it can't be replicated. So that was me quitting my way rich and quitting my way to an executive editor position that no one was going to give me, you know, at the New York Times or CNN or wherever. I created that opportunity for myself and the magical thing about having a title at a company is that that's how people start to perceive you. And I never went back to anything less than a
senior director, you know, after that point. And to answer your question, no, I did not have to sacrifice career or my financial goals in pursuit of my career goals.
Yeah. I think people don't realize that title matters, and sometimes you feel like, well, if there's not a salary attached to it, then what's the point. But I think that that could be a huge missed opportunity that even if you can squeeze more money out of the company that you're with, if you can get them to bump you to a better title, you can use that as
leverage at the next job. So I just, you know, share this again on my Instagram about how men will apply to jobs even when they only meet sixty percent of the qualifications, but women will hold back unless they meet one hundred percent. It sounds like you did not fall into that category. You kind of jumped in even if you didn't check every single box. Where did that confidence come from?
I really think it comes down to that It's about the fact that time and time again, as a woman of color. I am a plus sized woman who's moved through a world where this hair, this body that I live in, my skin color is so not the norm. It is so not who's getting the shine and getting the prints and shining armor and getting the getting the job on camera, you know, and I just resented it. I was like, well, if that, you know, if I'm not the person people usually think of, then I'm going
to think of myself. You know, what do I have to gain by not thinking of myself in that way? And as soon as I sort of recognize that no one else expected much out of me, it sort of gave myself the freedom to just expect everything from myself and to always push myself.
I couldn't agree more. And I feel so seen by listening to you.
You know.
Unfortunately we've learned to kind of.
Live with it, but it's it's not okay, and it's an ongoing issue. So you talk to somebody, they tell you what the salary range is. How do you actually come up with a number to ask for? Do you go straight to like the highest number on the range when you're asking for your pay?
Well, I don't name a number. Ever, Initially that would be my first piece of advice, you just don't want to put a number out there. Initial numbers tend to be sticky. The first question people are often asked during interviews these days, and it usually is that first fifteen minute recruiters treating call, which sounds so innocuous. Oh, I'm
just a recruiter from such and such company. You just want to see if you're interested, And then they usually will ask, hey, just wanted to know what's your expectation for salary? At that moment, don't give an answer. What you can say is, you know, I'm really interested in the role, but I'd love to hear more about it and learn more about the team before I feel prepared to discuss compensation. That being said, if you guys have a budget in mind or a range, I'd love to know,
and then it's up to them. You know, they can give you a range or not. And as a hiring manager myself, I always knew I could go up to fifteen percent over the stated budget for the role, and then after fifteen percent more I would need to get special approval. What helps me negotiate harder for myself is having a real deep, foundational understanding of what my market value is and the best ways to do that are not to go on glass door and look at salaries.
The best way, hands down, is to speak with other people in your industry.
Yeah, and that's the thing. The offer is just an opening negotiation point. Like a lot of people think, like the offer is they're giving you their final and their best. Absolutely not. They literally bake this into the process. It is expected, especially if you're coming in through a recruiter, it is one hundred percent expected that you're going to negotiate. We're at that point you finally get the offer you want to counter. Do you have some scripts that people can use get it to the next level.
Yeah, So if you're getting an offer in email or if they're calling you on the phone, don't feel pressured to give an answer right away. I say, ask for at least forty eight hours to review the offer and get back to them. And in that forty eight hours you can kind of think about what it is that you want and think about some additional questions you may have.
I've definitely had coaching clients where they've gotten an offer that just included base compensation and maybe it talked about unlimited PTO and other benefits, but didn't talk about signing bonus and equity, and she thought, oh, well, they must not offer it, and I'm like, well, no, you have to ask for it. Sometimes I prefer to call on the phone and have a conversation and then follow up with my ask via email. So when you come with your offer, I would just make it clear, Okay, I
received your offer. I'm so excited. I'm a little bit disappointed in the compensation. I would love to know if this is negotiable. If so, I think XYZ range is more appropriate given my skills and the responsibilities as discussed during the interview process. Something really simple like that.
And there are so many other things that you know we've touched on that you can ask for as well, like relocation costs if you are moving. You can also ask for more flexible schedule, maybe more PTO time. There are a lot of other benefits that you may not have even considered that could kind of, you know, perk up that package for you. And you're just focusing on the salary and the dollar amounts. So it's good to
get a little creative. What are some other benefits that you encourage women to negotiate when they're trying to leverage their offers.
I get the most excited when I'm helping coach of women through a negotiation for a new opportunity. So this is a new job opportunity, not at your current employer, because I mean, hands down, this is one of the most lucrative offer are hitting the table. And it's not just your base compensation. It's also the potential for a signing bonus. And equity.
