Comment by kamaal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kamaal | Hacker News Reader

This might be true and I hope they win.

But unfortunately everything that they say applies to men too. I wonder if this due to lack of negotiation skills. I have seen this problem being under compensation for the same skill and peer levels for men too.

At work, In one case I discovered a colleague being paid almost 50% times higher than I was. In another case in only a casual lunch conversation I discovered a colleague at the same level having RSU's almost triple my entire compensation. I also discovered while I moved to US from India(I moved back for Visa expiry reasons) that some colleagues had even negotiated green cards through really acrobatic legal work. Promotions, foreign travel, bonuses etc.

Over 10 years in this industry I have seen ability to program well, or even do bigger software work like build scalable and stable systems isn't worth two shoes in this industry.

One must have the ability to be politically skillful, negotiate well, know how to be well connected up management and use that leverage to further your career in both money and positions. I've tried to learn this, and failed. Unfortunately this turns out to be not something you can RTFM and learn.

We are all salesman - and a better salesman gets better results. As nerds we tend to discount, dismiss, overlook, whatever, salesmanship skills. But they still count big time.

We sell ourselves all the time, like it or not. Might as well try to learn how to get better at it.

All aspects of ourselves can be tweaked to better our salesmanship - grooming, dress, posture, getting our teeth fixed, tone of voice, words used, email protocol, etc., the list is endless.

This all started with the book "Dress For Success" by Molloy who noted that businessmen wearing tan overcoats did better than those wearing black overcoats.

What you have written is 100% true. Especially about the dress part. A while back I started wearing a shirt and pant to work. People, especially juniors do tend to take you a lot more seriously if you look formal and well dressed, compared to say showing up in denims and t-shirt.

But the negotiation and sales part. That's the issue. Its not easy to get good at that.

I noticed early in my career that people who dressed better got noticed more - i.e. promotions. Habitually wearing flipflops and track shorts to work won't work.

> But the negotiation and sales part. That's the issue. Its not easy to get good at that.

You're right. I work at it all the time, and I have a very long way to go. It will always be a "work in progress" for me.

But at least one can try to not be simply terrible at it. I still shudder at the stupidity of some of the things I did that clearly damaged my career.

> This might be true and I hope they win.

Can you elaborate on this? Namely, the burden of proof is higher than 'might be true.'

I'm guessing you meant something more like, 'If this is true, I hope they win.' I can never tell, anymore.

If this is a merely negotiation problem than the problem gets stated in a different tone.

I have been told many times that I need to work on my negotiation skills. One manager has even asked me whom do I go lunch with. And why don't I go to eat with the big shots. Of course you need to act all pally and buttery, saying yes to anything they say all the while.

What they mean to say is stop expecting the system to be fair and do what it takes to win.

That makes sense. And, yes, negotiating for yourself is a very good skill to learn. The other person may not be an adversary, but they probably don't have your best interests in mind. So, you'll want to represent your best interests.

A friend of mine worked for years at a firm, and did well as a salesman. But he would get overlooked for promotions. He finally figured out why.

He was frugal, and would bag his lunch and eat it at his desk. The others would get together and go out for lunch. He failed to realize how much networking and business was conducted over lunch.

A corollary is that working remotely is probably not a good idea if you're ambitious.

>>A corollary is that working remotely is probably not a good idea if you're ambitious.

This.

And also communicating and blowing your trumpet at all opportunities available. You don't want to be overdoing it. But definitely enough of it make every one hear about you and your work.

You say everything that they say applies to men too — but that seems like a reason that they will lose.

To win, they have to prove that they could reasonably have been paid more but weren't because they were female. If they show that they could reasonably have been paid more but weren't because they are bad at negotiating, they get nothing.

So, yeah, don't mistake discrimination law for something which would make sure people are paid what they are worth.

>>To win, they have to prove that they could reasonably have been paid more but weren't because they were female

I'm only saying if you replace 'female' by:

1. 'not good at negotiations'.

2. 'not good at making friends up management'.

3. 'not having good political skills'.

etc.

You still arrive at the same result, regardless of the gender. Which happens with us men too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com