Doubling My Salary and Reaching “Senior” Status by Age 25

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Everyone wants to make more money. We’re all aware we can’t “buy” happiness, but financial stability is an undeniable factor in how happy we are day to day. If you’re worrying about paying your bills, or even if you can pay those bills but don’t see how you can possibly save up enough to reach your other goals, you’re probably not as happy as you could be. There’s a ton of fantastic content out there about budgeting and saving and making your income work. But I want to talk about how we can increase the other end of the equation. How do we set ourselves on a path that leads to a higher income? I’ve managed to double the salary I started with at 22, and reach a “Senior” title, all by age 25. Some of that was definitely luck, but there are some things I did along the way that were very deliberate.

Consider Entry-Level Positions Outside of Major Metro Areas

When I graduated from my university, I had a B.A. that I really enjoyed getting. The classes were interesting, I liked my professors, and I felt I had grown a lot as a person in those four years. However, It really wasn’t the sort of major that made my CV particularly marketable. I was fortunate enough to have parents who were willing to house me after my graduation, which they patiently did for months while I applied to countless entry level positions in various metro areas. Interviewers weren’t exactly breaking down my door. The truth was, for every position I applied to in a major city, there were 40-140 other recent grads vying for the exact same job. I had a few interviews, but I always knew by the time they ended that I wouldn’t be hearing back unless about 15 other applicants dropped out of the race, or died.

Then, I applied to an entry level position in my small hometown of a few thousand people. I wasn’t qualified for this at all, in a technical sense. I might as well have been applying to be an entry-level Mandarin translator without knowing a single character of that language’s alphabet.

How did I get this job? For one, I went from fighting with 95 other applicants, to probably winning out against maybe 15 applicants. Most of those folks wouldn’t have had a degree, one of the few non-negotiable required qualifications. Second, since the town I grew up in is so small, I actually managed to use a network connection from high school, and one of the other managers ended up referring me to my eventual boss. My resume didn’t look great, I was out of my league skill-wise, and frankly my interview was the worst I’d ever had on my part. Still, I received the offer within a couple of days.

Know how to talk to people

So you get the job, but how do you rise from there? To start, you need to know how to read a room. Not everyone was happy about management’s decision to hire me. I knew it wasn’t personal. There had been a ton of turnover in my department and people were tired of training new hires, knowing they had no intention of sticking around long-term (guilty as charged). I learned who I needed to approach with humility, and I also learned the importance of being honest and asking your questions right when they come up.

This period was super scary and frustrating for me, and starting your first job doesn’t need to feel that way. Just know that, in the beginning, you’re not expected to have all the answers (whether your degree relates to your field or not), and acting like you do is a really great way to annoy your new coworkers. Like, a lot. Take it slow in the beginning and be honest with your team.

Your whole career, of course, isn’t going to be about knowing how not to upset those around you. Once you get your feet under you, it’s actually pretty important to establish your voice in the office and let everyone know that you really do know what you’re talking about, and you won’t let them steamroll over you. You’ll need to know when it’s time to lay down the law (read my post on responding to inbox garbage here).

Advocate for your advancement

It took me one year to reach my first promotion, which came with a 25% raise. This promotion was expected for all new hires in my position who performed to a certain standard. I had multiple check ins with my boss that first year, both formal and informal. Each time I managed to work in a question of whether I was on track to “potentially” reach that promotion on my one year work anniversary. The “potentially” is important, because no manager will want to accidentally commit to something three months in advance. Your performance could drop in the meantime, nixing the promotion.

Each time I asked she would look for a roundabout, non committal way to tell me that I was on track. It’s frustrating to not get a straight answer, but know that that’s really the best you’ll get until it’s time to put pen to paper and change your job title. Just keep asking. At the very least, it shows your manager that you are ambitious and serious about your job. It’s also an opportunity to get really useful performance feedback.

Know when to walk away (and know when to run)

Three years in to my time at that position, I was looking for something more. I wasn’t as satisfied with my work as I once was, and I was getting tired of my boss’s micromanaging. That said, I was also about to become eligible for promotion to senior status. The promotion would have come with a raise equivalent to about 12% of my original entry level income, bringing me to a total percentage gain of 37% over three years.

