The Women and Gender Resource Center held a salary negotiation seminar on Monday as one of three “Smart Start” seminars that they will hold this semester. The program, led by women from both the Women and Gender Resource Center and the Career Center, is part of the American Association of University Women’s curriculum that covers salary negotiation.

Justice Grant, a senior majoring in management, said she attended the seminar to prepare for her future in the workforce. 

“I really just wanted to get more information, since I am graduating in May, about negotiation, and the proper way to negotiate salary and benefits,” Grant said. “Based off my skills and stuff, I want to make sure I know the proper salary and benefits that correlate with that.”

Grace Turner, a junior majoring in public relations and international studies, echoing Grant, said, “I’m currently applying for internships and in the interview process, and so this is just helpful to figure out how much I should make in those and upon my graduation a year from now.”

The program covered the four basic steps to salary negotiation: knowing your value, benchmarking your salary and benefits, knowing your strategy, and practicing your approach. The seminar also included information about the gender pay gap and how budgeting should inform one’s desired salary.

Grant said she found the information to be uniquely valuable and that it would be beneficial to students of any gender. 

“I learned a lot of information I wouldn’t have known beforehand,” Grant said. “This is the only [seminar] that I actually knew of that taught this, so it’s very beneficial, especially since I’m graduating in May.”

Paige Miller, program coordinator for the Women and Gender Resource Center, noted the variety of programs offered by the Women and Gender Resource Center.

“We call this week ‘Pay Equity Week,’ so we have some tabling that’s happening where we’re giving out gender pay facts at the Ferguson Center, and then on Thursday the sixteenth at noon we’re having sort of a panel of women mid-way through their career, so they can give some advice to other women…,” Miller said. 

As for the Smart Start seminars, Miller confirmed they would continue.

“We’ve been doing it, I don’t know exactly how many years, but several years,” she said. “… We try to do at least three a semester. So we did one in January, the one today, and then we’re doing one on April 10.”

Those interested in the next Smart Start seminar should email Paige Miller at [email protected] to reserve a spot.