Salary Negotiations and Severance Negotiations with Jordan Sale

Jamie Lee (00:01):

Welcome to Negotiate your Career Growth. I'm Jamie Lee and I teach you how to blend the best of negotiation strategies with feminist coaching so you get promoted and better paid without burning bridges or burning out in the process. Let's get started.

Jamie Lee (00:15):

Hello, we have with us today we have Jordan Sale. Jordan Sale is the founder of Pay Equity Startup 81 cents, which helps historically excluded minorities negotiate their pay through data collection and hands on mentorship. I love it. I'm all for it. I

Jordan Sale (00:38):

Love it. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, sure. Many years in the making.

Jamie Lee (00:43):

I, I'd love to, you know, hear your story. I'd love to, you know understand what 81 cents does as well as what your journey has been cuz I think it's gonna be so valuable to the listeners. And before I, I proceed I wanna make a note here that 81 cents is now part of Aurora RO r o r a and over a thousand individuals have used 81 cents Andora to negotiate more than up. Wow. I'm reading this 10 million in pay increases. Amazing. I like to brag. I've helped women negotiate 2 million more. So 81 cents in Aurora. They've done five times that this is amazing. And their work has been featured in Forbes, A, B, C News, the Today Show, the Skim, et cetera, et cetera. I'm so glad that you made the time in your day to speak with me today. Thank you.

Jordan Sale (01:42):

Thank you. Well, yeah, I'm a huge supporter of the work that you do and feel like we've been following each other's paths for a few years now, so I'm excited to get to know you more.

Jamie Lee (01:52):

Yeah, I love that We do like sort of complimentary work. I work with mostly mid-career women in helping get promoted and better paid and Jordan sale helps underrepresented minorities negotiate their pay through data collection and hands-on mentorship. I said that already. So let's rock and roll <laugh>. I'm curious, how did you get started with founding 81 cents? Tell us like maybe you can take us on that journey, what that

Jordan Sale (02:17):

Was. Yeah, definitely. So it was, I started at 81 cents almost five years ago, which is wild. And you know, my experience with negotiation had started quite a few years before then when I got my first full-time job offer when I was finishing up undergrad. And I mean I was so excited that someone wanted to employ me and pay me and I was just over the moon and I called up my uncle who I'm very close with, was kind of a professional mentor for me. And I told him and I was just basically bragging and he said something along the lines of, you know, Jordan, I'm, I'm really proud of you and also what are you gonna, and I was floored. I was like, I'm 21, 22 counter, I don't have any other job offers. I've never had a full-time job before. Like I feel grateful that they even wanna hire me.

(03:12):

And he basically informed me that negotiations starts kind of from your very first role, there's a compounding effect. So you know, even getting a few thousand dollars more and kind of that first role, it's more to invest your bonus is gonna be higher, your next role is going to be paid more. Compounding interests, like all of those kind of things. And that if I didn't negotiate now I would be behind but I wouldn't, I wouldn't even really know it. And I sort of begrudgingly let him guide me through that process. And I had, you know, a very uncomfortable 20 minute conversation with the hiring manager. I was like sweating profusely. Luckily this is before the time of video calls I think was over the phone and I got an email back a few hours later that said like, yep, we're gonna increase your offer, you know, by like 20% or something like that and we're also gonna increase the offer of the other two people who are gonna start in the same role as you so you'll all be kind of paid the same.

(04:17):

And it was such a cool moment, it was such a cool experience of advocating for myself, taking a risk, having it pay off, seeing in this case it actually helped other people as well. And it was meaningful. I mean it was my first full-time job and 20% more meant like another a couple months of rent that I didn't have to worry about. And so yeah, that was kind of like the aha moment and I sort of wondered how come I just got this very expensive education and didn't learn anything about this and what about everyone else who doesn't have an uncle who knows that this is what you're supposed to do, who you happen to talk to at the right moment in time and who can guide you through the process. And so that was sort of like the first moment for me. And then over the next few years I had a variety of negotiation experiences.

