SAVAş is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life. Read on for breaking entertainment news, fashion tips, health, and more.
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. Been in the workforce for at least five years and interested in contributing your salary story? Submit your information here.
Age: 31 Location: Washington, DC area Current industry and job title:
Associate Director, Non-Profit Current salary: $90,000 Number of years employed since school or university: 11 Starting salary: $37,000 in 2013 Biggest salary jump: From $15,000 to $50,000. I went from working part-time retail and some pretty low-paying freelance copywriting gigs to a full-time salaried position. Biggest salary drop: $37,000 to $0. I left my first real full-time job without anything lined up and traveled for a bit.
Biggest negotiation regret: The first time I tried to negotiate a salary increase on an internal job offer/promotion, I went about it completely the wrong way. I opened with "Is there room to negotiate?" and made it very easy for them to just say no with zero explanation, even though I knew what they offered me was the bottom of the range.
Best salary advice: Do NOT ask permission to negotiate. Just do it! Come armed with a specific number and the info to back it up. I have had more success showing how I have added or will add value to the company in the role, rather than mentioning how other people are paid elsewhere.
I was fresh out of school, and this was a good job. Especially since I had about $500 to my name when I started. Usually at this firm people start as interns or fellows, so I had a leg up. They also offered me $5,000 more than I originally asked for in the "desired salary" portion of the application. My boss there really went to bat to get me. I didn't negotiate at all, and it was all done without my knowledge because my boss wanted to give me a competitive offer at the high end of the range. She was a real one! I was still in my college town, which was a very affordable area, so I was able to live very well and while still saving quite a bit.Staying in my old college town as a young professional got old pretty fast. The lack of other young professionals and friends, coupled with a massive breakup, made me itchy to get out. I'd been applying for jobs in bigger cities, but it was tough to land one while I wasn't there. I was able to save about $16,000 in my LCOL area, so I ended up just leaving and traveling around Europe for two months. I booked the cheapest flight I could find, stayed in hostels, and ate whatever free or cheap food I could find. Overall I spent about $3,500. It was the best thing I ever did for myself and my only regret was not doing that sooner. I moved back home with my parents, which was a huge privilege, and worked part-time at a shoe store. I also took on freelance work, but it paid terribly. It was through a marketing agency that contracted out their client's work, and I think they usually hired outside the U.S. I was able to save more since I was living at home, but I was feeling pretty directionless. My goal was still to move to a bigger city, and I was looking at any and all public relations and communications jobs in basically every East Coast city. I had a few interviews, but ran into the same issue I had before: that a lot of people didn't seem to want to hire a fairly low-level person who didn't even live in the area yet. I got really tired of sitting around at home, so I ended up moving to D.C. with no plan and lived with a friend who had a cheap room for rent. I lived off savings and the mediocre freelance income for about two months before finding a full time job. I got placed there through a temp agency as a temp-to-hire position. It wasn't in my desired field, but it involved writing and seemed like something I could possibly enjoy and I liked the company a lot. I didn't negotiate this salary at all, because I really just needed the income. While it was technically more than I made in my first role, the change in the cost of living between my college town and D.C. meant that I actually felt like (and maybe did) have less disposable income than before. I did not love grant writing. It was a lot more numbers and data than I expected, and way less creative than I wanted to be in my day-to-day work. I was applying for communications jobs, both in D.C. and New York, but not having much luck.
I ended up going to grad school part-time for communications while I was in this job to make it easier to switch back into communications. My company put $3,000 a year toward classes, and the rest was paid by a mix of my own funds, a small loan, and help from my parents. I had 100% of my undergraduate tuition and about 50% of my room and board covered by scholarships, so I am very fortunate that my parents were able to use some of the money they'd saved for my education to help pay for my master's degree.
