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Chapter Meeting Notes, Feb. 22, 2006: Negotiate your way to the right salary

By Suzanne Arist, Internal Communications Committee Member and Reference Librarian

"The idea that once the job is offered to the prospective employee the ‘power’ shifts to the employee is pretty damn empowering," quipped chapter member Howard Fisher in response to Leigh Estabrook’s speech at the Feb. 22 chapter meeting. And empowering the speech was.

The SLA Illinois Chapter met at the Union League to hear Dr. Estabrook, professor and former Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Director of the Library Research Center at UIUC. She initiated the highly regarded internet-based M.S. degree program at UIUC known as LEEP. And she has been involved in studies of the impact of the USA Patriot Act on libraries.

The title of her talk was "Librarians and Negotiation," but it focused on how librarians can negotiate salaries commensurate with their qualifications, always higher than employers’ offers. It is a topic she has been known to discuss with students in packed workshops, both scheduled and impromptu.

During the Feb. 22 program, Dr. Estabrook shared her rules of negotiation.

  1. Before negotiation, librarians should research and share information on their salaries, so they know what is appropriate for the job in question. Salary should no longer remain a taboo subject for librarians.
  2. Do not mention salary requirements when applying for a job.
  3. After receiving an offer, talk about salary. This is a point where the interviewee is empowered.
  4. Be cognizant that salary is part of a compensation package. An offer of $60,000 from one organization may be equivalent to an offer of $70,000 at another organization because of the benefits attached. Salary depends on the big picture.
  5. Remain calm, reasonable, and firm when discussing salary.
  6. Know that the first salary offer is seldom the highest an organization is willing to pay. Negotiate, negotiate.

About 90 people attended, including seven first time attendees. The program was organized by Priscilla Stultz, President Elect, of the SLA Illinois and Eugene Guidice. Library Associates sponsored the program.

A webcast of Dr. Estabrook’s "Salary Negotiation Workshop" at the University of Illinois can be heard at http://waterfall.lis.uiuc.edu/dl/classes/auditorium/estabrookdec05_05_1.ram (formatted for RealAudio).