How startup employees can negotiate a job offer

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Jennifer:  The mentality of, hey, they're just gonna keep working here because we're all fun and, like, everybody likes each other. That company's gonna die because you can't get paid with vibes.

[00:00:12] Alicia:  Hey. I'm Alicia, and you're listening to Non-Founder Crew, your insider guide to surviving and succeeding in tech startups. 

[00:00:21] Alicia: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Non-Founder Crew. Today, I'm chatting with Jen Paxton, VP of People and Talent at Roofr. Jen has led people and talent teams at a ton of startups, like Privy, Smile, and LevelUp. She's gone through several acquisitions and has been the go-to person when it comes to building teams, scaling organizations, and has been a part of hundreds of offers to candidates in the startup world. In this episode, we're getting into negotiation from the other side of the table, so what actually happens inside a company when a candidate negotiates, and the language that moves the needle with hiring managers. Jen shares some amazing insights, like how to follow up with a recruiter, how you can get a foot in the door of a new company, and even what you should say when negotiating your next offer. Let's dive in. Jen Paxton, welcome to Non-Founder Crew.

[00:01:12] Jennifer:  Thank you. So excited to be here.

[00:01:14] Alicia:  So, you've been on the other side of hundreds of offer conversations across companies like Level, Privy, Smile, and now Roofr. Before we get into tactics, what is the mindset shift you wish more candidates had before they ever received an offer?

[00:01:29] Jennifer:  I would love the mindset shift to, hopefully, for this to happen, but it's more of, like, a piece of advice for candidates. Treat the offer stage just with the same level of professionalism and thoughtfulness as you did in the interview. By the time you're receiving the offer, you know the company wants you, but negotiating kind of that offer, those conversations, it's all gonna shape how your working relationship is going to be and, honestly, if you'll still have the offer. I have seen candidates that will continue to, like, negotiate, or push, or ask about this and then that and this, and it may come off sometimes that they are being potentially difficult because they just want to win. And those interactions really do shape the rest of your time at the company. And I've actually seen hiring managers, if the candidate has been so challenging to work with on this and by pushing and pushing and pushing and, honestly, not even listening to where the budget range was, that the hiring manager is like, can we just go with the backup candidate?

[00:02:36] Alicia:  Have you seen, like, an offer rescinded because someone got to be too, quote-unquote, difficult?

[00:02:41] Jennifer:  And I hate to call it difficult. I wanna make sure people are negotiating for what they're worth, but it's a delicate balance. It's how you do it that's the biggest part. Because the thing I've seen most recently, and this is with, like, the pay transparency side of this, which I'm a big fan of, honestly, because it should be helping these offer conversations. Companies are posting their targeted range. But I'm seeing candidates now that are getting to that offer stage, and they're starting to potentially try and push that range up further. And so it's a lot of company education on, well, this is why this is the range, and is why we need to keep you in this range, and it has lots of different factors to it. But, yeah, I have seen candidates not even ask for I hate to say this, but, like, I've seen candidates ask for 5k, 10k more, and the company would be like, no, we can't do it. Take it or leave it, and then go from there. But, yeah, I mean, I have had in my career at least once or twice where, yeah, candidates had been so difficult. And all the offers do have, like, this offer expires on x day, and we let the offer expire, right? 

[00:03:46] Alicia: That's something I'm always curious about. You often get these, like, this will expire in 24 hours or by next Monday. Is that something that candidates can negotiate?

[00:03:56] Jennifer:  Yeah. I mean, everything can be negotiated. Everything should be on the table for a candidate to ask about. It's a delicate balance of coming off difficult versus advocating for what you want and what you value on that end, but the offer expiry date can be changed as well. I've had multiple candidates where I kind of tell them it's a touch point for us of when we need to hopefully get a decision back from you. If you need an extra day or two because you're having some additional conversations, you're weighing some pros and cons, you're just not there yet, I would love to know by that day. But the other flip side of that is the company is hopefully not putting all of their eggs in that one candidate basket. And so if that candidate is not getting back to a company or if they're extending it again and again and again, that's actually having a negative effect on the rest of the candidate experience for anybody else in the pipeline. So, like, the close second might be waiting in the wings over here, and they won't understand why they haven't heard back from the company, or they were gonna have a conversation with the company, and then it got pushed and pushed and pushed. And it's usually because they're in a close second, and the candidate that they're making an offer to is pushing the day.

