Top Job Offer Red Flag You Must Pay Attention To
(Especially if you’re a woman in tech)
I’ll cover how to best negotiate a job offer in more detail next month, but in the meantime, I wanted to make you aware of the top job offer red flag you MUST pay attention to. Especially if you are a woman in tech.
Here is the Top job offer red flag you must pay attention to:
A company asking you what your current salary is, before they make you an offer.
It pains me to say this, but the reality is, if you’re a woman in tech there is a high chance you could be underpaid for your role. The gender pay gap in tech is well documented and many women have first-hand experience of this, including me.
If you’re underpaid (whether you know it or not) and you share your current salary with a prospective employer, they’ll likely then base their offer on what you’re currently on; and you’ll continue to be underpaid.
This is a pattern that needs to be interrupted. Otherwise, the gender pay gap will be with us for even longer.
You don’t have to answer, “What’s your current salary”, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask them what their budget is and negotiate from there.
You could say something like:
“I’m flexible depending on what your budget is for the role, what do you have in mind?”
OR
“Other jobs I’m interviewing for are paying between £X and £X. This is the range I am looking at, how does that sit with your budget?”
You might then want to follow up with some questions about initiatives they have to support women in the workplace and what their stance is on pay transparency.
A company asking you what your current salary is before they offer you for a job is a massive job offer red flag for me. I’d definitely want to then find out more about what they do as a business to ensure fair and equal pay across their organisation, before I’d even think about working for them.
If you’d like support from an expert to negotiate a job offer, you’re in the right place.
I’ve helped hundreds of people negotiate and get job offers they deserve from the 15+ years I spent working as a tech recruiter. Book in for an expert advice session with here and I’ll help you overcome the gender pay gap and, get the money you deserve:
