Are you getting what you’re worth at work? Probably not. Yesterday I spoke with WABC about a new report that shows men outearn women in nearly every major U.S. market. In many places the gap is more than 100%! Yet, at the same time, a recent study by Catalyst has challenged the myth that women “don’t ask” for promotions and raises. They found that some women do in fact ask– they just aren’t offered as much in return. How can you reconcile this information and do your best to close your own pay gap? Here are some my tips:

• Choose to negotiate. Although there has been new research challenging the notion that women don’t ask for raises, it’s my experience coaching women and particularly millennial women that they are still hesitant to ask for more money or benefits. The biggest improvement most women can make is choosing to negotiate in the first place.
• Gather your arsenal. You need to research the going rate for your contributions. Look at sites like salary.com and glassdoor.com to get comps for what you should be making. Also, practice your pitch. Do a mock conversation with a friend or mentor to build confidence– and brainstorm responses to inevitable counterarguments.
• Quantify your Accomplishments. Never focus on why you need a raise, but instead why you’ve earned it. Be ready to list all your accomplishments in a manner that matters to management. Instead of simply naming what you did, describe the results. What customers or $$$ did you bring to the company? How did you directly contribute to the bottom line?
• Think like a tiger mom. Research has shown that women feel much more comfortable asking for things when negotiating on behalf of someone else– as would an agent, or a mom negotiating for her child! Visualize and think, how would you make a case for them? Then, take your own advice!
• Take “No” for “not now.” We often hear, ‘don’t take no for an answer’– but that’s not very practical advice when it comes to an employment situation and you need the job! If your boss turns down the raise, use the opportunity to get real feedback about what you can do to get a yes next time. Say, “It would really help my future efforts to know what, specifically, I can do to earn this raise.” Get your boss to commit to a timeline of when she’ll reconsider– and follow up in 3, 6, 9 months, etc.

I had the pleasure to recently attend and speak at the Corporate Council Women of Color Conference.  It was an amazing, empowering event geared toward women attorneys at top firms and in-house at Fortune 1000 companies. Over the course of two days, leading legal and human resources executives presented on topics from transitioning in your career to negotiating a raise to understanding body language cues when networking. (I had a fun job: presenting a fashion show of stylish work looks in conjunction with Saks Fifth Avenue). Here are ten great nuggets of wisdom heard–and overheard–at the conference that I think all GGGs can appreciate:

1. On negotiating salary: You make the case for getting a raise everyday– or not– through your actions and attitude at the workplace.
2. Usually, the mentor chooses the mentee– not the other way around.
3. Sitting on a corporate or non-profit board is an unparalleled opportunity to network with leaders in your field.
4. Raise your profile in your industry by speaking on panels or conferences twice a year. The more high profile, the better. Bonus points if your picture is prominently featured in the program.
5. Continually ask yourself these two guiding questions about your job as you move through your career: 1) Am I happy? 2) Is this good for me? If the answer is no, then you need to make some changes.
6. Just shaking hands with someone establishes the equivalent level of rapport as if you’d spent three hours of face-to-face time with that person. — Patti Wood, body language expert
7. When shaking hands, the most important thing is palm-to-palm contact. Extend your hand at a slight diagonal angle, as if you are landing a plane– instead of perpendicular to the floor. (from Patti Wood)
8. Not really a career tip but very useful: The best oil for cooking at high heat is grapeseed oil (who knew?), but it can infuse your cooking with the grapeseed flavor. Next best option is canola. The best pans? All-Clad — from Chef Jeff, cooking personality and author of Cooked
9. Within a corporation, titles can be deceiving. Learn and get to know the real decisionmakers.
10. On work-life balance: If you want to get married and have kids, but don’t see women at the top of your organization that have the life you envision, then you don’t want to be at that company!

A really interesting post on Huffington Post yesterday proposed that journalism schools should close down. The writer, Richard Sine, argued that in essence, journalism school is a waste of money and a bit of a fraud: Students are paying up to $70,000 a year for what amounts to vocational training they could get on-the-job, and so-called media contacts with professors that are former journalists who are really no longer in the media mix.  Not to mention the fact that the newly minted MS’s have little shot of actually getting a job, as newsrooms and editorial staffs are cutting jobs left and right. 

