I was passed over for a promotion and a guy got it instead — what should I do?
I was just passed over for a promotion and a male colleague got it instead. His performance hasn’t been nearly as good as mine. What should I do?
Well, Sallie Krawcheck, the CEO of women-led digital investing platform Ellevest, knows exactly how to handle the situation.
The first thing: Go to your manager and ask them for feedback and ask what you could have done differently to have gotten the job. “If it’s that your performance needs to improve in a certain area, great, fantastic, because now you know what to work on,” Krawcheck says. “On the other hand, do you hear, well, you just weren’t the right fit, you’re not ready for it, or you need more marketing experience, but they never give it to you or anything having to do with gender or age, not cool.”
At some point, it may be time to have a conversation with HR or to look for another job elsewhere — but don’t make that decision lightly.
This is just one example of what women face in the workplace. Men are also more likely than women to ask for a raise. And as a result, many women are leaving money on the table.
“Unfortunately, for a whole bunch of different reasons we do so at significantly lower rates,” Krawcheck says.
Presently, women in the U.S. face a gender pay gap where they make 80 percent of what men make for doing the same job, and it’s even less for many women of color.
Women should be encouraged to make the ask because they’ll likely get that raise. A recent study by Ellevest found that 75% of respondents received a pay bump when they requested it.
“Now, exactly how many of those women do you think got a salary decrease? Zero. That’s right zero. Seventy-five percent got a raise and zero got a decrease. So the lesson here is ask,” says Krawcheck.
On the second episode of MAKERS Money, Krawcheck is joined by Sally Thornton, founder of Forshay, to discuss raise negotiations.
During the episode, Krawcheck and Thornton provide a series of steps for women to prepare for that important conversation.
“If we have knowledge, the science actually shows that we negotiate better than men,” Thornton says.
Krawcheck spent nearly 30 years on Wall Street, holding high-level positions including CEO of sell-side research firm Sanford Bernstein, CEO of Smith Barney, CFO of Citigroup, and president of global wealth and investment management at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Earlier this month, feminist media brand MAKERS and Yahoo Finance launched “MAKERS Money,” a weekly show hosted by Krawcheck that features advice for women from top female financial experts.
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(Editing by Julia La Roche)