And Mandy, and let me stop you for a second. Can you define for us what you mean by equity. So equity is actually part ownership in the company. So the same way that you may want to invest in a publicly traded company like Apple or Peloton maybe not now Tesla maybe more so, they will give you shares in the company as an incentive, because typically with equity, whether it's stock options or restricted stock units, they will
not give it to you right away. They'll say, Okay, we're going to give you ten thousand dollars worth of equity, but you can't actually do anything with it unless you stay with us for a year. Then we're going to give you one third, and then if you stay another year, we'll give you the second third and so you can cash in, you can sell that equity and then you turn it into cash, whether you can use that for debt or put it in your savings or trade it
for other stocks, whatever. But you got to stay right. So that's a really big piece of advice for anyone who's feeling like.
Oh, but I have equity. Oh but I just joined a year ago, and they're going to make me repay my signing bonus if I leave sooner than a year, Well, then tell the new job that and have them pay for it. It's really cool, it's amazing. So be willing to jump. And when you do jump, after you're finished negotiating the base compensation, don't be afraid to ask for
signing bonus and equity. And depending on your level, like if you're going an entry level, I'd like to say like five to ten percent is a good benchmark for a signing bonus. If you're coming in mid level to senior level, ten to fifteen percent VP level or above twenty percent minimum.
Let's move on to the downside of negotiating, because you know, unfortunately I've heard too many stories.
Of women who go all in.
They negotiate, they ask, they lean in right, but then their offer is revoked and it can be.
A devastating setback.
And I don't know if you're aware of, but Stephanie O'Connell Rodriguez coined the raise the ambition penalty, and she talks a lot about it, where women are penalized for asking for more because they're seen as aggressive. What are your thoughts on that and do you think that that's something that women should consider when they're thinking about asking for more.
I don't want that to dissuade anyone asking for more. Let's, you know, hypothetically, say a woman asks for more than a male candidate and her offer is rescinded, and it's because the hiring manager is a woman or a male who's offended that she would want so much and is like, we don't want to work with her. I don't think you want to work there either. I don't think you want to work there anyway. That's kind of the game
we play when we work for companies. It's sort of like when you put a house on the market and you think it's worth a million dollars, but if someone only wants to pay six hundred and grand for it because it's not on the good side of town. Well that's what the market wants, right then, Okay, so what's your option. You can hold on to it for a bit longer, find a buyer who's willing to pay what you know you're worth. And that's kind of what I
always did myself. Just keep waiting until you find or keep looking for a place that will really value you, or start your own business like we did.
We have to keep pushing forward. We have to keep asking for more. Otherwise that wealth gap is just going to continue to grow and grow indefinitely and things won't get better.
As a woman of color too, sometimes you can't wait for companies to get it together when it comes to creating support and resources and mentorship for us. So if there is an executive coaching program, or a career coaching program, or a leadership I did a week long leadership seminar. I knew I wanted more management training and my company didn't offer it. So I went out and found it
and they paid for it. So if you come to them and you say we're if you already have a coach or a program that you go to annually and you're negotiating a new job, offer definitely ask if there's a leadership and development budget that you can use annually to invest in your own leadership training and to get support from peers and put yourself in a position where you'll get to meet other peers in your industry and keep that networking skill always active. That's definitely something to
consider asking during negotiations as well. We're going to take a.
Quick break, but we'll be back soon to talk about when salary negotiation went viral. Stay with us, Welcome back to diversifying. This January, social media went crazy over a post by recruiter Mercedes Johnson. It read quote, I just offered a candidate eighty five thousand dollars for a job that had a budget of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. I offered her that because that's what she asked for, and I personally don't have the bandwidth to give lessons
on salary negotiation. Here's a lesson. Always ask for the salary you want.
End quote.
The Internet did not react well to this. People were outraged. They felt that Mercedes should have told the candidate about the full range of pay, or at least let them know that there was more wiggle room in the budget. The Internet accused her of being a corporate chill and said she was contributing to the gender and racial pay gap. We caught up with Mercedes to get her side of the story.
So I really honestly meant for everybody to take ownership of their interviewing process. You know, I believe that information does not mail itself to your front door.
Mercedes works for a recruitment training company and has been in the field for years. She stands behind her message.
I understand the pain point that kind of got everybody you know up and upset about this because I understand that how it came across was very bad. But companies do not owe it to the employee to give them their complete budget for each job. And quite frankly, I don't think that many companies can do that. I feel like if that was the way that the world worked, then we wouldn't have balance.
She also thinks it's a mistake to talk to your coworkers about their salaries because it can make employees think they should all be paid the same.
No employee has been through the same schooling, no employee has the same work ethic. No employee is going to ask for the same thing, So I don't really think it's fair for each company to pay an employee the same thing, which is why the salary range is so relevant.
Personally, I really disagree with this. Knowing what your coworkers make doesn't automatically mean that you are entitled to the same pay. It just allows you to make a case for why you should also be at the top of the range. In addition, under federal law, employers cannot prohibit employees from discussing their pay. But it's valuable to know that some companies and recruiters do think this way, and
job applicants should be aware of it. Just because this is sometimes the case, though, doesn't mean it isn't harmful. Here's Mandy Woodrow Santo's again.