[00:05:03] Alicia:  So, you bring up a good part of this, which is that there's so much happening behind the scenes that candidates don't see. So, when someone starts negotiating, what's actually happening on the other side of the table that they never see? It's like, who's involved? What's happening? How is it going down for those who haven't been on the hiring side before?

[00:05:21] Jennifer:  It's rarely the recruiter that's making the call. I think that's the first thing. Like, the recruiter is usually kind of the messenger. They're given a targeted range at the very beginning, and then if it's anything outside of that range, that's usually when hiring managers are looped in, the head of HR would be looped in, potentially even financed, depending on if they manage some of the budget as well. If we have somebody that's trying to negotiate, I get looped into the conversation with the recruiter. The higher manager actually is not typically in that conversation unless there is more of like a calibration side of this, because I will ask, “How is that candidate performing against the team that we already have?” I feel like I'm the champion of fairness here. So, if it's a person that is actually performing at a higher level or has maybe more experience in our team, we have to weigh their compensation versus where our team's compensation is. But for the most part, I'm trying to keep everything as equitable as possible. So, the recruiter obviously has their job. They wanna close the candidate. They wanna fill the role. My job is to remain this kind of balanced internal compensation equity. And then finances come in if there's an additional budget. Like, hey, can we move some money around potentially? Right? And then the hiring manager is there to calibrate and really tell me how did this person perform in the interview? How do they compare to other people on the team? Because everybody has that kind of a different role that they play, and it's kind of a nice check and balance, honestly. 

[00:06:43] Alicia:  So, when people think about negotiation, often, I feel like they're always, like, base salary. That's what I have to negotiate. From your seat and what you've seen in the hundreds of roles that you've extended offers for, what are three or four things that candidates routinely don't ask for that they should be?

[00:06:58] Jennifer:  It depends on kind of company's flexibility here. There are sign-on bonuses that companies might do. On the back end of this, it's very helpful because that doesn't put the candidate over the base salary range within the team. So, that's, again, trying to be equitable there. In addition to that, I've had learning stipends as well. They're usually, like, reimbursable stipends where a person can say, “Hey, I want to, you know, invest in this course over this next year. I'd like for the company to pay X% of it or up to $X, right? And so you could ask for something like that. If it's a company that has accrued paid time off, this won't work at unlimited paid time off companies. But if it's an accrued paid time off, then you can always ask for additional paid time off as well. You can ask to extend the start date if you give yourself more flexibility, if you have a vacation coming up. I've even had a candidate actually ask if they can change the percentage of what the company pays for health care versus what they would pay. That one's more tricky because it's usually like a company-wide plan. But the thing that we came to, and this is years and years ago, was getting them a funded kind of HSA plan to supplement for the cost.

[00:08:09] Alicia:  So, I'm really curious. You said sign-on bonus. I think that's something that people hear about, and they're like, how do I even start to have that conversation? Do I bring it up? Do I look greedy? What have you seen be successful in someone trying to get that particular benefit going into a new job?

[00:08:25] Jennifer:  Yeah. And it honestly does depend on how they performed in the interview as well, and how they compare to the current team. But what could be the case here, and this is what I've seen actually work are probably the best, would be, “Hey, I know the top of your band is this. I'm very excited about the offer. Comparing it to kind of all of the total rewards and comp package that I had previously, it does fall still a little bit short of what I would like. If you were to give me a sign-on bonus of 5k, 10k, I'm willing to sign today.” And that actually, I would say, like, satiates the recruiter side of this. We are, like, oh, we wanna close the role. Typically, on the kind of HR side, again, like, they're seeing the level of equity, so it doesn't really change that bottom line. Finance can sometimes find the budget for it and kind of justify it as well. There's typically some clawback, so there's a little bit of security, if you will, there too. So, it can be a win-win on that end. But the thing that the candidate should do on that end is if you give me x, I will sign today. It's the urgency side of this. Because every day that an offer is out and a candidate is not signing, the company is losing money.

[00:09:36] Alicia:  Interesting. That's a perspective I hadn't thought about before, but it's true. I mean, you're paying people to source and to do interviews, and that's all taking away from the bottom line for sure.