(05:06):

Some of them went well, some of them went terribly. And after each one I just sort of realized like, wow, this is so important and we just don't talk about it. And you know, I'm so lucky that I have this network of people to tap into to help me with this. But like, what about everyone who doesn't? Or what about the people who they're already making so much more than anyone in their family has ever made before them. And so they're actually getting the opposite kind of messaging. They're getting the like, Hey don't negotiate. You don't wanna jeopardize the offer or aren't you happy with this? Isn't it enough as it is? And after one kind of particularly bad negotiation experience, I sort of realized like I wanna do something about this. I'm interested in it, I care about it. And that was sort of the beginning of 81 cent and the first couple of years were lots of experimentation around like what people needed and how do you actually support people through negotiations, can you make this process better? And then finally we kind of like landed on the model we have today, which is sort of, we go out and we help people kind of collect the market data that they need to make a case for higher pay. Also the data that they use to evaluate is this even like a fair offer? A lot of people don't real like dunno. And then we connect them with mentors and coaches to, to help support them through the actual negotiation.

Jamie Lee (06:25):

So the focus is really on the job offer salary negotiation or compensation negotiation. Is that right?

Jordan Sale (06:33):

Yes. So I'd say the one kind of exception there is that, you know, we really, and this has sort of been a personal shift for me when I first started this I was very focused on like, okay, you're earning X and we wanna help you earn y and so, and that's all about money. But now I've realized that like there's so much more at stakes with negotiation than like just the dollars. It's about are you going to be respected in this role? Is this a scope that's interesting for you? Is this a level that it even makes sense for you to go in at you know, in our kind of weird hybrid world, like what is that mix? If you're a working parent, do you have flexibility? Like there's a bunch of non-monetary things that I think are important to kind of navigate at the negotiation stage.

(07:18):

And I actually try to tell everyone we work with that, you know, the negotiation stage is like your chance to figure out if this is a place you wanna work. A lot of times people are gonna offer and they don't realize like they have agency to make it better, whether that's in terms of comp or in terms of the role or walking away if it's not good enough for them. And so like one of my favorite examples of this is a woman I worked with a few months ago who had a chance to support, she was a senior engineering manager and she had left her company, it was, she'd been there a long time, she was ready for change and she started interviewing for new roles. She was interested in the startup world and she got a new offer at a startup for the same level she had been working at.

(08:02):

And she was disappointed she wanted to be at a higher level. That's like part of why she left her old job. And so she thought like her only option was to either take it or turn it down, but instead we actually ended up working with the company to make a case for a higher level. And she did a few more interviews and then eventually they offered her a director level position and that came with a higher pay, but it wasn't really like a focus of conversation with that. And the focus was all about level and scope and her qualifications and all of that. And then it translated into a monetary outcome. So to me that's kind of like the dream scenario because we get to talk about more than just dollars, but then we see, you know, a positive impact there too.

Jamie Lee (08:45):

I love it. Yes, because studies have also shown that it's often the intangibles and whether you have the resources, whether you are set up to be effective and to be successful in your job, that contributes to your overall overall satisfaction. Yes, money is important, but it's just part one part of the picture. Yeah,

Jordan Sale (09:08):

Totally. And early on when I was so focused on the money, you know, I would check in with people a couple years later and like most of them had left the jobs that we had negotiated for because it wasn't a good fit. And I realized like, well if you're really trained to maximize for like long-term compensation increases, you need to be, if you're working in tech, you need to be at a company long enough for your stock to best and for you to get ownership of it, you wanna be there long enough to show, you know, some sort of upward career progression. And if we're helping people negotiate for roles that aren't good for them, then like that's not good for them in the long term.

Jamie Lee (09:45):

Yeah. And in fact in one of my coaching sessions I coach clients over a period of time over like months at time and to help them, you know, set themselves up for that longer success and satisfaction. And sometimes it's not about progression, sometimes it's about like I wanna, I wanna negotiate, I wanna advocate to not be working in a particular group that has very toxic people, you know, and my clients have told me that has made a huge difference in the quality of the life they have. Right? And they're like, yeah, I don't need more money, I just don't wanna be working in that one particular group but that toxic person and makes a huge difference in my life. So yes, I love what you're saying. Everything is negotiable, including compensation, including who you work with, including your role. Right? Even, even the besting schedule can sometimes be negotiable.

