How Much Are We Worth?
Job searching… It fills me with insecurity and anxiety. And yet, it also provided an invaluable learning moment.
I found myself interviewing for a job some time ago. The Zoom call starts with the interviewer going through logistics about the position, the process, the organization. Then, suddenly, she says “the salary for this position is in the X-Y range, does that fit within your expectations?” The number shocked me and evoked a confounding emotional reaction.
(Before getting into the gist, to satisfy any reader’s curiosity about the outcome — I didn’t do well; they were looking for someone with a specific set of experience which I don’t have. I was mildly disappointed, and then moved on.)
Why was I taken aback? The salary range was quite a bit higher than what I expected, and also beyond my own preferred salary range. When I heard that number, I almost gasped, and my heart rate increased. I felt anxious, which seems counterintuitive. Shouldn’t I be thrilled at the possibility of more than I would have hoped? No, my immediate thought was “what did I apply for? That position can’t be for me; it’s clearly for someone better / more senior / more capable / more experienced. I would never get it!”
I generally consider myself confident and self-aware. I don’t frequently experience self-doubt. And yet, at that moment my self-esteem plummeted. I was telling myself the story that I was not good enough, for no other reason than because of some arbitrary $$ number.
I remember that while I was preparing for the interview, I was excited. Based on my research and understanding, I thought I would be a great fit for this position, and that I could thrive within the larger organization. I didn’t think of myself as underqualified. And yet, hearing that number was all it took to go from “this is exciting, I can do this!” to “I am not good enough for this”.
This whole experience brought up heavy questions:
1) How do I determine how much I would like to receive?
2) How much do I need? How do I even know?
3) And if there’s a difference between the two, why is that?
4) What does it mean to be offered ‘less’ than I want?
5) What does it mean to be offered ‘more’ than I seek?
6) How much am I worth?
It turns out that I connect my self-worth to an arbitrary salary $$ number. Getting ‘less’ is not just about an inability to meet needs, but feels like a character affront. I want to scream back: I am more. I deserve more. Don’t disrespect me. And getting ‘more’ is not just about the comfort of having extra, or the supposed additional recognition, but about a little demon whispering in my ear: I am not smart / capable / good enough. I don’t deserve that much.
So my instinct is to run away. Run away from traditional employment. Run away from bargaining and negotiating numbers. Run away from HR departments lowballing potential employees. Run away from all the inequities, biases, power games of the modern workplace. Run away from feeling unappreciated, incomplete, flawed.
But in writing this I choose to stay, to sit with the discomfort, to explore what all of this means, to acknowledge and accept that I need to do more inner work. I don’t want some arbitrary number to define my self-worth. I want to learn a different way.
What about you?
Zarko strives to activate the potential of human systems — a small team, an organization, or a community — by unlocking individual and collective learning and transformation.