The time for our annual individual performance reviews was rolling around, and I started to hear rumblings that a couple of my coworkers (hired within months of me) had been approached about moving up a level. I patiently waited for that phone call where I would hear similar good news and learn my next steps to prepare for a higher position and more responsibility. The reviews drew closer. Those coworkers were sent to leadership classes. I wasn’t.

I obviously realized that I would not be getting the promotion or the raise. Full transparency, it was probably mostly my fault that I didn’t move up the chain. I really hadn’t communicated to my boss how important that advancement was to me. I had grown comfortable and treated it like a forgone conclusion. Of course I would reach senior status. Learn from my fail: treat every opportunity like glass.

At the same time, my partner and I were talking about making a change and moving across the country for personal reasons. I changed my LinkedIn settings and started fielding messages and emails from recruiters almost daily. Within a month or so I was corresponding with the recruiter who eventually led me to my next position. I walked in to my annual performance review, and I gave them my two weeks. I can honestly tell you it was the most enjoyable meeting of my life.

Don’t get too emotional about leaving

If you stay in a position for a few years, chances are you’ll have at least one friend at work that you genuinely enjoy seeing every day. If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself stressing about leaving them to deal with your absence. You’ll worry that you’ve created more work for your friends.

Know that those people are going to be ok without you. Also, you will eventually find other people in your other office that you enjoy working with. And, since this is the 21st century, you can stay in touch with them! I talk to my old coworkers all the time. We still tell each other office gossip, and talk about our real lives outside of work. I still get to see baby pictures and videos of dogs falling off couches. It’s not exactly the same, but it is definitely ok, and you’ll be ok too.

On the other hand, if you’re at all worried about how leaving will affect your boss, you need to stop that immediately, for the love of God. If they’re taking your notice personally, they deserve that. If they cared about you they would be happy to see you advancing in your career. Are they happy? No? They don’t care about you. Don’t care about them.

One Linkedin message launched me on a nearly 6 month journey to my current position. It’s a story I very much expect to tell in detail through this blog,. In the meantime, know that it ends with me finally in that senior-level position, working for people who respect me, making -significantly- more money than I ever would have in that small town. Double my original salary, as it so happens, for a total gain of 51% annually. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t advance. It can be done, if you know when to make the moves.

Love yourself, love your coworkers, and don’t take any crap. As always, you can email this queen at Queen@emailqueens.com

So Your Coworker Stole Your Idea

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“Is there an echo in here?”

It’s common and it’s sad. You reply to an email thread or speak up at a meeting: “I think we should also consider issue X. That could be a big problem next quarter if we don’t nip it in the bud now.” Maybe you get some nods across the room, maybe you get radio silence on the email thread. In the end you don’t hear about an action plan. No one seems alarmed, and life continues on as usual.
Fast-forward circa six weeks and it starts hitting the fan. Inboxes are overflowing and iPhones are vibrating violently across desktops. Some man in a grey suit proclaims from his 30th story corner office window: “ISSUE X IS ON FIRE! FIX IT!” Worker bees, usually including you, are buzzing around into the wee hours to save the company from issue x. If only someone had been clever enough to foresee this calamity!
Next Monday the emails will go out- “Team, how was this missed? How can we avoid working 14 hours straight on a Thursday in the future?” And you’ll sit there in your carefully curated work wardrobe and seethe.

IDK Supervisor, some things are just beyond our control and stuff.

We’ve all been there. For me, this scene recently manifested itself as a male coworker asking the exact same person for the exact same follow up as I had, in an equally direct message. He received an immediate positive response whereas I had been waiting for any response at all for days. This baffled and offended me.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen this particular brand of trash work behavior affect my colleagues many times before. I work in IT, and white middle-aged males occupy the majority of senior management positions. The trickle down effect may not work in economics, but it definitely works with inequity. So, Leadership consistently trusts and values male voices above female voices, so what’s a woman in her mid-twenties looking to advance in her career to do?

