As an assistant, you're likely underpaid relative to what you do, and part of the reason is that assistants are collectively bad at asking.
Not because you lack nerve. It's just that you spend your days making other people's lives easier, and asking for more money feels self-serving. The service-heart that makes you good at this work can make it difficult to initiate the conversations that get you paid more.
This guide is about the tactics, which are learnable, but also about the root underneath, which is a bit more challenging to combat, but worth digging into.
Separate your worth as a human being from your salary
This has to come first, because everything else fails without it.
Your rate is a function of your city, your industry, your executive's level, your company's size, your experience, and how well you have negotiated throughout your career. It isn't a measurement of your value as a person. To put it simply, you're a valuable human being no matter how much money you make.
Lynn Walder on detaching your worth from your work and Annie Croner on the same theme are two podcast conversations worth listening to, and neither is about money directly. They're about the thing that makes the money conversation feel dangerous.
I'd also check out the Detach test to see what's holding you back from leading well.
Kathleen Burns Kingsbury on money mindset is an episode that's about money directly, and it's a great place to start if you tend to talk yourself out of asking.
Find out what the number is
Most assistants who negotiate badly are negotiating blind. Before you make the ask, do the research. Find out what assistants in your industry are making.
Here are some great sources for real salary data:
- Job postings in your city, right now. Where the range is published, note it. Where it isn't, apply anyway, just to learn.
- Ask your peers. Uncomfortable at times, but 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.
- Salary surveys from real-world assistants. Alicia Fairclough and Yvette Lamb have done some amazing research on salary data and you can check out their reports at easalarysurvey.com.
Do the research before you need it. You don't always know when the conversation will come up, but you should be ready to ask for what you deserve.
Build the case out of scope, not effort
One mistake I've seen when asking for a raise is trying to use how hard you work as evidence for an increase. Everyone at your company works hard, or believes they do, so this isn't a weighty argument.
Another case to leave on the chopping block is your personal financial circumstances. You're not going to get far asking for a raise because you need the extra cash to pay for your kid's college tuition, or to cover an unexpected home repair.
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 and/or is not currently on your job description
- Decisions you now make without checking
- People or budgets you're responsible for (again, that are not on your job description)
- 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 – significantly. You just need to document the change.
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 a great episode on this topic to check out. There's also a super helpful session replay inside the premium library here that is worth the entry price alone.
The conversation
Book it separately. Not in a one-to-one, not at the end of a review. A meeting whose subject is clear, so nobody is surprised and neither of you is watching the clock.
Name a number. "I'd like to talk about moving to X per year" 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. This isn't some far out, unrealistic number, but a number you can justify with the updated scope you're presenting.
Then stop talking. The silence after the ask is uncomfortable and it's doing work. Most people lose thousands of dollars filling it.
Ask for it in writing afterwards. Whatever the answer – get it in writing, or it's not real.
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 those questions, that itself is the answer. Maybe it's time to move to an organization that has a career path for assistants.
Get a date. "Let's revisit in six months" with a meeting on the calendar is a real outcome. Without a date it's a polite ending.
Ask what else is available. Phone stipend, training budget, WFH 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 a salary adjustment.
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 often by moving.
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 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, stock options, 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
The resources that go the deepest on this topic are in the Premium Membership library. Here are the sessions on this topic, and they're members-only, so the links below will ask you to subscribe / sign in to view:
- 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, Jeremy Burrows, and Al-Husein Madhany
- How to Build Confidence and Negotiate for What You Deserve – the confidence half and the asking half, together in one session
- Compensation, Titles, and Job Descriptions, Part 1 and Part 2 – how the three move together, and why focusing on 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
- How to Know When It's Time to Move On – for after the second no
If you set your own rates as an individual contractor, rather than a salary, Price Like a Pro, with Melissa Smith is a great session to start with.
If you want a one-stop, on-demand resource from a professional negotiation coach for assistants, I recommend enrolling in The Assistant's Guide to Making More Money online course which guides you through the entire negotiation process, including video walkthroughs, email templates and more. Odds are you'll make much more than your investment back, like many assistants have who have applied the tactics in the course.
Lastly, I'm available for 1:1 coaching to help you negotiate job offers, salary increases, and more. Check out my coaching services here.