Assistants are, as a group, underpaid relative to what they actually do, and part of the reason is that we're collectively bad at asking.
Not because assistants lack nerve. Because the job selects for people who make other people's lives easier, and asking for money is the opposite of that reflex. Every instinct that makes someone good at this work argues against the conversation that gets them paid for it.
So this is a guide about the mechanics, which are learnable, and about the part underneath, which is harder.
Separate your worth from your rate
This has to come first, because everything else fails without it.
Your rate is a market fact. It's a function of your city, your industry, your executive's level, your company's size, and how well you negotiated the last time. It isn't a measurement of your value as a person, and it isn't a verdict your employer has passed on you.
Lynn Walder on detaching your worth from your work and Annie Croner on the same theme are the two conversations I send people to most often, and neither is about money directly. They're about the thing that makes the money conversation feel dangerous.
Kathleen Burns Kingsbury on money mindset is the one that's about money directly, and it's the episode to start with if you find yourself talking yourself out of asking.
Find out what the number actually is
Most assistants negotiating badly are negotiating blind.
Published salary data is a starting point, not an answer. The ranges are wide, the titles are inconsistent – "executive assistant" covers a role supporting a team lead at a startup and a role supporting a Fortune 100 CEO – and the data is usually a year behind.
Better sources, in order:
- Recruiters who place assistants. They know current numbers because they're closing on them this month. Sivan Joss runs a search firm for assistants, and this is exactly the kind of person worth a twenty-minute conversation even when you're not looking.
- Job postings in your city, right now. Where the range is published, note it. Where it isn't, apply anyway sometimes, just to learn.
- Peers, asked directly. Uncomfortable, and by far the most accurate. The assistants who know what they're worth almost always belong to a group where people say numbers out loud.
- Your own company's bands, if it publishes them, or your HR team if it doesn't.
Do this before you need it. Finding out what you should be earning during the week you're asking for a raise is too late.
Build the case out of scope, not effort
The mistake is arguing from how hard you work. Everyone at your company works hard, or believes they do, so it isn't an argument that moves anyone.
The argument that works is scope: what you own now that you didn't own when your pay was set.
Write down, with specifics:
- Work you've taken on that used to belong to someone more senior
- Decisions you now make without checking
- People or budgets you're responsible for
- Things that would break if you left for a month
- What the company would pay to replace what you do now, not what you were hired to do
The last one is the whole argument in a sentence. Your pay was set against a job description. Your case is that the job has changed.
This is also where business acumen pays off directly. An assistant who can talk about their contribution in the language the company uses for value is having a different conversation from one who lists tasks – Maggie Olson on building financial acumen in your role is the practical route in.
The conversation
Book it separately. Not in a one-to-one, not at the end of a review. A meeting whose subject is this, so nobody is surprised and neither of you is watching the clock.
Name a number, and name it first. "I'd like to talk about moving to X" beats "I was hoping for a bit more." If you're wrong about the number you'll find out in the next sentence, which is useful. If you leave it open, the range gets set by the person with the budget.
Anchor above your target, within reason. Not a stunt – a number you can justify with the scope list you just wrote.
Then stop talking. The silence after the ask is uncomfortable and it's doing work. Most people lose several thousand dollars filling it.
Ask for it in writing afterwards. Whatever the answer.
When the answer is no
It often is, the first time, and how you handle the next five minutes matters more than the no does.
Ask what would make it a yes. Specifics: what scope, what result, what timeframe. If nobody can answer, that itself is the answer.
Get a date. "Let's revisit in six months" with a meeting in the calendar is a real outcome. Without a date it's a polite ending.
Ask what else is available. Title, training budget, flexibility, extra leave, a conference, a formal promotion path. Some of these come out of different budgets and are easier to say yes to than salary.
Notice the pattern. One no is a budget cycle. A second no with no path attached is information about how this company values the role, and the fastest way assistants get paid properly is very often by moving. Going in prepared helps – how to confidently craft a resume that stands out covers the first step of that.
If you're being hired
A few things that consistently cost assistants money:
Don't name the first number if you can avoid it. "What's the range for this role?" is a complete, professional answer to being asked your expectations.
Never anchor on your current salary. If you've been underpaid for three years, that number is the problem you're trying to solve, not the baseline.
Negotiate once, at the offer. That's the moment of maximum leverage and it doesn't come back. An extra few thousand at the offer compounds through every percentage rise that follows.
Ask about the whole package. Bonus structure, reviews, how increases are decided, whether there are bands at all. The answers tell you as much about the company as the number does.
Where the depth is
Being honest about this one: the public podcast archive is thinner on pay than on almost anything else I've written a guide about. It comes up constantly inside other conversations and rarely gets an episode of its own.
The material that goes deeper is in the Premium Membership library. These are the sessions on this topic, and they're members-only – the links below will ask you to sign in:
- The Truth About EA Salary Data – where the published numbers come from, and why they're so often wrong for your situation
- Why Your Salary Isn't Enough – with Bonnie Low-Kramen
- How to Build Confidence and Negotiate for What You Deserve – the confidence half and the asking half, together
- Compensation, Titles, and Job Descriptions, Part 1 and Part 2 – how the three move together, and why arguing about one alone rarely works
- How to Negotiate During a Recession – for when "there's no budget" is actually true
- How to Prepare for (and Crush) Your Annual Performance Reviews – the meeting where next year's number is often really decided
- Professional Development Business Case Letter Template – a template for asking your company to pay for something
- How to Know When It's Time to Move On – for after the second no
If you set your own rates rather than a salary, Price Like a Pro, with Melissa Smith is the one to start with.
I'd rather point you there than pretend this page is the whole answer.