Knowing Your Worth

In Casey Brown's speech on salary, the career pricing consultant explains how employees and prospective employees can both recognize their actual worth and establish how their employers view that worth. She begins the talk with a semantic but important distinction: no employer will ever pay someone what they're worth; they'll only pay someone what they think that person is worth. Thus, controlling the employer's understanding of one's worth is essential for an appropriate salary.

Brown breaks the concept of personal worth down to a simple equation: definition of value plus clear communication equals worthy earnings. In other words, employees need to define the value that they offer and communicate that value saliently in order to negotiate a salary. This means having a willingness to "toot one's own horn," a trait that Brown claims is lacking in women in the workforce (and, by her estimation, is main factor contributing to the "gender pay gap.")