[00:09:47] Jennifer:  Yeah. So, candidates can use urgency as a way to kind of get that deal closed a lot quicker.

[00:09:53] Alicia:  So, earlier, you mentioned pay transparency, which is a very hot topic, and we have new laws that have made job description salary ranges much more visible. If a role is a 140 to 180, what should candidates say to the recruiter when they ask, “What are you looking for?”

[00:10:09] Jennifer:  I would actually ask the recruiter for more insight into the range. You could say, “Hey, I saw the role was listed for 140 to 180. I'd love to know how that range was determined and how you compare it to the internal team as well.” You could even say this to the recruiter, but the recruiter would probably need to go back to the hiring manager. But how do I stack up compared to the current team? Then you could say something like that. The recruiter's not gonna say like, “Hey, the person on the team is making x amount of money.” But they may say, like, “Hey, like you have x amount of years of experience. Most of the tenure on the team is x, y, or z.” Right? And you can kind of stack rank it there. There's also companies that have compensation philosophies where they'll give a range, but, really, that targeted range where they're trying to hit is probably in the middle of it or maybe even the least kind of fourth, twenty-fifth percentile on that range as well. And they're giving themselves some buffer for that higher-end range. So, that can sometimes be a part of it as well. So you can ask a few different ways of how is the range determined. Typically, when you hire for this role, where in the range does the role actually hit? And the recruiter should be able to give you some of that information as well, just again, to give you more context.

[00:11:20] Alicia:  So, if someone comes in hot and they're like, “I want the top of the range. I want 180.” Does that suddenly, like, flag them as too expensive? I think that's a big fear people have. Like, I can't ask for the top of the range. Maybe it'll disqualify me. What does that look like behind the scenes when you're evaluating different candidates?

[00:11:36] Jennifer:  I mean, again, it really depends on how they performed in the interview process. If you go into the very beginning of the conversation with the recruiter and say, like, the top of my range is this, they're probably gonna grade you harder in the interview process to honestly confirm, are you worth that amount of money compared to where the rest of the team is at or where we need it to be? Be honest with where your range is, but also be okay to walk away if they're not able to match that for you.

[00:12:01] Alicia:  Have you seen it before where it's between, like, $10 or even $5,000, two great candidates, and that's the thing that really pushes one to the top versus another?

[00:12:10] Jennifer:  I have, but one of the candidates was 5k over the range that we needed to pay, which would completely ruin the compensation bands within the team. Like, the internal equity would have been off. The delta would have been too much. That usually doesn't get to the offer stage, though. Usually, that's the final interview stage where we're comparing two people and then moving forward with the one that actually doesn't cause us long-term ripple effects. But I've also seen the flip side of that, where we have had a person who has come in, you know, wanting the top of the range, performed really well in that interview process, and we've actually up leveled the role so that they could fit within the next range.

[00:12:51] Alicia:  In the early stage, too, that is very much the character we're looking for often. Someone who's gonna go out and be curious and get things done and be able to just operate.

[00:13:00] Jennifer:  What you're identifying is the evolution of the employee value proposition, where at a smaller startup, you're getting to do all the things, you get to wear multiple hats, or you will maybe have a lot of equity in the company. But as the company has scaled, maybe your role has shifted. Maybe it's gone down to very specific things. Maybe you're working more in silos. The equity you're getting in, like, any equity refreshes, is not as much. It's not as valuable. So, companies really have to pivot their compensation philosophy to support that evolution, too. Again, going back to that employee value proposition, it's definitely something that companies need to evaluate on a yearly basis, especially if you're a growing company. It's changing for your employees. The mentality of, hey, they're just gonna keep working here because we're all fun and, like, everybody likes each other. That company's gonna die because you can't get paid with vibes, so.

[00:13:52] Alicia:  I feel like I need a T-shirt that says that. I don't work for vibes. I mean, they're nice, but yeah, they don't pay the rent.

[00:13:59] Jennifer:  Yeah. Vibes are the bonus, but I need to also get paid. Right? Yep.

