Salary Story: I Moved From Fashion To Tech & Got A $40k Raise

In our series Salary Stories, women with long-term career experience open up about the most intimate details of their jobs: compensation. It’s an honest look at how real people navigate the complicated world of negotiating, raises, promotions and job loss, with the hope it will give young people more insight into how to advocate for themselves — and maybe take a few risks along the way.

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Age: 28
Location: San Francisco, CA
Current industry and job title: Tech, social media manager
Current salary: $120,000
Number of years employed since school or university: 10

Starting salary: $15/hour
Biggest salary jump: $60,000 to $100,000 in 2020 because of a job switch.

Biggest salary drop: I have not experienced a salary drop.

Biggest negotiation regret: When I was offered my current job, I didn't negotiate at all because it was a massive salary jump for me and seemed beyond what I could expect anywhere else. Of course I found out later that a teammate with less experience had negotiated an offer $10,000 above mine, and I haven't yet been able to catch up to my peers.

Best salary advice: It never hurts to ask for more. Do your research and try to find what similar companies are offering, and then take every opportunity to negotiate. Even if you're already getting a promotion or a cost of living raise, you can still try to negotiate. Just be reasonable, have data in your back pocket, and a list of accomplishments to back you up.

I basically fell into this job thinking that since I knew social media, it should be easy for me. I learned on the job and luckily it worked out. I was making minimum wage at the time, but it was flexible and I could work a full-time schedule while still in university (I was a humanities major with a focus on literature), so it felt like a good deal at the time.

This company produced educational materials. I was responsible for creating social content for several platforms, but also helped out wherever they needed extra hands. I would create emails, run the teleprompter on sets, and pack orders in the warehouse. Initially I came on as a marketing intern in 2012 after graduating high school, and they liked my work enough to move me into a full-time remote contractor position while I was in college through 2018. For that time period my role stayed about the same, and then in my last six months or so I went part time and tried out a sales position.

This was what I refer to as my first actual adult job, with benefits and all. At the time it was my dream job, with a company I truly admired in an industry I'd wanted to be in for a long time — fashion. I was an associate on a decently sized social team and my primary responsibilities were maintaining the social calendar, sourcing user-generated content, scheduling and publishing content, and running the influencer program.

Unfortunately, it's a notoriously underpaid industry. I didn't negotiate my salary because I didn't know what to ask for and was just grateful to get the job. The reality is, I had seven years of experience by this point, and probably could have argued for more.

I applied to a tech startup I'd admired from afar on a whim and got the job after a grueling interview process. It was five rounds, including an initial call with HR, a presentation for a panel, four 1:1 interviews, and a project. It took months and it was definitely tricky finding ways to take half-days at the job I was already working to do hours of interviews back-to-back. At the time it felt a bit ridiculous, and doing work for free in the form of a project is never fun, but in the end I think they took their time making sure they found the right person. My responsibilities changed pretty dramatically moving into tech. I went from a team of four working on social to working essentially on my own. I took on creating strategies and processes while also trying to integrate into a highly regulated industry.

Moving into the tech industry was a game changer for me — I had no idea people in social media could even make this much. At my previous job, I'd worked 80 hours a week and even worked during vacations, but even as I took on more and more responsibilities they were unwilling to discuss a raise until I put in my two weeks notice to take this new position. At my old job, I was working a few hours before going into the office and working a few hours after getting home at night. I also almost always worked at least some portion of the weekend, and even on vacation was expected to still be responding to emails and scheduling and publishing content. I think the company tried to squeeze what should have been two roles into one, which is not uncommon in social roles. What I saw as unreasonable in the end was the expectation to have zero work/life balance.

I wanted a title change, but was willing to settle for this massive salary jump that would allow me to live comfortably for the first time. Didn't negotiate this offer at all, but wish I had!

This was simply a merit raise and wasn't even ever discussed with me. I had worked my ass off building my program from the ground up solo, but wasn't expecting this much of a jump after only a year. Running with feedback and aiming to be as helpful as possible to everyone I work with really set the tone for my place on the team. I capitalized on everything I had learned thus far to build a foundation and a reputation. At this point I hadn't really had any discussions with my manager about career progression, but it was nice to see my work was recognized and valued.

I was, as far as I know, the first social hire with significant experience at the company. A huge part of my work in the beginning was creating content strategies for each platform, establishing processes for content creation, and streamlining approvals between my department and legal. And that was on top of actually doing the content creation: research, writing the copy, creating the graphics; as well as assisting with the influencer program they were building out and hadn’t hired for yet. For a long time I was also having to consistently justify my position and work to higher ups with little knowledge of social or the benefits it brings to a company. Getting buy-in from others to collaborate with me or invest in a worthwhile social strategy was persistently an uphill battle. It wasn’t until after my first year that they invested in bringing on another team member.

Another merit raise that marked the point at which I doubled my salary within three years. I'd hoped for as big of an increase as the previous raise, but I have a great team now and a great work/life balance. Not much has changed about my actual work, so I do feel grateful to even get a raise without taking on more responsibilities. Lack of visibility has held me back in comparison to my peers on the promotion front, but I waffle between trying to play into corporate politics and just letting work be work.

I think lack of career mobility is still pretty common in social roles, we’ve usually got generic titles like “manager” and don’t have consistent trajectories. At my particular company, marketing is almost an afterthought and many of my coworkers still see social as something frivolous. When you add to that the fact that I mostly work alone, my accomplishments and contributions are typically noted by my direct manager and no one else. Our promotions are done by panel, so it’s quite difficult to move up unless you’ve got a manager that really advocates on your behalf. I did recently get my first promotion ever in my career, and that was mainly thanks to getting a new manager whose taken a genuine interest in my growth — it’s been a game changer for me.

I'm working toward a promotion in the next two years and hoping to finally get a title change for the first time in my career. The next salary milestone I'd like to hit is $150,000 and I think I'm lucky that that's actually feasible for me without having to jump from company to company.

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