The article, I think, also speaks a to a larger conversation about the cost-benefit of advanced degrees nowadays. Going to grad school has somewhat been in fashion for some time now.  Let’s face it, for as many Gen Xers and Gen Yers that pursue advanced degrees because they have “always wanted to be” X profession, there are scores more who go to grad school because 1) their parents really wanted them to; 2) they’re not sure what they want to do; and/or 3) they want to take a “break” from (or postpone) the work world.  Clearly if you want to be a doctor or lawyer or other traditional “profession”, you do need a specialized degree and training– but as many Go-Getter Girls shared for the book and in recent conversation, what happens if you decide later on that the career you got the degree for isn’t the career you really want? 

As many have discovered, grad school isn’t always the answer– especially when it comes to following your professional dreams. Sometimes the experience you gain in the field is better than any degree (one of my fave chapters in the book is “The best education is self-education”). Sometimes if you just work a little harder and get more aggressive, you can find the job you want without going back to school to get the right “contacts.” Sometimes, as one wise GGG told me, just doing a few informational interviews or spending a few days interning with people who actually work in the profession you are thinking of going to school for can teach you more than years-worth of an academic curriculum– and save you a lot of money in the process! Point is, whether its journalism school, law school, medical school, or another program, it’s always good to evaluate the potential ROI– return on investment. 

What do you think? When is grad school worth the investment?

Dr. Linda Babcock, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, is a preeminent scholar on women and negotiation. If you haven’t already purchased her books Women Don’t Ask and Ask for It, cowritten with journalist Sara Laschever, they should be in your Amazon cart right now.  A few months back I chatted with Dr. Babcock for The Go-Getter Girl’s Guide, and here are a few of the fantastic insights she shared about overcoming self-doubt and taking the most important step in a negotiation– that is, choosing to negotiate at all.

How did you become passionate about studying women and negotiation?

I always considered myself a feminist, though I’d never done any studies in the area of feminine studies. But then I had experiences with my [female] graduate students and saw how when they didn’t ask for or get a certain professional opportunity, it held them back for long time.  It struck me that asking for one opportunity could have such a big impact on their careers.

Why are women plagued with such self doubt when it comes to asking for things career-wise?

Men learn early on to deal with rejection.  When they play little league baseball, they might hear from a coach, “If you never get thrown out, you’re not stealing enough bases. You should get thrown out.”  Boys learn the benefits to risk taking—and it’s really reinforced lots of any ways. When the coach says ‘yes steal that base!’ and it turns out well, the boy gets rewarded. And even if it turns out badly, the coach and teammates might say ‘good try’. It’s all positive reinforcement around risk taking– and it’s those messages that we’re not really conscious of that [may enable one] to get over feelings of self-doubt.

Also, so much of self doubt is about whether I deserve the things I want– entitlement. ‘Do I really feel like I deserve it?’ And women doubt that so much more than men.

How can women begin to shed those tendencies?

I think practice is really key. In the new book, Ask for It, we include a  negotiation “gym”:  Six weeks of exercises to go negotiate different things in the world. It really opens your eyes about what’s possible to negotiate. It’s interesting because women feel pretty comfortable negotiating things for our kids and families all the time. By practicing negotiating [in other spheres], you can develop the same confidence and skills as you would for something personal or at home.

How easy is it for you to negotiate these days?

You know, I actually did an op-ed column for New York Times a few months back, and I wrote about a situation that happened to me. All my colleagues that were hired the same time as me were all getting promoted to full professer, and I was thinking and complaining, ‘why am I not being promoted?’ I got all crabby with my husband. Then I realized, I need to just go in and say ‘I need to be promoted,’ and sure enough, [my boss] agreed that I should be on the same promotion schedule as my colleagues.  I was just like oh my god, why didn’t I ask sooner? It kind of reinforced this issue that women really need to think about what we want, instead of accepting the world as it comes to us.

Visit Linda and Sara’s websites at www.womendontask.com and www.askforit.org.