[00:14:05] Alicia:  If we go back to negotiation, I feel like people are always so caught up in the wording of things. And, like, how do I phrase this? What should I say? Is there a specific phrase or move that lands really well when a candidate uses it in negotiation, you're like, that's the thing to say.

[00:14:22] Jennifer:  The typical thing that people will tell you to say is I've taken a look at the job description and what the impact would be that I would bring to the company. I value myself at x. Right? So, that could be something there. The better solution is at my previous company, I did x, y, and z, which had an impact on the company of a, b, c, could be the revenue side of this, could be save the company x amount of money, like, I can do that here as well. I see that I could save the company this amount of money, right? So, I'd love to actually have some of that impact get kicked back into my base salary.

[00:15:01] Alicia:  It sounds like a confidence thing. I think that's probably the missing link for a lot of people, right? It's challenging because you're in a vulnerable position in theory, especially if you are no longer employed and you're on the market. Coming through with that confidence, I think a lot of people struggle with that.

[00:15:14] Jennifer:  If not more people, I would say potentially, but that's a whole other thing.

[00:15:17] Alicia:  I know for me, like, one way that I sharpen this skill or this muscle was, like, anytime I would go through a job interview, I would write down how I was gonna have that conversation, and I would practice it. It sounded silly, but really learning to say that out loud and be comfortable with it, even sitting with, like, okay, do I sound composed? Am I nervous having this conversation? I think that even role playing is just something that is so helpful that so many folks don't think about, but really, I think it can be that 1 in 10 time coming through with that confidence.

[00:15:48] Jennifer:  The role-playing side and writing it down, those are the top things I would advise anyone to do. Any difficult conversation I have or any conversation where it doesn't feel rote to me, I'm writing everything down. If I feel like I'm prepared enough, then I'm not gonna be as scared. So, I have a background in theater, particularly opera and performing arts, but it's very similar where I will be nervous on stage if I feel like I haven't prepared enough, if I feel like, oh, I'm gonna miss that note again. But if I'm prepared, again, like, it's just in my skin and it's coming natural, then, like, I'm on stage, and no one can stop me. And so you have to have that kind of level of preparation for any of these conversations as well. I advise hiring managers that when they're having termination conversations, they're gonna get very, really hard feedback to practice it, and I'm that person that they'll practice it with them. I'm like, hey, I'll be this person. You be you. You tell me the stuff. I'll react in a few different ways. We'll go through some scenarios and then go from there. And usually, if you have a few good friends as well that will go through the negotiation process, the conversation with you, they're as good as gold.

[00:16:55] Alicia:  I will say too, I've done this with some coworkers and friends. When you're waiting for that callback from the recruiter for the final round, and you're like, I think I got it. I'm not 100% sure. And you feel like there could be a couple of different ways the conversation goes down, right? Like, here's the offer. We're so excited, which you're like, okay, I wanna make sure I say the right thing. I don't wanna agree right on the spot. Right? I wanna make that space to negotiate. Maybe they're like, we've changed the role, or we've decided not right now, but we'll keep you in mind. That's also a different way you wanna react, and how do you wanna handle that conversation? And then just the rejection. I think mentally being prepared for each of those situations and the way that you present yourself, again, something like we don't think about, but it can have such an impact, especially if you wanna continue to have a relationship with the company. Like, maybe the job today that you're interviewing for, it doesn't match, or they want someone else. But, really, as they grow, they're like, I remember that candidate over there, and they were great. I'll call them back.

[00:17:50] Jennifer:  Yeah. My mentality is to never close a door. Never have your behavior close a door. Startups grow. People change roles and go to other companies that are hiring. I did have one candidate that I sent the standard rejection email because they'd gone through the process and sent it over. And I still remember it. They're like, well, this is your loss. This is what happened to the manager and, well, I'm like literally like a tirade on like email. And I had the email, it was a previous company, but I had the email say it and put it in our applicant tracking system, do not contact this person again, like a warning, because they just literally burned that bridge. And, again, it's a reflection of how professional they're going to be in other situations. And so, yeah, when I've gotten that rejection email in the past as well, I'm like, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you letting me know. If you think of anything else in the future, all the best, right? So, it could be as simple as that. But, yeah, you're feeling that level of disappointment, I'm sure. But, also, you just can't react like that as well because you just never know what's gonna happen in the future.