(10:39):

Have you seen that in terms of like startup equity because wait, let me just pause here for a minute, a minute because maybe not everyone is familiar with that concept. If you join a tech startup or any sort of startup where they have stock grants or options, stock options, it's very normal for the typical term to be that you have to wait like four years or, or all of the stock or the options that they've granted you to fully vest and become yours. And so it sort of becomes like this almost like a golden handcuff in certain situations. Yeah, right. People wait, people wait for all of their equity to vest before they leave to join another company. And so now I'm just curious, have you seen people negotiate like the terms over which they earned stock or company equity?

Jordan Sale (11:38):

I have, I'd say it's more of like the exception, not the rule, but I have seen that most commonly at like, sort of the severance period when someone is actually leaving a company, whether it's on their own volition or otherwise, like that's often something people try to negotiate is, you know, accelerated investing for the equity they have left if they were laid off. That's sometimes a benefit that companies offer. But I've also seen people kind of make a case for that too.

Jamie Lee (12:09):

I have heard of somebody negotiating that like upfront as they joined or I think the company got bought into like a larger company and when that happened they negotiated ahead for a potential severance situation and they asked for all of their equity to vest upon you know, being laid off due to, you know, restructuring, et cetera. So anyways, I'm I'm curious what compels you to help underrepresented groups to close their P gaps? I know it's almost like preaching to the choir because, you know, I'm, I'm also a woman of color, I help, you know, bipo women to close therapy gaps and the leadership gap as well. But I, I'm really curious what compels you to do that as well.

Jordan Sale (12:56):

Yeah, I mean I think for me, I've just had, I saw from my very first negotiation how like having someone in my corner was so incredibly helpful and I was aware that I was in a very privileged position because my uncle had a certain amount of experience in like the world that I was going into, which was heck. And that's not something that everyone has access to. That's not something that everyone's network like naturally includes. And you know, I'm certain there are a variety of reasons behind that. But you know, when we look at sort of the groups of people that are most historically excluded, the most historically undervalued, they tend to be, you know, racial minorities, gender minorities. And so it just like never really occurred to me that the company wouldn't focus on that. I think a thing that's been surprising over the years is that this is really <laugh> a problem that a lot of people suffer from.

(14:05):

And like, I can't tell you how many like cis white men I've talked to who are like, why are you just focusing on like women? Or why are you just focusing on like supporting, you know, people of color? Like it's hard for me too. I'm like, I don't, I don't doubt that it's hard for you. And I have a lot of like empathy for everyone who struggles to advocate for themselves because I think as you probably see a lot in your work, it's has so much to do with like worthiness confidence, the messages you were, you saw about yourself as a kid. Like things that we don't really think have that much to do with work, like they're just so personal but they really come to impact us professionally. And so I don't think that that's unique to like a certain gender or certain race, but for me it was like we have a pay gap. We know that women, particular women of color are paid significantly less than white women than all, all men then white men. And why, like if negotiation is something concrete that we can do to help close that gap, it's certainly not the only piece of it, but it is a piece of it. If that's a space I can work in, then like why wouldn't I?

Jamie Lee (15:28):

I really appreciate that. Cause I didn't have an uncle in my corner telling me what to do when I joined tech startups. I had an article that I read on monster.com, it was like the second job I had after college and I read this article and said, you know, you can just ask them if there's room for improvement. I'm like, oh, let me try that. So once I got my offer for like a $40,000 starting salary, I just wrote this email, Hey, is there any room for improvement? And immediately I got a $3,000 salary increase. So it was like, what, like 9%. But I was overjoyed. I was like, whoa, that worked <laugh>, right?

Jordan Sale (16:05):

It's wild. Yeah.