Stop the cycle

The first order of business is to get annoying. If you bring up issue x, and everyone looks at you like they’re sipping Mai Tais on the beach in their heads, don’t you dare let it go. For one, you know when it blows up in everybody’s faces that you’ll at least have to take part in the clean up effort. You’ll likely end up having to fix the whole situation yourself, which usually also means you’ll be blamed for the mess in the first place. Not today, Satan. You should bring issue x up to your direct supervisor at least three times before you let it be.

I’ll admit, if you bring it forward on three separate occasions and there’s no action taken at all, issue x is probably a lost cause and the FEMA-level cleanup is inevitable. But at least if someone else (ahem, a dude, cough) brings it up after that third time, it is much more likely your supervisor and team will remember that you already beat the horse to death before he could get to it. He’s much less likely to get away with stealing your idea. You get extra points if you can document these efforts in group emails. That way it will be plain as day to all that solving issue x was initially your brainchild and no one else’s. Sometimes, and only sometimes, it pays to be annoying.

Second, when you see this happening to your female coworkers, do not be complicit and let the moment pass without calling it out. This doesn’t have to be rude or confrontational. Try a simple “Anna said that during last week’s meeting, didn’t you Anna? Am I remembering that right?” This gives your coworker the chance to reclaim her own work before it is snatched up by whatever mediocre guy is either consciously or subconsciously trying to pass it off as his own.

You gotta love yourself first, hunny

Most importantly of all, be the same advocate for yourself as you would be for a coworker. It’s perfectly acceptable to stand up for yourself. When someone repeats your own thoughts back to you, react. Say that you suggested issue x be addressed weeks ago, and you’re glad to see the team/coworker/mediocre guy agrees with you. Suggest that you all start talking about next steps.

If that guy is taking your ideas subconsciously, he should have no problem with that approach and will gladly work with you to avoid disaster. If he’s consciously presenting your work as his own and hoping you’d say nothing and let it go, he’ll be embarrassed, as he very much should be.

A woman with a plan

When you follow my recommendation to make yourself at least slightly annoying, your worst case scenario is that your three comments are ignored and the whole situation you tried to avoid implodes in a few week’s time. You’ll have to fix what you tried tried to correct in the first place. Then, you get the email- “How could this have been avoided?”. And then, you reply.

“Hey Supervisor, I actually did point this out a few weeks ago (see attached). We can definitely discuss how to work this into our project plan next time to avoid future mishaps. I have a plan for that (also attached). Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks”

And suddenly, it seems like a really, really good idea to listen to you a little more closely next time.

Value yourself, value your coworkers, and don’t take any crap. As always, you can reach me at Queen@emailqueens.com.

xx The Email Queen

Rude Emails and How to Deal

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(Even when you’re terrified)

“What job am I interviewing for again?” I’m 22, newly graduated with a BA in a basically unusable liberal arts major, and I’m 30 minutes into my first real job interview. The hiring manager’s office is dark and there’s a cloying smell of mildew in the air. I’d later realize that this smell came from the manager herself, and not the office.

It may seem unbelievable but yes, I truly did not know what job I was interviewing for, I really did ask her that, and I really did get that job. I was with that organization for three and a half long years, and I did well there. I did well in spite of my total lack of applicable background, my somewhat disastrous interview, and my completely unpredictable boss (we’ll call her Mildew). I’ve since left that organization and moved on to a better position, but it’s hard to look back on my first months as a young professional. I’m not saying that I did anything wrong, but I made my fair share of missteps.

The truth is, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing 99% of the time. I’m not talking about my technical performance here. Every new job comes with some sort of learning curve, and naturally it takes time to learn the ropes of your new responsibilities. I’m talking about navigating the interpersonal minefield of the workplace as a young female professional.

What’s Holding Us Back?

Young women making our way in today’s world have a lot stacked against us, and I don’t think there’s a single area of life where those factors impact us as constantly or as dramatically as the workplace. Whether you’re entry-level, or you’ve started advancing up the ladder of your career, there’s so many social trapdoors in the office. Most of the time, a man of comparable age, background, and qualifications would never have to consider these potential hurdles.

