Women need to sell themselves better, says recruiter

Women need to be more confident about promoting themselves, highlighting their skills and negotiating for what they are worth if they want to overcome perceptions of pay inequality, says the manager of a local recruitement firm.

Robert Half conducted an international survey recently and of those New Zealand women asked, 65 per cent thought men were paid more than women for doing the same job.

Senior manager Megan Alexander said this does not match with her experience, saying she does see employers discriminating against women this way.

She does, however "frequently see female candidates underselling themselves".

"What I do see is that women take themselves out of higher-paying jobs because of the other choices they make in their personal lives," she said. "As a result, fewer women than men tend to apply for higher-paying jobs."

Women often didn't "sell their skills" as effectively as men.

"I do think that women need to learn to sell themselves better ... they sell themselves short in a lot of instances, they don't talk about what they can bring to the role enough," said Alexander.

She said that during pay reviews, many women were not confident about asking what they needed to do to get a pay rise or advance their careers.

"Because they don't go in and ask and don't self-promote - they tend to hang back - that's when they don't get recognition," said Alexander.

Employers did have their part to play in communicating candidly with female employees about what their aspirations are, what their career paths could be, and what they need to do to achieve them, she said

"I think employers don't spend enough time doing that."

It is also important for women to get appropriate mentoring, from people who can help them balance their career and personal aspirations, so they don't have to compromise one for the other, she says.

Many organisations were missing out on a significant pool of talent by not investigating how some roles can be filled by people who wanted to job share, work flexible hours or sometimes work from home, said Alexander.

She said that even though she did not see pay discrimination happening, "perception is reality", and employers need to ensure that their processes are fair and seen to be fair.


To hear a Robert Half podcast on the topic, click here.


NZ HERALD STAFF