Jamie Lee (16:06):

And if I had an uncle in my corner, maybe I could have gotten 20, 30%, who knows, right? But like you, I also had a really negative experience negotiating my salary in the middle of my career when I pivoted to work for hedge fund. And I, I'm like, wow, I totally bungled that, that that just left a really bad taste in my mouth. I have like even less confidence in myself. I'm like, and I also had the thought, this has gotta change, right? This has gotta change for me and if it has to change for me, then it can change for other people. So I love that. You know, you and I we're totally on the same page here, <laugh>. Yes. so I'm curious, it, you know, it sounds like you work with mostly sort of like youngish maybe young to mid-career professional. Is that fair to say? Or?

Jordan Sale (16:59):

Yeah, we are sort of all over the map. I'd say like some of the things that our clients have in common are, we typically work with people in STEM professions. So a lot of engineers and data scientists and researchers, and these are people that, you know, at least in today's hiring market, have a good amount of like power and leverage. But often because you've grown up in the sciences, you don't have like a business education, you probably haven't taken a negotiation course. A lot of the skills we're talking about are like influence and persuasion and like just things that don't come up if you're in a really technical field as much. And so those, that's sort of like an interesting kind of place that we work. And then within that we've worked, you know, we do a lot of work with people who are like just finishing up grad school, moving out of academia into industry and then kinda continue to support up the career ladder from there.

(17:57):

I have done in like the past year or so, my first like senior level negotiations and I mean I've learned so much from those experiences because it really is sort of like a different ballgame once you get to the senior le senior levels, you're not necessarily negotiating with a recruiter. You're much more likely to be talking to like a senior leader in the company. The things that you wanna ask about like severance or resourcing for the role or all of those things, like those tend to look a little bit different. And just like the level of experience people are bringing, like we're not helping people who've never negotiated before. We're helping people who've negotiated 15 times before. So it's like just a, been a really interesting learning experience for me.

Jamie Lee (18:42):

I love that. And so my experience is very similar, <laugh> as yours. I also work with women who often are in STEM or coming from academia transitioning into industry PhDs. And I'm curious, what have you routinely seen as the most common blind spot among those people? Like, you know, especially people who are sort of transitioning from one field to another when they go to negotiate their starting salaries. What do you notice are the most common blind spots?

Jordan Sale (19:23):

Yeah, so I think academia can be such an intense field. It's very competitive. There's often like a lot of rankings, like how many citations do you have? And so I think sometimes people don't feel like very confident in themselves. And so even though they got three job offers from Amazon, Google and you know, deep mind or something like that, they still don't feel like they are enough or worthy. And obviously that really impacts how they choose to negotiate. And I don't think that like lack of worthiness or feeling of worthiness is unique to academia, but it does seem to be like pretty consistent. And I think like sometimes the academic environment and culture can kind of like foster that. So that's kind of like one thing that I've seen. Another one in like, how would you know, this is just like an understanding of all of the levers that you have to play with in negotiation.

(20:24):

Like someone I talked to recently just got an offer from Bloomberg and they offered them a base salary and like a target annual bonus for the year. This is for like a researcher kind of role and they just didn't realize that like assigning bonus is like very, very likely possible. You might even be able to get a signing bonus for like your first and for your second year in the job. And just like how would, you know, like if you have only been paid like stipends or for fellowships or like hourly for like the research that you're doing, like how would you know that these like other levers are in play? So that's like a, I think a very common thing I think people aren't aware of.

Jamie Lee (21:08):

You're also reminding me, I once did a workshop for doctors, for women doctors

Jordan Sale (21:16):

Oh, amazing. A smaller

Jamie Lee (21:17):

Experience where when you are a resident, right, you're significantly underpaid. And then when you go from resident to either private practice or like you join a hospital system, like it's just completely different ballgame, different animal, different levers. And if you're not familiar with what those levers are and how doctors' times are, you know, quanti quantified and evaluated, assessed, like if you don't know how to address them, then you're sort of at a disadvantage in terms of negotiating that starting salary and beyond. So I love that they're, you know, resources like 81 cents where you could get market data. Right. So would you tell me a little bit more about about that market data because I, I mean I of course see there is tremendous value in having that benchmark marketing information and, and I'm curious, what is the process? How do you, how do you gather this market data? Like let's say somebody who's going from PhD to joining like a tech company and they're like, I don't know if my offer is, you know, I don't know if it's the market range. I don't know if it's like above or under, like talk to me about, you know, how 81 cents helps people with that.