It completely ignores the fact that companies have all of the cards, They have all the power in this situation, and to expect the person on the other side of the phone or the other side of the email with the least amount of power to somehow come up with and guess to see what kind of cards you're holding. It just does not make sense at all to me.
To Mandy, it makes sense that a brand new hire with less experience in the field would be paid less, but the company should be able to explain why, and she thinks employees should discuss pay with their peers so they can put together a unique and informed ask. We actually had a few listeners call us with their salary stories so that Mandy could weigh in and give some advice. One of them brought up an issue that can be solved by having these exact kinds of conversations a.
Fee like as being of an Asian descent, we're all likely put in a category where we're not supposed to even talk about salary and accept whatever we offer to us. Being my colleagues who are out there more with a wider background, they negotiate not only their salary and started us bonuses, which is never heard of in my generation as well.
What I love about this listener question is I think it demonstrates the power of speaking as uncomfortable and awkward as it can be, of speaking to your colleagues about what it is that they're earning. And maybe it's if it's truly uncomfortable for you to talk to colleges at your current company, I at least talk to people at other companies in a similar industry. At a similar level and talk amongst one another.
Share.
You know, it may not be everyone who wants to tell you here's what I earn, but they may give you an expectation of even oh yeah, I got a signing bonus, and then that perks something up in you, like a signing bonus. What's that? How much I didn't know I could get that? But it goes back to the power of sharing and having people around you who can influence you in a positive way.
Another listener actually negotiated successfully but found out not all her coworkers had done the same.
I'm actually had a really difficult conversation with someone on my team who's the title above being, and I found out that we actually make the same salary, So very exciting for me. I think that means they negotiated really well, But it also means that she's getting underpaid.
Awkward. But you know what, incredible of you to share that with her, and if that doesn't light a fire in her belly to get on up out of there and go somewhere where she's paid what she's value, than it should. But here's the other thing. I'm willing to bet that she's been at that company longer than you
have and that you are a more recent hire. And this is what goes back to the point of when you're willing to quit and move on to a new opportunity, that's when you get the biggest bumps and pay the leverage you have. When a company's trying to woo you and incentivize you to leave your company, those incentives are just bigger.
Our last listener voicemail comes from someone who's coworker has a problematic but understandable take on getting a raise.
I recently had a colleague of mine say that they didn't want to take on more salary because they felt as if if they took more money, they would be tasked with more work. You know, it's just like now they owe more to the company. And I said, you really shouldn't think of it that way. You should think of it more as your time is worth that much.
Yeah, it's not the first time I've heard this, and it especially comes well. I speak to a lot of women of color. That's just too I gravitate towards my people. I love us, and I have heard especially women who have this perception that they take more money they go for a promotion they're going to have less time, they're going to be more stressed out, they're going to have to sacrifice the work life balance they've worked really hard
to cultivate. And what frustrates me about that is it makes it seem like we are enforcing our own glass sealing in a way, like we're stopping ourselves from going to the highest levels because we're telling ourself a story about what our life has to look like if we get there, and we're not really taking into consideration that.
I agree with that listener that yes, your time is actually worth that, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do anything different than what you're doing now, but your skills at this company may be just worth a lot more. So, especially as we're moving back into the office, a lot of people are I'm not going to say going back to work, because we've all been working this whole time, but going back into the office.
As a leader, I would think really carefully about intentionally promoting or giving accolades to people who choose to work remotely to show that we still value you and that we're not thinking less of you because you're not in the office.
That was Mandy Woodrow Santo's with some incredible advice for getting what you're worth at work. Negotiating is a normal part of the job process and employers aren't expecting it. The bottom line is this, do some research to determine your value and then ask for it. Next Monday, we're breaking down why everything from your gas to your groceries is getting more expensive and it's all because of inflation.
To the end of the day, we all need to be paid more, you know, if everything keeps going up, we need to be paid more to survive.
Make sure to follow us so you don't miss and if you like what you heard, please recommend the podcast to your friends and family, then give us a rating and a review. It's really helpful, especially since we're just starting out. Diversifying is a production of CNN Audio. Megan Marcus is our executive producer and Hailey Thomas is our senior producer. Our producers are Alex Stern, Kinsey Clark, and Madeline Thompson. Our associate producer is Cheri Satchel, and our
production assistant is Eden getachew. Eduardo Ocampo is our intern. Mixing and sound design by Francisco Monroy. Artwork designed by Brett Urdock. Original music by Andrew eaven Our. Technical director is Dan Dezoula, with support from Chip Grabow, Steve Keel, Anissa Wells, Abby Fentrist Swanson, Tamika Balance, Kalosney Ashley Lusk, Lindsay Abrams, Raf Feno, Maud, Lisa Namro and Courtney Coop. I'm Delian Barrows. Thanks for listening.