In the meantime, my boss gave me a pay increase that was part merit-based raise and part cost of living increase. I was fully mediocre at this role, so it was nice of her to do that. She was a great boss and I was part of a great team. I've been fortunate to have bosses that advocated for me early in my career.This was an internal job opening that aligned really well with my skill set. I went through the full application and interview process like any candidate, and got the job about two months before I graduated from grad school. I knew from a work friend what the salary range was, and they offered me the very bottom number. I tried to negotiate by asking "Is this negotiable?" and they told me no right away. I did ask if we could revisit the salary discussion once I actually finished my master's, but HR told me that a graduate degree was not part of the equation in determining salary levels for candidates, and I didn't push on it after that even though the job description said the salary was commensurate with education and experience. I never brought up a specific number that I was looking for, nor did I let them know that I knew what the actual range was. I was disappointed, but I wanted the job so I took it anyway. Now I know not to make it easy for them to say no to negotiation, and to come prepared with a number and a justification for why you deserve that number. My manager was let go about a year prior and the other member of my three-person team got a new position in the organization. I was navigating entirely on my own for a long time and was incredibly overworked and underpaid for how much I was contributing. My former boss was difficult to work with, and also had a tendency to leave a mess in her wake, so I was doing my job while also trying to clean up her messes while doing the work of three people. I routinely worked weekends, late nights, and on vacations. I even once logged in drunk at a winery on vacation with my friend, because I had no coverage when I tried to take a week off. In my annual review, I asked for a $6,000 increase based on my performance. That year my company also did a salary transparency and equity survey, so this increase included both my merit-based increase and an equity adjustment. I definitely felt that I deserved this raise, but I was so burnt out that I think the excitement was short-lived. It took a good boss and about six months for me to go back to feeling normal. At this point, I wanted to start looking for new jobs, but was so close to being fully vested in my company's pension plan that it felt worthwhile to wait it out. I had been gearing up to leave and started job hunting pretty seriously when my new manager left after one year. I was promoted into his job, which was a two-level jump from where I was before. My company approached me about taking on the role, and I didn't have to go through an interview process. I was initially offered a 5% pay increase, which amounted to about $3,600 and put me way below our own range for this level. Originally, they told me that it was company policy to have a maximum increase of 5%, but this isn't in the company handbook and I knew from other colleagues who'd been promoted that it wasn't actually true. This time when I negotiated, I came back with a specific number ($81,000) and a list of reasons why I was worth it. They came back a little below what I asked for on actual salary, but gave me a one-time bonus that bridged the gap between what I asked for and what they gave. I knew I was still below the target range, but this gave me an opportunity to manage a small team of people.
A lot of the jobs I'd been applying and interviewing for were management roles, or wanted some management experience, and this was a good opportunity to take on that kind of role and grow a new skill set without having to also learn an entirely new workplace. This was a basic 5% cost of living adjustment that everyone received that year as long as they were in good standing. The cost of living adjustments vary from year to year, low to nonexistent when the organization isn't doing as well, but this 5% was the highest we'd received since I had been there. While I'd been disappointed by the original salary offer, this did make me feel a bit better about my compensation. Though I admit that I couldn't help but think about what I'd be making if I'd gotten the actual, and very fair, number I asked for earlier in the year. Every few years, the company hires an outside firm to look into whether our compensation is competitive. They had gone through this process at the end of 2023, and in 2024 presented the data. Target ranges to remain competitive in the D.C. area has increased from the last time they did this survey. The company prioritized making sure people who were below the bottom number of the range were brought up to a competitive and equitable place. This was the bottom of the target salary range for my position, title and level. I finally felt adequately compensated, because I knew, even without the data from the survey, that a low-$80s salary for an Associate Director at my kind of organization was way below what I could've been making elsewhere.
I had figured I would get a year or two of management experience under my belt before looking for something else. This was enough to get me to stay a bit longer, which I'm grateful for because I am now eligible for another one of the company's huge benefits: six weeks of paid leave with a stipend to cover some costs if you decide to travel. I'll be going in 2025!
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