Jordan Sale (22:39):

Yeah, definitely. So we have like a few different ways that we collect data. One is we work with about 40 people a month. And so we just have data that we're collecting on our own. We're like very meticulous about tracking what initial offers look like, what, you know, updated offers look like, and then where final offers land. And so I think that's like one of the things that's, you know, hardest to see in some of these like online databases is like you don't know like how the offer could change or was this the initial offer that they got or is this the one where it like landed? And so that's something that, you know, we feel very strongly about because part of how, you know, we try to convince people that it's okay to negotiate is to like destigmatize it and show them like these are all the other people who negotiate or I mean obviously anonymously, but like it's totally

Jamie Lee (23:36):

Normal to negotiate. Other people do it too.

Jordan Sale (23:40):

It's totally normal and not only are other people doing it, but they're seeing immense success with it. And so we have very little to lose from trying. So that's sort of like the first place is like our own data collection. Secondly as we've built up over the years like this really awesome community of volunteers who basically will review offers and provide their perspectives on whether or not they are fair, like based on what they're seeing in the market. And so for those we'll go out, you know, if you are a software engineer at a AI startup or something like that, we would go out to the software engineers in our community who are also at similar kind of companies and at your level or above. And then they'll give feedback on like, yeah, this is a fair offer. I just hired someone, we paid them a little bit more.

(24:30):

Or Mm, this feels really low. Here's where I think it could be improved. This feels low around like equity or this, there should be a signing bonus. Why isn't that there? So that's kind of one place that we also source data from. And then the third is that, you know, we have gotten very good over the years at like kind of tapping into the databases that employers are often using. And it's not uncommon for people in our network to like take screenshots of some of the major compensation databases and send them to us. And you know, we like as much as we can try to see like what are employers thinking about it so that we can take this like, so we can take it off the table. Because my, like one of my least favorite negotiation situations is when someone asks for something and then the recruiter's just like, well that's not what my data says, or No, our data's lower than that and it just like squashes the conversation.

(25:25):

And so that's actually another point I feel really strongly about is like we try to not make arguments just around compensation data and just around market rates because then it's like a, well whose data is more accurate? Do you have data? Do you I have data, whatever we like really try to do more of like a value-based negotiation strategy where we are obviously we want people to understand how their offer fits into the market and if it's low we want that to like, you know, fire them up to negotiate. But when they're actually making the ask, we wanna teach them more about like, you know, here's how you underscore the value you're bringing to the table. Here's how you talk about like why you're the right person for the role. Yes, you already interviewed but like let's do it again. Here's how you build relationships within the team so that when the recruiter comes back and is like, Hey you know, Sheila wants 50 K more, can we do it? The hiring manager is like, yes, I need Sheila on the team, let's do it. So data is an important piece of it, but I think the mistake I made early on in building the company was like, I thought it was the only piece and it's just not. And that's why I think coaching like the work that you do is so important because you have a chance to like go deeper than the data. It's often about like self-limiting beliefs and how we see ourselves and having the confidence to ask and believing that we should ask.

Jamie Lee (26:48):

I'm vigorously nodding my head, people can't see it. <Laugh>,

Jordan Sale (26:51):

<Laugh>,

Jamie Lee (26:52):

My clients two of my clients when they went to negotiate, they went and got 81 cents reports and they said really helped them because like you said, as a coach, I really do work with that, you know, the self-confidence and help them feel grounded in that sense of worthiness. Which first of all it has nothing to do with your compensation negotiation outcomes. Like I fundamentally believe that we all all born worthy, but our society, our, the conditioning that we get exposed to from a very young age, it, it helps us, it leads us to forget that. It leads us to like sort of kind of what's I'm thinking of, like it covers up <laugh>, it it, what, what's the word I'm thinking of? It's like camouflage that sense of true worthiness because it, every day we get exposed to like what do you do and is that important?