[00:18:55] Alicia:  I think a lot of people right now are becoming accustomed to the idea of being ghosted in an interview. Like, they have a great interview, or they think they do, and then it's just silence from the company. And often people debate, should I reach out to the recruiter? Should I follow up? I don't wanna be a pain or feel too eager. In those situations, what do you think people should be doing?

[00:19:17] Jennifer:  I do think that you can follow up. If it's only been 24 hours, maybe give them 48 to 72 hours on that end. There is a lot of internal negotiations going on at the company while this decision is being made. And so that can take the company a little bit of time. Even a startup that is trying to move quickly may have a conversation that they need to have with this person over here and this person over here, but this person's on vacation. Oh, I hate that. And then, like, they can't have the conversation for a few days. It should be on the recruiter as well, though, to kind of set that expectation. If we're gonna have some internal conversations, I should be able to get back to you by x day. If it's x day and you haven't heard back, by all means, you should be reaching out saying, “Hey. I know we were supposed to catch up today or have a follow-up. Just wanted to check in with you on this as well.” The annoying side of that is if you're checking in every single day, please don't do that. It's not helpful for anybody, and it can also be very challenging for the recruiter. And, again, we'll kind of tank your level of professionalism, too. So, I think following up once or twice. And then also, I hate to say it. This is a wild market. I have a friend who applied to a role in January, and they just got back to her with a rejection email a few days ago. It fascinated me because it was, like, a well-known company. I know a few of the people on the team, and I was, like, gonna reach out to them and be like, “Hey, just checking in on this person.” It's fascinating. So, I think that's the other thing: recruiters are extremely overwhelmed with the amount of applications. And if you're not one of those first 10%, you might not even have your resume looked at until you're getting the rejection email, like, 3 months, 6 months later, too. So, I wouldn't put your eggs in that basket. I would figure out if there is a way to get into the company besides just, you know, submitting an application, though, too.

[00:21:13] Alicia:  Alright. So, how do people get inside a company? This is also, I think, an important thing people don't realize, right? 

[00:21:19] Jennifer:  Submitting your application is great. That is the standard process. But at the same time, it can actually be beneficial for a candidate to reach out to a person, maybe that's on that team or potentially a person on the recruiting team as well. I would say a little less successful if you're reaching out to the person on the recruiting team just because they're getting bombarded with LinkedIn messages about this role, most likely. If their ATS is actually flooded with resumes, you can imagine their LinkedIn inbox being pretty flooded as well. But I see on the team where you're like, “Hey, I saw you work at this company. I'm starting to be interested in this company. Would you be open to, like, a casual coffee chat?” Right? And number one, it works with the candidate because they can actually get an insider's perspective on what's happening at the company. It's not always gonna pan out for you. The employee may not feel comfortable taking that conversation. They may be like, “Well, I'm not the hiring manager. I don't know what to say.” Or they may just be really busy. Right? And they can't take it. But, again, you shoot your shot. Right? You at least try to reach out to a few people at the company and see what it's like over there. And at the end of that casual conversation, you could say, “Yeah, I submitted my application. I'd love to continue the conversation. Is there like an email or the person, like, do you know the recruiter that's working on that role, the hiring manager? I'd love to just send a personalized message to them.” And again, like, you're just differentiating yourself just enough.

[00:22:43] Alicia:  It's the way to get to the top of the pile in this market, I feel like, for sure.

[00:22:47] Jennifer:  Definitely. Yes.

[00:22:49] Alicia:  Is there a negotiation that went so horribly wrong that it stands out in your mind, or a move that you were like, oh, in all of your time extending offers?