What we’re facing here is an absolute epidemic of self-doubt. The average twenty-something female struggles socially in the workplace because she doesn’t believe at her core that she is worth better than what she’s getting. I certainly didn’t for years, and I hear the same paralyzing fear in every email I read from a coworker that starts out with “Maybe I missed something…”. You didn’t miss anything, and you probably know that. You are worth a better response than that, especially if the email you’re replying to is getting a little personal. If you’re ever in a situation where you need to respond to rude emails from coworkers or even a superior, there’s a right way.

Hope Springs Eternal

This brings me back to my first boss, Mildew. My initial thoughts upon being hired by her ran along the lines of, “Great! I’m working for a woman! She’ll understand what it’s like to be me.” She did not understand what it was like to be me. She was actually a horrible micromanager. She was so insecure that she started telling me who I was and was not allowed to email (a directive that not a single male counterpart was ever given, even when they emailed the same people I did).

I was almost two years into my position when that happened. I’d never had any negative feedback on a performance review. I’d never been given a reason to believe I needed any remediation from her. One day there was simply a list of people I could only email if I CC’d her, and another list of people I couldn’t email at all. If I wanted to reach them, no problem! Just send the communication to Mildew and she’d send it on. Much obliged.

If I Could Turn Back Time…

I received that communication from Mildew and I did what I think most 23 year old women in a saturated job market would do. I sat on it and I stewed. It didn’t take long to decide that I would absolutely not funnel completely appropriate and necessary emails through her. Instead, I would continue emailing whoever I needed to in order to do my job, and if it was such an issue she could formalize it in my employee file upon my next performance review. So I continued emailing, and I never heard another thing about it. What I didn’t do, however, was stand up for myself. Here’s what I would do today, and what I would encourage myself to do if I could reach back through the folds of time and whisper in my own ear:

“Hey Mildew, I’m a little concerned by your email. I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the project for me to not directly contact the vendor. Let’s discuss this more in person. Thanks.”

I can absolutely, 100%, on my very life guarantee to you that she would die before bringing that up to me in person.

So what stopped me from sending that email?

  1. Fear of failure
  2. Fear of rejection
  3. Socialized belief that I am particularly expendable as a woman
  4. That’s probably it, which is staggering

This story is just a small example of how I let others degrade me by not taking myself seriously in those first few years of my workplace life. If I had started breaking down those seriously toxic beliefs about myself earlier on, I might have carried myself a little higher through this sort of total nonsense. If you want to know how to respond to rude emails from coworkers, here’s the best advice I can give you:

Responding to Inbox BS

  1. Don’t email angry. It might seem obvious, but our first reaction to workplace shenanigans is also usually our worst reaction. I can’t tell you how many four letter words I have wanted to embed into the text of an email. It might seem satisfying in the moment, but the 90 minute kumbaya meeting with HR will be significantly less so. Give yourself at least the amount of time it takes to drink a cup of coffee before you respond to something truly heinous.
  2. Think about the main reason you find the email unreasonable.
    Chances are, there’s about fifty separate things in the email that annoy you. If you want your response to have the most impact possible, you should pick your top issue with it and explain why it’s not working for you. Is it the tone of the email? Is the author totally missing the point of the email they replied to? Find what you most want to change about the garbage you just read.
  3. Just say it. Yup, just tell them what you think. Stop getting in your head about what the consequences might be. The key is to give that feedback respectfully and in good faith, with genuine intention to move the conversation in a helpful direction. If you do that, there’s very little anyone can say about it. Even writing “Hey Jim Bob, I’m uncomfortable with the tone of your previous email. Let’s continue this discussion with a third party present”, is always an option if what you’ve just read is 10/10 unacceptable (be sure to CC management in that case).

We need to kill the voice in our heads telling us that we’ll be lectured/fired/flogged for being honest with our coworkers. I can guarantee you that our male counterparts are not suffering in silence in the workplace, so why should we? On the plus side, you’ll be amazed how addicting this approach is. I don’t enjoy getting emails that frustrate me, but I’m consistently proud of how I respond to them. I don’t have to fear any coworker interaction anymore because I trust myself to handle it if it goes south. You’ll also be amazed how much respect you earn in your supervisor’s eyes for communicating effectively in difficult situations. Give it a try and report your findings back to me at Queen@emailqueens.com.

xx The Email Queen