(27:50):

How much money do you make? Right. As if our right is our self worth. So yes, a big part of the work I do is helping my clients separate that sense of self-worth from their work. You know, they're difficult people, they're like managers who don't know how to manage, you know, whatever the negotiation outcome is. It's like no, your self worth is nothing to do with that. And all the value that you create through your skills and your contributions, that is your professional value and and you can increase the perception of that value through what Jordan just talked about, right? Through being strategic in your communication through using influence through, you know, talking about the outcomes that you are confident that you can help create once you join the company or once you're in a bigger role. Yeah, so

Jordan Sale (28:44):

Exactly and we always, just to kind of emphasize what you said, like we always joke that data is kind of like a Trojan horse because that's what everyone thinks they need and feels that they need, but actually it's like something deeper. So like, yeah, we'll meet you with the data and we wanna offer that and we do think it's important, but we don't think it's the only piece. And then once hopefully we have like a relationship with someone we can do some more education around. It's not just the data, it's all these other pieces.

Jamie Lee (29:12):

Yes, a hundred percent agreed. And, and here's something I do which is I just flat out ask my clients, you can do the research and please do talk to people of all genders. Ask them, Hey, if you were in my shoes, what do you think would be reasonable? If you have, you know, an uncle like uncle like Jordan's uncle, go consult them for sure. But at the end of the day you just get to decide what would be amazing for me? What would I like? Would I like a 10% increase? Would I be happy with that? Would I like a 35% increase? Would I be over the moon happy with that? Right? And sometimes this is kind of rare, but it does happen. There are people whose like capacity to earn and have money is challenged when they think about negotiating and this is one of the reasons why they sometimes settle for or less or don't negotiate cuz they're like, oh my god, making $50,000 more.

(30:04):

I don't, I don't know if I'm worth that. I dunno if I can be with that. Yeah. I dunno if I can be with the guilt of making so much more money than my parents or my grandparents ever did. Right. And again, so this is where sometimes coaching both the conscious and the unconscious mind comes into play. But back to you. I'm curious, we kind of touched on it earlier, but I I'm really fascinated by Jordan's LinkedIn post and if you're listening to this, please follow Jordan on LinkedIn. She, she shares very generously like amazing negotiation case studies and people negotiating severance packages, right. And lately there's been several companies laying off people and so there's been more negotiation of severance packages and, and I'd love to hear more about that. What have you seen, because this isn't something that many of my clients go through. Most of my clients end up negotiating promotion. So I'm curious, what do you see is negotiable when you are laid off or made redundant and you know, let's say it's not a performance issue, right? But it, the company is restructuring and if

Jordan Sale (31:23):

You have Yeah, definitely.

Jamie Lee (31:24):

Yeah. Like I'd love to hear that. Yeah,

Jordan Sale (31:28):

It's, you know, unfortunately something that we're seeing a lot right now and I have far too many examples because I'm just talking to a lot of people who are going through this. It is in my experience, you know, very much possible to negotiate severance. But it's a really different kind of negotiation because when you have a new offer it's you know, almost all upside your negotiation, right? Obviously we need to do it in a strategic way so that we don't like lose the offer, but it's about you're being offered X and can we get to y and that's really exciting for severance. It's like all it's coming at a tough time and you know, you're already leaving the company and so you're really trying to manage like the downside risk as as much as you can. So I think like all of the urgency and scarcity mindset that comes into play with offer negotiations is like 10 x there when, when we're talking about severance.

(32:29):

 And, and very understandably so, you know, for a lot of people it's like an extremely stressful, challenging experience. The couple of points that I will make around severance negotiations is one, you can get creative in what you're asking for. So you know, most people are interested in kind of getting more payment. Typically severance is paid in like lump sum amounts based on how much you earn. Like we're getting two months or three months worth of severance. You can negotiate that that number up. But you can also negotiate other things as well. So a lot of times people will negotiate like being able to keep any of their, like their computer or any of the hardware that they have, any of their, you know, desk and all of that. That can have like a decent monetary value. Like one woman I spoke to, she ended up, she had like just gotten a new computer from work a month before she was laid off and she was a designer, she was like a 500 computer, she ended up negotiating to keep that.

