A high starting salary comes with skillful negotiation after the prospective employer extends a job offer.

Because of their discomfort with negotiating, many women accept the initial salary offered to them. Sound familiar?

Some studies show that men are four to eight times as likely to negotiate a salary offer than women. Time for a change!

Do This Step First: Determine Market Value

Complete the Market Value Worksheet to determine your market value for the new job position so you'll know what salary range to negotiate. Then return to this page.

Warning: The First Offer is Never the Best Offer

Negotiation is an absolute requirement if you expect to maximize your starting salary. Here's why:

Like at a car dealer's lot or at a yard sale, the new job salary offer scenario is a venue where negotiation is expected. Therefore, the employer's first salary offer made is virtually never their best offer.

The employer absolutely accepts and usually expects that you, as the job candidate, will do negotiate for more. So be sure you do! 

Note I said usually expected by the employer. It’s not always expected by the employer when they offer a job to a woman.

Why? Because women are not trained or socialized to become skilled negotiators, they will often avoid doing it, even where it is acceptable—such as the car dealer's or the new job offer—because they are anxious or uncomfortable with the negotiation process.

Employers Make Lower Salary Offers to Women

Interviewers know that women are far less likely than men to negotiate a starting salary. Don't fall for it.

That’s why employers can hire women for less money than men for the same position; the employer makes an offer that is at the low end of the salary range and women often accept it without asking for more.

Be ready to sidestep those starting salary pitfalls: know your market value and learn salary negotiation tactics. Start with the resources below.

Learn to Negotiate a High Starting Salary 

1. Complete two FREE online tutorials.

Do the salary negotiation crash course from two online tutorials I've found, one specific to women. They're both free.

A Woman's Guide to Making More Money (Click on the slide show of salary negotiation tips on the left.) The slide show is geared towards the business crowd—as you'll note when they mention earning in “the low six-figures.” So, while not specific to dietitians, the strategies presented are sound. 

Salary Negotiation and Job Offer Tutorial Based on one of my recommended resources, Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute, this is a short-cut way to get through the book.

2. Dig into the other recommended tools and books found on my Resources page.

3. Get fee-for-service, 1-on-1 coaching by telephone.

Like changing eating habits, knowing what to do at the job interview and actually doing it are often miles apart. Schedule a Salary Negotiation Coaching session to strategize and rehearse your customized answers to get the pay package you want and deserve.