[00:22:58] Jennifer:  The most common one I've seen and that I've experienced over the years actually has been I like to pre-close a candidate in that recruiting conversation. I'm very honest with them about the range that the company has for the role, and I'm basically requalifying them at every stage. But if we get to that offer stage and they're like, oh, I want 30,000 more. That's horrible for me. I'm like, I just wasted all of my time on you again, qualifying you over and over and over again just to get to this stage. And so that can be a horror story there as well. Again, if the person was more experienced, maybe we could uplevel the role. That's a possibility, but it's not usually the reality. Because also, going back to kind of the higher manager levels, they're probably hiring for that level for a particular reason. They may, like, be one or two off, but a good example is if they're hiring the player coach versus you want a director-level or a VP-level. Those are massively different roles and responsibilities. Your expectations were here, but ours were here. And I've just wasted all of my time here, right? And then, honestly, I have just experienced rude people thinking that, like, I, as the recruiter, like, an individual recruiter. So, like, one of the first jobs that I had as a recruiter, like, me, lowly recruiter, reporting into the VP of HR, scaling the company, but I make no decisions, right? Like, I get the range. That's all I know. I'm a messenger. And I felt like the way that they communicate with me, the tone that they use, the way they raise their voice, it was shocking to me that this was the case. And this was again, I was a very, like, lowly recruiter. This was a higher-level role, 3 or 4 levels above me that I was making this offer to, and the fact that they were just so rude and thought I was beneath them, I went back to my manager and was very honest with them, like, “Hey, this is a conversation I had. Like, this is what they said. This is what I said. Help me figure out where I go from here.” And that was actually one of the offers that we did rescind. And they were so pissed off. And I was like, you treated me horribly. You're probably gonna treat your team horribly if you treated me horribly like this.

[00:25:06] Alicia:  I've talked to some folks who have had a good first call with a recruiter. And then I'll ask them, “Well, hey, did you talk about salary?” And they're like, “Oh, they didn't bring it up.” I'm like, “What are you doing?” That is, like, I think, the most important part of a first call. So, if a recruiter doesn't bring up salary on the first call, should candidates be flagging that and saying, “Hey, we haven't talked about this yet. It's important that we're on the same page.” Do you think it's their responsibility if that hasn't been addressed already?

[00:25:33] Jennifer:  I think if you wanna have control of your job search, it's your responsibility. A candidate should be in control of their job search. If, for some reason, the recruiter is not bringing it up. So, recruiters are human. They have kind of their own checklist of things they should be talking about with the candidate as well. I mean, especially when I was in the office, I remember, like, where are you located? Can you come into Boston? All the things I needed to talk about. And compensation was usually the last piece of that little check mark of that first conversation. But if they're rushing or maybe, like, they're running over time, they may, like, gloss over it or not bring it up because, hey, the range is posted online. I'm sure they, like, have seen the range and approved it. It might even be in the application process, of, hey, here's the range of the role, what are you looking for? And the candidates put it there. Even if it's, you know, 5 minutes over time as a candidate, to say, “Hey, I know we're 5 minutes over time. I just wanna make sure that we are aligned on compensation. I saw the range that was posted as this to this. Given my skills and experience, I'm looking for this to this, still fits within the range and the higher end of your range. Does that still make sense?” And then the candidate should stop talking because silence is your friend. That gives the recruiter that open door, like, yeah, that makes sense. They take it down in their notes that it's on the higher end of the range, and then we can move on from there. But then that hiring manager has all the data points they need to make their decisions, too.

[00:26:51] Alicia:  Is there a time when maybe a candidate really undersold themselves, and you had to go and advocate for them? And, like, how does that work?

[00:27:00] Jennifer:  It's like the best surprise and delight possible, honestly, because I've had, like, it was a mid-level person, a woman, on the product side, in fact. And it was my second startup. We were talking about her skills and everything. I was like, you sound like a great fit for the company. I'd love to introduce you to the hiring manager. I went over kind of all the next steps. And then at the time, what I would say as the recruiter was like, “Well, what's the range that you're looking for? You don't have to give me, like, one particular number. You give me a very broad range.” And the range she threw out was 20k below what, like, our minimum was going to be. I have two options. Like, it was like a crossroads for me as a recruiter. I have two options where I can save the company a lot of money, but also skew internal equity. Or I can say, which is what I did, “Hey, thanks for throwing out that range. Just so you're aware, our range is actually this to this. So, if we were going to get you into that seat, we wanna think about where experience lies within the team, but we'd wanna get you to the space at least.” Funny enough, she actually got the job. And we did pay 20,000 above whatever she was asking for. But again, it was a nice surprise and delight for her, but also, you know, internal equity means a lot. And if she got in the seat and somehow found out that someone else is making so much more money than her, she's not gonna be as productive. She's gonna be pretty disgruntled. Like, the employee experience isn't there. The fairness isn't there just to begin with. So, like, it benefits the company being honest like that too.

