In our series Salary storiesWomen with years of professional experience speak openly about the most intimate details of their job: compensation. It’s an honest look at how real people navigate the complicated world of negotiations, raises, promotions and job losses, with the hope of giving young people more insight into how to advocate for themselves – and maybe a few in the process Take risks.
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Age: 36
Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Current industry and job title: Beauty e-commerce, customer experience manager
Current salary: $104,000
Number of years of employment since school or university: 13
Starting salary: About $31,000
Biggest salary jump: From $76,000 to $87,000 when I was promoted at my current job, from supervisor to manager.
Biggest salary drop: From $75,000 to $67,000 when I left a toxic company. But the drop in pay was worth it for my mental health.
Biggest bargaining regret: I share my current salary when applying for other jobs. This resulted in me having to negotiate more as the company tried to meet me where I was instead of offering me a higher salary.
Best Salary Advice: Use all parts of your salary! PTO, pre-tax investments, FSA/HSA/Transit options, wellness or educational scholarships. If your company offers one of these and you don’t use it, you’re leaving money on the table. I studied theater as an undergraduate and was offered this position by the company I interned with during my undergraduate studies. I made $75 per show, which ended up being about $31,000 for the year. I loved the artists I worked with and learned a lot, but ultimately the salary and lack of benefits made living in New York nearly impossible. I was a department manager for a company that took me to Beijing to put on a show. I found out about the position through a friend’s recommendation and it gave me the opportunity to travel abroad for work – something I never thought I would have the opportunity to do. The job paid about $800 per week, including $40 per day for the three months we were abroad. During the year, the total was approximately $41,000.
Although the salary was less than I was seeking for the number of hours I wanted to work – it was not uncommon for the production team to knock on my hotel door at midnight – the opportunity to travel was worth the effort. When I came back from China, I didn’t have another show planned. I was 28, had virtually no savings and no reliable health insurance. Previously, I had been working from home as a part-time account manager around my theater gigs, so I decided to move into this full-time position for stability, working at a grocery e-commerce startup for $45,000 per year.
I started on the front lines, answering customer emails, chats, social media direct messages and phone calls. It wasn’t the most exciting job, but I felt financially stable for the first time in my life, knowing I had a regular salary and health insurance. I was fortunate to have a great manager who recognized how passionate I was about people management and helped me find the path to a promotion. I was promoted within my organization to Human Resources Manager of my department and my salary increased to $58,000. Later that year, when my co-manager changed departments and I took over her job, I negotiated a raise that brought me to $70,000.
To do this, I had to negotiate by laying out all the new responsibilities I had – in addition to hiring, coaching and managing the day-to-day operations of all employees in my department, I was now also the liaison between all logistics and operational teams. Ultimately, I told my leadership team that if my salary wasn’t increased to accommodate these new responsibilities, I would have to look for a new role. In early 2019, I switched roles to lead a similar department at a community-based startup. This move was motivated in part by the promise of building a department from the ground up.
During the job acceptance process, I was only offered $70,000 – the same salary at my previous job – so I had to negotiate for the additional $5,000. At that point in my career, I had no idea that sharing my current salary could actually result in a lower offer – something I’ve never done since! Due to a toxic management team, I left my previous company, which ultimately resulted in my salary being laid off. Two months after I left due to the pandemic, I had to leave the entire department. I took a pay cut for this new job, which was at a mental health startup.
I emphasized to them that this was a cut for me and asked them to write into my contract that my salary would be renegotiated six months after starting my job. Unfortunately, when it came time to renegotiate my salary at my previous job, I was denied a raise. So I started applying for other jobs to develop myself more. I started at my current company as a supervisor for $74,000.
This new team was the best I had ever worked with. Management was genuinely friendly and supportive, creating an environment where you were encouraged to try new things and learn from them. I was promoted to my current position in the first quarter of 2022 and my salary was increased to $87,000. I was fortunate to have a department head this year who believed strongly in strengthening the entire management of our team and who truly advocated for all of us.
In the fall of that same year, my boss left the company. Since I was taking on some of their responsibilities during our busy holiday season, I spoke to both HR and my temporary manager and let them know that the new responsibilities I would be taking on would bring me into the busiest time of the year in e-commerce. Commerce (Black Friday/Cyber Monday, IYKYK), I thought the scope expansion should be reflected by a change in title or a raise. My salary was increased to $94,000 and I received a year-end bonus of $2,500.
That was really smart timing because my 5% year-end performance increase was based on the higher number, and that put me at $99,000. I used to think I was someone who would never make six figures, but as part of the year-end audits, I received a 5% raise that brought me to $104,000.
Now I’m pushing for a promotion to Senior Manager and a raise of at least $10,000. Ultimately, I would like to leave the customer experience space and focus more on internal culture, learning and development, and manager coaching. I’m trying to figure out the best way to work toward this without taking a big pay cut.
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Salary History: I used this move to get interviews
I got my dream job, despite my imposter syndrome
I asked for the highest pay scale and got it