(33:30):

 So you can get sort of like creative there. Another person who was laid off was, had been told that they were gonna be promoted the next month and that their pay would go up with that promotion. And so they negotiated for like the promotion to go into effect earlier so that when they were like applying for jobs they could apply at that more senior level. And actually can't remember the outcome but I know they were trying to like negotiate for their severance to be at the higher rate that they were about to be promoted into because they had already been told what the raise was gonna be and all of that. So I thought that was a creative one as well. And then like, you know, references, referrals, all of that, many employers like we'll offer that to begin with, but you can kind of be more explicit about what you're asking for there.

(34:19):

 Accelerated investing of stock or being able to keep more of it. That one is like a little bit harder to negotiate cuz sometimes it might need like board approval, but it is still possible and I've seen that be more successful when like a group of employees kind of come together to like ask for the policy to be changed. Companies are more likely to do that, I believe that happened at Coursera in the last few months. And then there's one more that I wanted to mention and of course I am blanking on it. But yeah, I think those are are some of the major things that you can negotiate during, during the severance period. Oh, here it's, you can negotiate what your last date of work will be and if you're being laid off at the end of the month, it can often be really helpful to have your last day of work be like the third day of the next month or something like that. And that way you get healthcare for that entire following month.

Jamie Lee (35:21):

This is all very useful and valuable information. And I'm curious, earlier when we were talking about offer negotiations, we were, we touched on the strategy of value focused negotiation, right? And thinking of making the case, framing the ask around, hey, this is the value, this is the upside that I'm bringing to the job. And so I'm curious in this inverse case when people are getting laid off, not due to their fault, right? How do you make the case? What do you, what have you seen as a winning strategy for making a case for, hey, may I keep this computer, may I have that, that health insurance coverage for an extra month, right? Can I have that accelerated besting schedule?

Jordan Sale (36:05):

Yes. So, you know, companies typically negotiate on severance when they believe that the employee might create some sort of reputational risk for them or might potentially litigate. So you kind of need to like play up up those risks. Obviously you wanna be like really mindful of like the language you use, but those are like kind of the reasons why a company would decide to change a severance package. And so it's definitely different than an offer negotiation, which is more like opportunistic, like, let me see if I can get a little bit more, it's hard to get a company to increase their severance offer. So you have to be kind of like willing to express like major discontent willing to say like, I'd feel really disrespected by the offer. I mean in the examples that I've seen be successful, like most of the people had been there for multiple years and were receiving less than one month per year of employment.

(37:09):

 Other examples I've seen, like someone was at a fan company and they were six months pregnant and they were laid off and so they, you know, made a case for more and they didn't say like, I'm going to take legal action or anything like that, but they obviously mentioned that they're pregnant and this puts like a, they're family in a really, really challenging position. But if you think about it from the company's perspective, like what are they thinking? They're thinking, hmm, if this person went to the media, this would be a bad story for us. Or if this person went to court, this would not be immediately obvious that this wasn't like discrimination based on the fact that this person is pregnant. So unfortunately, like it's, I hate to be so like cynical, but like that's really how companies are thinking about it. The other piece that's really important for severance negotiations is like, there's usually a deadline by which they want you to sign the severance agreement.

(38:05):

Basically saying like, you won't take legal action against the company if you sign that agreement. They are, there's like almost a 0% chance that they're gonna negotiate with you because you've already said you've already waived all of your like rights, your quote unquote rights. You usually need to be willing to let that deadline pass for them to take it seriously. So in every successful example I've seen the person basically let the deadline pass and then the company reached out to them after and was like, okay, what can we do to, to make you wanna sign this? In some cases people had tried to negotiate before the deadline, the company had said no and then the deadline passed and then the company reached back out more. Like in the f example I just gave HR actually said no to the person who is six months pregnant and then a few weeks later reach back out. So it's often not uncommon to get a no initially when you try

Jamie Lee (39:07):

This is so useful and practical. I love this. So when you say fang, are you saying F A A N G? Is that what you're saying? Or are you saying

Jordan Sale (39:15):

Something? Oh yes, sorry. So Facebook, Amazon, apple, Netflix, Google, like that sort of conglomeration of big tech companies.

