Ask What They Earn

The taboo on talking about pay benefits one side only: while colleagues do not know each other's figures, each of them bargains alone and blind. In Sweden incomes are public on request from the tax agency — and people still keep quiet.

Choose someone in your profession you are not directly competing with: a former colleague, an acquaintance at another firm, a friend with the same job title. Ask them straight, in a message or in person, with no softening jokes: what do you earn, and what is it made of — base, bonus, holiday pay, what the employer covers. Give your own figure first, before they answer; without that the conversation turns into an interrogation. Ask three more things: when they last got a rise, how they got it, and what they would ask for in your position. Write down what you heard immediately, before your memory smooths the figures in a comfortable direction.

Usually one of two things comes out: you are paid noticeably less — which brings anger, useful if aimed at the conversation with your employer rather than at your colleague; or more — which brings awkwardness, with which you do exactly one thing: neither boast nor apologise. The conversation almost always goes easier than expected: the other person carries the same taboo and the same relief when it is broken. If they refuse to answer, do not push — give your own figure anyway and leave the subject open; people often come back to it a day or two later. And do not retell what you heard to third parties: the trust in such a conversation rests entirely on that.