[00:28:26] Alicia:  It sets a different tone when someone comes in and suddenly realizes they're underpaid.

[00:28:30] Jennifer:  Oh my goodness. I have a horror story of that one as well, where a person, in, like, actually in HR, who gets to see all the salary data. They had a conversation with the president of the company at the time, and they were having this negotiation. The president was like, well, nobody at the company makes that. And I'm like, are you an idiot? This person's gonna see all the compensation. You can't lie to this person. And then she got into the role, saw the spread because one of the first things she was gonna do was the compensation review and how it works, saw multiple male employees made drastically more than she did that were at different levels, and she quit within three days. 

[00:29:09] Alicia:  Wow. I mean, my follow-up there has to be. If you're that employee, I mean, not in that situation, but if you find out there's a lot of discrepancy between you and a peer who you think is on the same level of experience. How do you bring up that conversation?

[00:29:25] Jennifer:  It's a tough balance. Right? Because there are companies that are like, don't talk about compensation with your peers because it's unprofessional. Again, going back to the ‘don't talk about money, it's unprofessional’, right? But I think that everybody does talk still. It could be as easy as, like, the base salary side of it is very different. And so it could be, “It was brought to my attention that I'm making 30,000 less than my counterpart over here. I'd love to understand the logic behind that, and how can I actually get to making what they're making, given my impact at the company?” And then just see what the manager says. The manager is gonna be so nervous, by the way, to answer any of these questions. Like, they're not gonna answer it right away usually. A good manager will at least, like, navigate this with “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Let me have a conversation with our internal team and see if I can get you some information back.” Because they're not gonna be able to probably make that conversation happen anyway, as well, because they may have been involved in the range, or they may not have been involved in the range.

[00:30:21] Alicia:  I think this is important to note that this conversation happening live is probably better than an email or a Slack, which can be ignored. Again, like, have those hard conversations out loud because you're really standing up and making noise about it in a way that needs to be listened to.

[00:30:38] Jennifer:  And when you're doing it over email or Slack, tone can be interpreted in a very weird way as well. It's good to have it. I will say, though, to always keep your receipts. So, after you've had that conversation with your manager on this, follow up via email or follow-up via Slack. “Hey, just to recap our conversation that we had today, I expressed, you know, the delta of what I'm making versus what my colleagues are making. I want to understand the logic behind it and what I can do to improve.” Right? And like leave it at that because you do, I would say you always want to protect yourself and have a paper trail anyway. It's also just a secondary reminder for that manager to remember that conversation. Because a lot of times, if you have a manager that is maybe scatterbrained as well, they may have that live conversation with you, and then they just went into 30 back-to-backs, and then it's not gonna be top of mind for you. So, you have to professionally kind of wink, wink, nudge, nudge, remind them that you need to have this conversation.

[00:31:37] Alicia:  And it's not too much to remind people.

[00:31:39] Jennifer: No. 

[00:31:40] Alicia: It's important. Yeah. 

[00:31:41] Jennifer: It's important. Yes. It's part of coaching up.

[00:31:43] Alicia:  Totally. So, if you could put one sentence on a Post-it note on every non-founder employee's monitor before their next offer conversation, what would it say?

[00:31:53] Jennifer:  If I was going to create a post-it note that was gonna be on my monitor, having a conversation with my manager on this, I would say, you're impactful. Know your worth. That might be one of them. And then the other side is don't forget to stop talking. Because the challenging thing with these negotiations is that sometimes you forget that silence is a skill. And if you just keep rambling on, it degradates your confidence. And so you wanna say your statement and then shut up.

[00:32:28] Alicia:  Alright, Jen. Well, it has been so insightful to have you talk about all the things we should be thinking about when it comes to offers, negotiations, how to get what you deserve. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

[00:32:41] Jennifer:  Thank you so much for having me on. It has been such a pleasure, and excited to continue the conversation.

[00:32:47] Outro:  Thank you for listening to Non-Founder Crew. If you want more insights, learnings, and stories from the trenches, sign up for my newsletter by going to www.nonfoundercrew.com. And, hey, listen, if you know a friend who could stand to hear this advice, send it to them. See you next time.