Power Up Your Career!

     A reader who is young in her career raised the issue of how to ask for a promotion at the appropriate point to avoid limiting her salary progression. As she pointed out, “[one article about the U.S. and European job markets] states that if a woman doesn’t [successfully negotiate her salary] early on in her career, she can earn up to $500,000 to a million less that her male counterpart over her career.” As my last two posts have indicated, her focus is accurate. So, if you are in a reasonably progressive company, how do you make sure that you are considered for promotion and pay raises at the earliest opportunity?

     The first principle to understand is that employers usually will not promote you to a higher level until you have demonstrated that you can handle the duties and responsiblities of that position. I know, it seems counter-intuitive. If you’re working as a “staff attorney,” why would you be preforming the duties of a “senior attorney”? Nonetheless, that’s the system. You can qualify either by performing such duties in the course of your job (”on-the-job training”) or by targeted classroom training.

     So, do some investigating. Get a copy of the position description for the level above yours. For example, is you’re a GS-9 financial analyst in the federal government, the next level is typically a GS-11. You should be able to get a copy from the office manager or your human resources office. Compare it to your current position description and note any differences. The incumbent of a higher level position typically handles: greater quantities of work; more diverse assignments; and novel matters. They also work more independently, with less need for supervision by the boss. Identify specific types of work which you have not yet handled.

     Next, look at the “career ladder” for your specific position. This is usually stated in your position description. For example, an “economist” position may be slated for grades 21 and 22. If you are already in grade 22, you will not be able to progress to a higher grade unless you change positions.

     Third, investigate the company’s promotion policy. How many months or years must you remain in one grade to be promoted to the next higher grade? One to two years is standard in the lower grades; eighteen months to two years is typical for progression to higher level grades.

     Third, examine the firm’s training policy. Is in-house training available to help you develop the skills you need for promotion? Or, is training money allocated to each employee? Find out how much latitude is permitted in determining who gets specific training and how much courses cost.

     Now that you’ve done your homework, it’s time to enlist the help of your boss. Request a meeting to discuss your career development. Ask his or her administrative assistant for a 30 to 45 minute stretch where the boss is more relaxed. (Yet another reason to always stay on the good side of assistants!) Let your supervisor know that you value your job and your contribution to the company and are interested in your career advancement. Specifically, you want to be considered for promotion to the next higher level. To that end, you desire the types of assignments or training that will qualify you for promotion. Ask your boss to help you develop a plan to ensure that you meet all requirements before you’re eligible for promotion, so that you can be considered at the earliest opportunity. These plans are called “Individual Development Plans” and are a standard employee benefit in progressive companies.

     Being proactive in your own career advancement is the surest way to your success. No one cares as much about your future as you do.

     One of the programs that I created for the American Bar Association is entitled “Pathways to Success for Women and Minorities in the Public Sector,” and features a moderated panel of lawyers who share their own success stories and offer advice on how to get past career obstacles. A lively debate preceeded the launch of this program, with some expressing the belief that such obstacles no longer exist in today’s job market. One law professor indicated that his female students were experiencing virtually the same level of success in landing their first legal jobs as were their male colleagues.

       My last post, “Provocative Studies Reveal Reasons Behind Pay Disparities,” shows the fallacy of this assertion. Getting hired is only the first step of the journey. The two studies discussed in that post highlight: (1) the extent of the pay gap (some $13,000 to $14,000 per year over a 25-year period for men with “traditional gender role orientation” versus women with “egalitartian” or “traditional” gender role orientation, respectively) and (2) the way in which even so-called merit performance systems create this gap, by relegating women and minorities to smaller pay raises even when awarded the same pay ratings as their white male colleagues. 

