Pay Equity

Pay equity is usually discussed as something employers must deliver, yet this guide argues that workers shape their own outcomes too. Author Jude Sotherlund looks at the overlooked factors of schooling decisions, career aims, the ability to move between jobs, and individual accountability. The book gathers tested methods for earning fair pay at each stage of a working life, and it summarizes what applicants and employees are entitled to, the pay equity laws now in force, action taken by individual states, and federal enforcement.

The chapters move through the job search and beyond: identifying your strengths and skills, building a professional network, applying, interviewing, negotiating salary, judging your own performance, spotting chances to advance, and holding onto your position. Each chapter ends with an interactive exercise. Hiring, promotion, demotion, and termination are walked through with attention to how each one bears on pay equity, and technical compensation vocabulary is defined as it arises.

Sotherlund draws on two backgrounds. She graduated from Georgetown University with an economics degree and began at the White House as a Staff Assistant in the Office of Public Affairs. She then held several posts at the U.S. Department of Labor, including work on the Glass Ceiling Initiative and Pipelines of Progress, and finished as deputy assistant secretary of employment standards, overseeing the Wage and Hour Division, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the Office of Federal Workers' Compensation Programs, and the Office of Labor Management Standards. Her later consulting work with banks, insurers, health care providers, universities, manufacturers, and defense firms made her a compensation compliance specialist. She also spent 14 years as a formal mentor to young adults facing the same questions.

The writing mixes humor with hard data and aims to leave readers more confident. It is intended for people beginning their careers, aiming for advancement, switching fields, returning to work, or trying to repair a stalled career, and especially for anyone without a mentor to guide them.