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Recruitment Insights: How so many of us contribute (unconsciously) to gender pay inequality!

Written by: Lucy Bennell
Published on: 26 Jul 2017

Lucy Bennell shares some of her own experience around disparity between salaries.

BENNELL INSIGHTS

How so many of us contribute (unconsciously) to gender pay inequality!

Picture the scene. My client is hiring two purchasing managers at the same grade and wants to offer BOTH of my candidates. Both candidates, a man and a woman, are asking for the same salary. 

They offer the guy the salary he wanted (great!) I go back to him with the offer. He is pleased, but immediately says he needs an extra £5K to accept.  I think to myself, “what a go-getter!” I go back to the client and say “he is very pleased but needs an extra £5K”. The client response?  “Hey – this is a purchasing role. It would be strange if he didn’t try to negotiate” – they increase the offer almost immediately.

So then they make the offer to the female candidate. It is what she was looking for (good, the same as the man). The woman is very pleased. And then asks me, “do you think there is room for negotiation?”. My initial instinctive reaction?  I think to myself, “hang on, they offered you what you wanted...” I fear she notices my hesitation and adds, “I’ve seen research that shows that women, at the end of their careers, end up earning on average over £100K less than men, because they are not inclined to negotiate on salary offers”.  

AND SHE IS CORRECT. 

The research is out there. And now I come to think of it, my own experience in recruitment bears this out. A far smaller proportion of women, at whatever level, negotiate when it comes to the offer. 

I have been standing up for women’s equality for so long I am practically a suffragette!  So I was horrified with my own instinctual reaction to the female candidate… “Hang on….?" The guy was a “go-getter”! 

I go back to the client I say the exact same thing: “She is really pleased but is looking for an increase of £5K”.  Their response?  “Well that’s a bit cheeky!  We offered what she asked for!” Agghhh!!!!

This didn’t happen in the 1950’s trust me.  But STILL it is an accepted norm that being ballsy or a go-getter when you are a woman is regarded as unattractive. Remember, the guy was congratulated for his negotiation skills! And, it’s worth pointing out here, if there had only been one opening, it would have been offered without hesitation to the female candidate. She had out-performed at interview and her experience and qualifications were superior.

Women are STILL expected to please and placate and be thankful. Even women in Procurement who have proven that they can successfully negotiate tough deals with suppliers. They are expected not to push back on their own salaries!

Sheryl Sandberg illustrates this in the “Harold and Harriet study” in Lean In (2013). In it she demonstrates how “successful women are regarded (even by women) as less likeable than successful men”.

I AM a suffragette!  I was horrified by how I had initially fallen for gender stereotyping. So in a highly unfeminine way, I got the increase for the woman. Ballsy-eh? Unattractive?