     So, how do you ensure that you get paid what you’re worth? First, make sure that you’re in the right company. It’s hard to grow and blossom when you’re stuck in the dirt in the middle of the desert.  Who holds the top level positions in your company?  What do you know about their family situations (”gender role orientation”)? If your boss says pointedly to you, a working mom, “My wife stays home with our children because we believe that it is crucial that they get a good start in life,” you have a fair idea of his orientation. If he wants to know your specific plans each time you request leave (”Is your son sick again?”), ditto. Listen to the dialogue. Don’t get mad, just listen so that you can make a dispassionate assessment about whether this firm will support your long-term career advancement.

     Also examine the company’s performance review system. Does the same rating result in the same dollar raise? Or is there a discretionary amount (in a range of 1 -3 percent, for example) that the supervisor can award for the same rating? This is a system that may be egalitarian on its face but is susceptible to discrimination in its implementation. Further, after the next round of performance reviews, plug into the grapevine and find out how the money was distributed. I know, I know — some companies prohibit any discussion of salaries, bonuses, and raises, but somehow word does get out.

     So, what do you do if your company’s executive level is not diverse, your boss appears to exude traditional gender role values, and/or your company’s performance review system is structured in a way that invites discriminatory practices? Two words: move on. Do not stake your future success on this company.  Stay enough time to improve your knowledge and skills (2-3 years max), and then start your job search. Don’t waste your talents on an organization that will not support your career development. To locate companies that are truly best in class, go to Fortune Magazine’s “Top 100 Employers to Work For” and sort for women (at http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/women/) or to Working Mother Magazine’s “100 Best Companies” (at http://www.workingmother.com).

Next post: assuming that yours is a company with a diverse workforce that offers career advancement without regard to race, color, gender, or other immutable and irrelevant traits, how do you make sure that you receive the promotions you deserve?

One of my readers, a young woman three years into her career, has raised a great question: “One article [I’ve read about the U.S. and European job markets] stated that if a woman doesn’t [successfully negotiate her] salary early on in her career, she can earn up to $500,000 to a million dollars less than her male counterpart over her career. That was shocking to me.” (Emphasis mine.)

Several recent articles underscore this concern and provide some provocative nuances underlying some of the reasons for the well-documented disparity in earnings. Is the Gap More than Gender? A Longitudinal Analysis of Gender, Gender Role Orientation, and Earnings was just published by Beth A Livingston and Timothy Judge (of the University of Florida), in the September issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology. It reported on the correlation between “traditional” versus “egalitarian” attitudes toward gender roles and earnings. The authors found that the participants could be categorized into four groups, and their relative average earnings over the 25 years they were studied could be stratified as follows:

§         Working men with traditional attitudes — $34,725

§         Working men with egalitarian attitudes — $22,795

§         Working women with egalitarian attitudes — $21,373

§         Working women with traditional attitudes — $20,321.

Some might dismiss these results by surmising that the women chose less demanding (and well-paying) professions, worked less hours, or were less qualified. But, astonishingly, the authors carefully controlled for these very factors. And, still we see a disparity of some $13,000 to $14,000 for all women as compared to the men with traditional attitudes!

Gender, Race and Meritocracy in Organizational Careers is an illuminating study that demonstrates how the pay gap noted above is created and grows over time. This research (published by Emilio Castilla of MIT in the May 2008 American Journal of Sociology) reveals how a so-called merit-based performance system of a large service organization is actually implemented in a manner that results in disparity in pay and promotions.  The key finding was that different dollar amounts were actually awarded to women and minorities who received the same ratings as white men. The biases were introduced when supervisors recommended raises or when the human resources department approved them. Castilla reports that, while minorities and women received similar starting salaries as those of white men, the effect of these biases in administering the performance award system helped to create and perpetuate the pay gap.

So, given these dismal findings, how do you ensure that you receive the pay and promotions you deserve? More in my next posting.

During World War II, women entered the workforce to support the war effort and forever changed the U.S. economy. With the push toward equal rights in the 1970’s, more women entered the professions and continued working while raising their children. A counter-trend occurred in the 1990’s, with women taking a break from the work world to raise their children. However, these women often discovered that the marketplace didn’t embrace their re-entry. A recent book, The Feminine Mistake, details their difficulties and cites bleak statistics which result in criticizing this path.

