44- Be your own advocate: Tips for Closing the pay gap

What do you get when you put five powerful women in the commercial real estate market on the same stage? Valuable insight and advice on being a woman in the industry along with actionable take-aways to move your career to the next level. A recent Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) white paper stated that a 23.3% pay gap exists between women and their male counterparts in Commercial Real Estate.  How do women in the industry close the gap? Last week the Baltimore CREW Chapter answered this question at their Women of Influence luncheon in downtown Baltimore. The event featured a panel discussion moderated by Karen Pecoraro, and featuring Ruth Hoang, Michele Cohen, Christine Espenshade, and Laura Penza. One of the common themes shared during the event was to Be Your Own Advocate. Making this idea actionable is not always readily apparent to a young professional. This blog provides some steps you can take to bridge the gap between this advice and action that will further your career.

When asked what traits women should cultivate, every panel member shared their version of be your own advocate. Many young professionals, not only women, find it difficult to share their successes with others. However, that is exactly what is needed to get ahead in your career. Think back to biology class when you learned about fight or flight. Humans are hard-wired to think about themselves first and others second. It is a survival instinct. Another biological process is that you are more likely to remember situations when you felt particularly successful versus everyday moments because dopamine was released as part of the impactful event and your body responds to the positive feeling.  Put these two facts together and it is easy to understand why you remember your successes and contributions to your company and your supervisor doesn’t.

In order to move up in your position you need to remind others of your contributions to their success. The first step in being your own advocate and reminding others of your success is to recognize and record your successes.

Start with the 5:5 principle:

Take 5 minutes at the end of every week to list 5 things that you did to contribute to the success of your team, company, and/or clients. 

This may feel uncomfortable to you and worse, if you aren’t used to cataloging your success, you may believe that you haven’t had success that week. However, I promise you have.  Here are some steps to figure out what they are:

1. Think back on your work products. Did you get a report out or perform calculations for a project?
2. Reflect on your interactions with co-workers. Did you help someone move forward on their project or provide training? 
3. Consider your work directly with clients. Did you help them with a problem, or provide advice?

Documenting your success can be uncomfortable if you never work out of your comfort zone and repeat the exercise each week. Soon you’ll be able to recall and document weekly successes easily and you will have many to choose from when the time comes.

Another way to document your success is to keep your resume up to date. As you complete projects, add them to your resume along with a brief description of the value you added. For example, if you performed calculations for a project, use one or two sentences to give the reader a sense of the overall project and then state specifically which calculations you executed. While your work product is very important, ancillary achievements should also be included in your resume. Be sure to track internal and external awards you received, papers you authored or co-authored, and presentations you gave. The achievement part of your resume will always set you apart from the crowd.

The second step of being your own advocate is choosing when and how to remind others of your contributions. There are three times that are well suited to share your accomplishments and be your own advocate. These are:  Annual Performance Reviews, Weekly Interactions, and Social Media.

Annual Performance Reviews

The obvious choice in when to share your work is during review time. Most companies have a specific policy for the type and timing of performance reviews. Often, these reviews have the follow question: What was your greatest accomplishment last year? When your review time arrives, you will be well-prepared to choose which of your weekly successes you want to highlight and/or discuss with your boss because you have been recording them weekly.

Ideally, you have 260 successes to sift through. Before you start sorting through your weekly list, write down which skills and job responsibilities are listed on your job description and which are listed on the job description for the position above yours (presuming that you want to move up and continue to be part of the company). Which do you place the highest value on and which does your boss place the highest value on? Using these four points as a guide, select 3-5 accomplishments from your list that highlight these skills and responsibilities.

Next, copy the accomplishment to your review form and be sure to highlight the value to the company. For example, if you published a paper you may write, “Increased the company’s visibility in the engineering community by publishing a paper on the XYZ Project that was published in ABC Journal.” This statement is clear, concise, focuses on the company, and highlights your achievement. Continue with this style of writing- focusing on benefit of your achievement to the company, your team, or your boss. When you spend the time to methodically choose the achievements you want to go over during your review, you will be better prepared to engage your boss and be your own advocate.

Weekly Interactions

While it can be easy to focus on summarizing and sharing success during your review, don’t forget to take time to inform your higher ups of your work as you complete it. This can be as simple as sending a weekly (or bi-weekly) email that lets them know what you are working on or having a standing meeting to discuss progress you’ve made on specific tasks. How often, and in what manner, you choose to inform your boss of your progress depends on your relationship with them. For example, are you or your boss often working outside of the office? Perhaps an e-mail would be helpful on Friday afternoons. In contrast, if you work closely with your boss perhaps a short meeting the same day each week works for you. Whichever method you choose to share your success, remember to phrase your statements in terms of the benefit to the company whenever possible. For example, if you produced a case study for your marketing team you may say, “I drafted a case study on XYZ to be used on the company website to engage industrial clients.” This statement is short, yet very specific and shows not only your work, but the positive impact it has on the company.

Social Media

The place you should share your success on a regular basis is social media. Sites such as LinkedIn and Instagram are commonly used for personal and business promotion. The advantage of posting in these venues is that it will help you to create, or maintain, your personal brand in the industry and others (including your superiors assuming they are on the same social network) will be reminded of your value and work in a more passive way than a documented review or meeting. When posting about your work products be sure that you 1) have permission to do so from your company and your client, and 2) focus the post in a way that focuses on the other person or company positively. For example, if you completed a traffic study for ABC Development your post could look like, “ABC Development is hard at work making your commute easier. It is a privilege to be part of their team and assist them with their traffic study this week.”

There are many ways to Be Your Own Advocate, and it is an important tool to help you move ahead in your career. Remember the 5:5 Rule and take 5 minutes at the end of every week to document your successes. Using this information, you can promote your work more easily when review time arrives, remind your superior(s) of your work on a weekly or bi-weekly basis through email or meetings, and use social media to build your personal brand and share your work with other industry professionals. In each of these scenarios remember to phrase your statements in terms of how your work benefits the other person. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about THEM.