By Jennifer Marbley

The Start Smart workshop held in the William J. Raggio Building on campus helped attendees develop a personalized budget and learn salary negotiation techniques in a three-hour biannual workshop on Friday, Nov. 7. Students discovered that women are expected to make $1 million less than an equally qualified male over a lifetime, according to research conducted by the American Association of University Women. The workshop was sponsored by the Women are Getting Even Project and the AAUW.

The Start Smart workshop gave attendees financial worksheets and online resources designed to help them calculate budgets based on expenses. During the event, students learned how to find the average salary for a desired job and how to negotiate a wage based on their qualifications.

The UNR workshop also included a role-play practice session on salary negotiation techniques where one student played an employer and another acted as a potential hire. According to the AAUW, Start Smart primarily focuses on women, because they tend to negotiate less, which contributes to the wage gap.

The event had presentations from representatives in the AAUW and the WAGE Project. Sarah Blithe is a UNR communication studies professor who believes negotiating is an essential skill for young professionals. She was an organizer and facilitator for group discussions during the Start Smart workshop on campus. The workshop is mandatory for the class she teaches, COM422: Differences in Communication, where her students discuss gender and its relation to the wage gap. Blithe negotiated her salary for her current job and wants to teach young women the same skill.

“Women are not socialized to be negotiators,” Blithe said. “We get the label of bossy girls and boys are labeled as leaders.”

AAUW research considers contributing factors to wage gaps, such as education, experience, location and other variables that influence pay rates. However, there is still an unexplained 23 percent wage gap for white women, which increases for women of color. According to AAUW research, white women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, black women make 68 cents and Latina women make 57 cents compared to their equally qualified male counterparts. Because of union negotiations, Nevada’s pay rates are slightly more equal, with women earning 85 cents to every dollar a man earns.

Two of Blithe’s students, junior Michaela Wynn and senior Ashley Garcia, were among the event’s attendees. Wynn said that she would consider negotiating a salary if she thought that she was overqualified for a position. According to Wynn, she learned new tips for being successful in her future career. Wynn and Garcia participated in the role-playing salary negotiation practices and mapped out personal finances in the Start Smart workbooks handed out at the event.

“I didn’t know you could negotiate a [salary], Garcia said. “It’s not just a salary, I learned that you can negotiate benefits, vacation time you can take, or the transportation they can offer you, overtime and promotions.”

Students additionally learned that they could negotiate for more than a pay raise. Company benefits are also ways to negotiate. According to Blithe, dental insurance, pension plans, tuition reimbursement and stock options are all aspects of a job that students should consider when accepting a job offer. She encouraged students to do their research about a company and their benefits package to bargain salaries.

Garcia said that the workshop was helpful and that she’s more willing to negotiate a salary for a job she is qualified for due to the Start Smart workshop.

“We need to take the time to invest in ourselves,” Garcia said. “It’s a life skill that I don’t think a lot of students on campus are getting.”

Jennifer Marbley can be reached at jmarbley@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @MissMarbley.