If you’re currently a stay-at-home mom who aspires to resume your career, are you doomed to failure? Not at all. What you need to focus on is crafting a savvy re-entry strategy. I know of too many women who squander their very best contacts by launching a half-hearted job search. They brush off their old chronological resumes (with a prominent date of last employment several years old), and begin by contacting their former colleagues and currently employed friends. They describe their time at home in apologetic terms and readily admit to rusty computer skills. 

Before you launch your job search, make the effort to: learn the latest versions of office computer software programs; craft a functional resume that highlights your knowledge, skills, and accomplishments and is targeted to a specific job opening; prep yourself to be able to handle the usual interview questions as well as the unwelcome ones about your time away from the work world; and do some research about the level of salary and benefits you should expect.

With the recent turmoil in the financial markets, jobs will get scarcer. It’s essential that you be primed to compete successfully with the other job applicants. Want to learn more tips? I’ll be teaching “A Step-by-Step Guide to Successful Job Re-Entry for Moms,” at the Alexandria Campus of Northern Virginia Community College on Saturday, on September 20, from 9 am to noon. The course costs $49.00. Register 24/7 at www.nvcc.edu/alexandria/continuing or call NOVA at 703-845-6280 weekdays. Anyone can take this course (course LLRN 1985-41A) as part of NOVA’s Professional and Workforce Development offerings.

With the financial markets in turnoil, many of you may be wondering how to avoid the fate of the roughly 24,000 Lehman Brothers employees and keep your jobs. First of all, stay abreast of the latest news. While I realize that print media such as newspapers are widely being shunned by Gen X and Gen Y, use some means to keep informed about what’s happening to the economic sector in which you work as well as to your employer. For example, if your employer is a non-profit in the Washington, DC, area, an article in the Washington Post yesterday (also available online) highlighted the likelihood that funding to charitable causes will dry up from the foundations associated with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the mortgage finance entities just put into conservatorship). Find out whether your association is dependent on such funding.

Second, actively demonstrate your utility and loyalty to your specific employer. Volunteer for high profile assignments. Complete your projects on time. Enthusiastically embrace changes that promote efficient operations. Suggest such changes.

Third, avoid negative behavior. Now is not the time to complain that the raises aren’t big enough, to hang around talking about babies (or sports, for that matter), or to resist going to required training. Your managers are already stressed out by the volatility in the market, lessening their patience for dealing with kvetching employees.

Fourth, seek out opportunities to reposition your business more favorably in its niche. In the case of the non-profits mentioned above, help your management team to identify and actively seek out other funding sources.

The goal is to be one of the employees who are considered essential to your company’s continued existence — which is an assessment top management often makes regardless of experience level or seniority with that employer.

After seeing my posting about conducting a successful job search, a reader asks a great question — how do I get past possible age discrimination and land the job?

“Mary” describes her situation as follows: at the age of 54, she lost her position as a managing editor for a pharmaceutical journal. Despite many productive interviews, which progressed to the point of discussing hours, viewing office space, and checking references, she has yet to be offered a position.  She wonders if it’s age discrimination and counters: “I feel like I have so much to offer an employer at this time in my life. I’m rarely sick. My kids are grown and out of the house. My hours are very flexible, which means my vacations are flexible, too. Any suggestions?”

Let me start by saying that age discrimination is a growing problem. In Fiscal Year 2007, the EEOC received 19,103 charges of age discrimination. And yet, older workers in fact provide the very advantages to employers that Mary lists.  Does this mean that she should assume this is the problem and sue? That’s a decision each person must make for herself (or himself, since age discrimination affects both genders). What I’d like to do instead is to examine whether there might be another problem here.

First, Mary, let me congratulate you on using a resume that is getting you past the HR gatekeepers and into the interview stage. A great deal of age discriminaiton occurs because of what the applicant lists on her resume. Further kudos are due to you for handling the interviews well. You would not be having a discussion about hours, office space and the like if you were not regarded as a serious candidate for the position. Again, even if an applicant manages to leap over the initial hurdles, her age becomes apparent in a face-to-face interview.

