The posted band, the real band, and how to find your number in 30 minutes without tipping anyone off
The standard advice still works well here, even across Baltimore's varied job market. Find the going rate for your position, take it to your manager, and request that pay. Market data strips the feelings out of the discussion. It beats waiting to be recognized, and it has served plenty of women well.
But there is a counterargument worth making. When your employer says "market rate," the words often work to shut the talk down rather than to describe what the market actually pays.
1. The posted band is not the real band
Pay ranges now have to be published in a growing number of states, which is real progress. Still, many employers have posted ranges so broad they could hide a delivery fleet. A listing that reads $140,000 to $230,000 says very little. The working band is narrower and tends to sit in the lower middle, where hiring actually happens. "You're already within the range" is accurate for nearly everyone, including the woman being shortchanged by $30,000.
2. Their data belongs to them
When a manager insists "we benchmarked this," what that really means is the company paid for a survey and picked which firms to measure itself against. Select smaller comparison companies and the market figure drops. Tara Mohr's Harvard Business Review survey found that women often pass on roles they feel underqualified for mostly because they read the listed requirements as hard rules. Pay bands function the same way. The company's figure is offered as a fixed rule, and women are more inclined to accept it as one. It is an opening offer.
3. The same request gets a different label
Studies of the likability penalty consistently find that a man's request is read as confident while a woman's identical request is read as aggressive. "Market rate" conveniently helps a manager say no without a debate. The request isn't refused outright; it's relabeled as unreasonable, and you walk out wondering whether you pushed too hard. You didn't. The phrase did that.
Where the old advice still applies in Baltimore, Towson and Columbia
Market data remains your strongest tool. The remedy isn't to drop it. The goal is to quit leaning on their figures and walk in with figures you gathered yourself. A woman carrying three outside figures is having a very different conversation than one asking whether she's inside the range.
Stronger option
Half an hour of work, and no one in your office has to find out. Ten minutes: find three current postings for your exact title in the Baltimore metro that list pay ranges, and note the midpoint of each. Spend ten minutes messaging a recruiter who has contacted you before, and put this question to them: "What are you seeing for a VP of operations around Baltimore right now?" Recruiters field questions like this every day in Greater Baltimore and Central Maryland, and they have no reason to tell your employer about it. Ten minutes: ask one peer at a company in the region, "Can I run a number past you?" Women rarely do this, and it's the most reliable of the three sources.
At that point you hold a market rate that belongs to you alone. Frame it as an inquiry instead of an ultimatum: "Three postings for my role in Towson and Columbia place the midpoint at X." I'm at Y. Help me understand the gap." Notice how "market rate" sounds once you walk in holding one of your own.
Which figure are you actually bargaining against?