Salary Story: I Got A $20,000 Pay Rise By Contracting — Then Even More By Switching Back

In our series Salary Stories, women with long-term career experience open up about the most intimate details of their jobs: compensation. It’s an honest look at how real people navigate the complicated world of negotiating, raises, promotions and job loss, with the hope it will give young people more insight into how to advocate for themselves — and maybe take a few risks along the way.

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Age: 32
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Current industry and job title: Information technology, product manager

Current salary: $130,232/year
Number of years employed since school or university: 10
Starting salary: $49,500/year

Biggest salary jump: $87,000 to $115,000. I converted from contracting to working directly at the same company.

Biggest salary drop: $54,000 to $48,500. I was let go from my first job and decided to make a career change. I was willing to take the small drop to start getting experience in the new field. Plus, it was with a Fortune 500 company.

Biggest negotiation regret: Despite having some insider information when I was converting from contract to full time (as I could access the company interweb and see some pay details for my level), I think I should have asked for more. HR and my boss didn’t bat an eye at my salary request (it was a 33% raise for me). Then, the next year, I received both a normal pay raise of 3.5% as well as a cost of living adjustment. Between the two, my salary increased by another 13%.

Best salary advice: If the company doesn’t want to pay you a reasonable rate, don’t go through contortions of convincing yourself you want the job anyways. Politely decline and keep looking.

My college degree was in accounting. I thought I didn’t want to interact much with people, so tax (versus audit) appealed to my introverted, shy nature. I was drawn to accounting as a nice, respectable career, coming from a lower income, non-college-educated family.

This was a career change after getting let go. I used unemployment benefits to take some classes, then worked through a contracting/consulting agency to find a job. They had a program for people just getting into the field. They paid slightly less than other contracting agencies I was also working with, but provided PTO and benefits as well as some training and support for one year. My contact was also with a Fortune 500 company, which was pretty uplifting and validating, given my previous job experience.

My previous one-year contract expired and was not renewed. I worked with several different recruiters to find a new role that paid well. I definitely still had no real clue what I was doing, except not getting myself stuck in jobs that seemed dead end and didn’t pay well. I had experience with finances and investing in college, which I think helped land this job at a Fortune 300 financial services company.

My contract expired after two years. Then they literally made me a really nice full-time offer (with more money) two hours after I accepted a contract role at a new company, a Fortune 100 retail company. I agonized about staying at the old company, but ultimately didn’t due to some team dynamics I never liked. I was also excited about exploring a new industry. I wasn’t ready to stop contracting yet.

After months of conversation with my to-be new boss, I finally converted from a contractor to full time. I had spent the last year proving myself in this role and taking on more responsibilities. What I think really accelerated it though was my original boss leaving and me then advocating to move departments. My new boss valued my skills and didn’t think about my background. Rather, he looked at how I was performing and what he’d value that at.

I didn’t really do anything for these, they were just company rises.

The current economy will make a promotion difficult for now, due to things like hiring freezes and tight budgets.

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