So, what’s going wrong here? You mention that potential employers have been checking your references. Hmmm. Perhaps this is the problem. I would touch base with my references, in a friendly way, and ask whether they’ve been contacted. Be alert here, as these conversations will be very delicate ones. You want to ask several open-ended questions and listen carefully to the responses. “So, how did these conversations go?” “Did any questions come up that you weren’t able to respond to — and for which I could provide you with more information?” “What is your sense of whether I could handle this position?” “Did the rep seem positive about hiring me?”

What are you listening for? Hesitation in being positive about you. Unwillingness to forthrightly tell you what happened in the conversation. Lack of support for your selection. Inability to provide specific examples that would support your application.

What do you do about this? If you are going to have these conversations with your references, you must prepare yourself to accept that one or more of them is not being supportive of you — and you must not let them know this. Instead, thank them for their willingness to talk with you.

Now get to work on lining up better references. And prime them in advance. Call and tell them that you have left your prior job and are conducting a job search. Ask if they would be willing to serve as a reference. And be selective — only use those who are willing to give you enthusiastic support. Offer to email them your resume (to refresh their recollection about your shared job history) and to provide them with a short summary of any job for which you are applying.

Now, some of you will point out that there may be other issues at play in the situation presented here. I readily admit that that may be the case. What I’ve chosen to address is the one I consider most likely. Age discrimination is a serious problem, which I will address in future postings.

The jobless rate in August 2008 just hit a 5-year high, rising to 6.1 %. Over the last 8 months, the nation’s employers have cut some 600,000 positions. What if you’re one of those statistics?

First, recognize the emotional impact of your job loss. Even though it’s not your fault, it’s hard to regroup. Join a support group at your local church or community center. Once you appreciate that you’re not alone, it will be easier to regain your confidence. You may also learn about job leads.

Second, redo your resume into a functional one that highlights your skills and accomplishments, without specifying dates. The principal advantage is that your recent job loss will not be as obvious and employers will focus on how your qualifications meet their needs.

Then, conduct a creative job search. In addition to the usual strategy of culling through job openings in local newspapers as well as on the web (on www.careerbuilder.com or www.monster.com, for example), activate your network. Contact your family, friends, prior work colleagues, and social contacts, in increasingly widening circles to solicit their help in identifying openings for which you may be qualified.

If this is not successful, rejoin professional associations in your field and get involved. Offer to help locate speakers or to organize a panel discussion. This is another way to network as well as to showcase your skills to those who are currently employed in your occupation of choice.

Finally, don’t be reluctant to employ the services of a career counselor or career coach to help you fine tune your resume and application package, create a job search strategy, and practice interviewing techniques.

Most of all, be persistent! The right job awaits you.

Need more help? Register for “Launching a Successful Job Search” at the Alexandria Campus of Northern Virginia Community College. The course will be offered on Saturday, November 1, 2008, from 9-11:30 am and costs $65.00. Register 24/7 at www.nvcc.edu/alexandria/continuing or call NOVA at 703-845-6280 weekdays. Anyone can take Launching A Successful Job Search (course LLRN 1998-41A) as part of NOVA’s Professional and Workforce Development offerings.

Next Posting: How to Keep Your Job during A Downsizing

Welcome to “Power Up Your Career!” — the new Women Lead blog. Women Lead is in the business of helping women succeed. So, I’ll be posting on a variety of topics for women at all stages of their careers — young women just entering the work world and wondering how to get their first promotions; moms trying to re-enter the workforce after a stint at home; mid-career professionals struggling to move into the executive ranks.

Look for short, timely pieces with practical career tips. And please write in your questions!

A few tips to get your comments published. Please provide enough details to enable me to understand the situation you’re facing, and thus provide better advice, but keep your employer’s name out of it. Please do provide opposing viewpoints, but keep the dialogue civil. And remember that not all advice fits every situation, so just take away what you can use.