Navigating a Career in Law Librarianship
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Janeen Williams
Early-career law librarians should always negotiate initial salary offers to ensure financial security and future job satisfaction. New librarians have barriers in salary negotiation, but that should not deter them from asking for what they need and deserve. This chapter will present a review of literature on salary negotiation behavior and include suggestions for new law librarians on how to approach salary negotiation. The chapter begins with an overview of salary negotiation behavior differences between men and women. It continues with an overview of salary negotiation practices of librarians. The chapter concludes with best practices for salary negotiation for early-career law librarians.
- You should always negotiate starting offers.
- Identify your target salary range before you negotiate.
- Consider all compensation in addition to salary.
Salary NeGotiation
A modest increase in starting salary can have a substantial impact on the earnings of a worker throughout her career. This starting salary serves as the basis for future merit increases and promotions. By negotiating the starting salary, early-career librarians can attempt to raise their final offers by a few thousand dollars and can impact their financial security. Although studies differ in the amount that negotiation can raise the starting salary, studies support the proposition that the process of negotiation increases final salary offers.i
There are two types of factors that determine whether a worker is likely to negotiate: individual factors and structural factors.ii Individual factors are factors specific to the individual applicant. Extraversion, gender, age, and race are all individual factors. Personality is an individual factor that may be an indicator of the likelihood that an applicant will negotiate salary successfully.iii One study found that risk-averse personalities are less likely to be successful in salary negotiations because they are not willing to use one of the two negotiation strategies that consistently lead to increases in the final salary offer: collaborating and competing negotiation strategies.iv
In contrast, structural factors are contextual. Structural factors are not tied to a specific applicant but are instead more situational. These factors are related to power dynamics. They include the amount of the initial job offer and the number of other offers that the applicant has to leverage in the negotiations.v In general, the party with the most power has an advantage in the negotiation.vi The party that is more dependent on the job offer may be more reluctant to negotiate. For this reason, applicants who have multiple job offers are more likely to negotiate because they are less dependent on the one job offer.vii
Furthermore, studies have attempted to identify the reasons why applicants chose not to negotiate a salary offer. An applicant may choose not to negotiate if she believes the initial job