Jamie Lee (39:24):

Got it. So it's like when you negotiate severance, you wanna be mindful of the company's desire to mitigate risk and also exactly know that you don't have to sign any paper. They ask you to sign you, you don't have to do that. I was at a networking event last night and people were talking about when they left this large, one of the largest financial companies in the United States and the world actually. And there's a lot of unfortunately biased discrimination, even harassment happening at this company. And there were women who were very bold and they refused to sign the NDA when they were leaving the company. I guess they were, they were let go and they said, no, I'm not signing a non-disclosure agreement. And they said that they got some rather stressful emails from the legal department. So in a way to sort of intimidate the women to sign NDA and they just like, no, I'm not going to.

(40:16):

And after five days of these stressful emails from legal department, for some reason they just altogether stopped pressuring the women to sign an NDA and so they didn't sign the NDA and they walked away. And, but there's power in that because you haven't signed an nda, you still have your your right, your, you know, authority to, to voice your opinion on what had happened. Right. This person that I met yesterday, she wrote a book about it <laugh>, it's called The Bully Market if you're curious. So thank you so much for sharing. These are, these are all so, you know, tactical useful insights. Do you have any tips or suggestions cuz this podcast is negotiate your career growth and it's geared towards women and women of color who are ambitious and who want to grow. And so if you have any specific tips for women and women of color who want to continue to grow their career, I'd love to hear what they are.

Jordan Sale (41:22):

Yeah, I mean I think, you know, an interesting question is like how do you do that in like the sort of market that we're in where there are a lot of job seekers, it's certainly not like the bull market that we experienced over the past many, many years. And so what is like can I

Jamie Lee (41:40):

Pause you there? Can I, I'm and I'm curious cause I work with people in all sorts of industries like nonprofit education, you know life sciences and tech and I'm curious, are you seeing this trend mostly in tech or are you seeing it like across the board or do, are you seeing it in like very specific segments of the industry?

Jordan Sale (42:00):

That's a great question. So I think, you know, so far it's been the biggest in tech definitely. But I do think there's some like ripple effects to other markets. Like I was just talking to a friend over the weekend who's an architect and his company just did a round of layoffs because a lot of building projects have been stalled due to like the higher interest rates. So I do think we are starting to see some spread outside of tech and I think there's some reason to believe that might continue over the next couple of quarters. And so I think that when that happens, like I'm talking to a lot of people who are really fearful and are like, you know, is now the right time to make a move? Is this an environment I can even like grow in? Should I just take the first offer that I get that's kind of like one camp and then the other camp is people who are like, is it tone deaf to try to advocate for myself right now?

(42:54):

Is it like disrespectful when like so many people are are out of work? And so I think it's like just a really interesting question of like in a tougher market, what does that mean for your career and for your growth? And I'm seeing all sorts of like creative responses to it. So you know, you may be familiar with the concept and negotiation of a BATNA or the best alternative to the negotiated agreement. Basically what's your baseline if this offer falls through, what's your plan B? And I've just seen all sorts of like creative bat development, like people getting freelance work, people getting freelance work that has nothing to do with their like day-to-day career people taking on like advising kind of roles. One, someone I talked to literally like left the United States and gave up their like expensive San Francisco apartment in order to like conserve money so that they can do a more strategic job search and don't need to like settle for the first offer that they get.

(43:55):

And so it's just like a really interesting, I feel like there's all sorts of creative responses. Some people are starting their businesses, other people are saying, you know what, I had really thought like this would be the year I would get a Google offer or an Adobe offer or you know, whatever that dream company is for them. But instead I'm going to like upskill myself and I'm gonna just like try to do really well at my current job, see if there's a pathway to a promotion there and I'm gonna like learn new skills on the side so when I am applying maybe a year from now or a year and a half from now, I'll be like a much more marketable candidate. So that's sort of my advice right now. And I know it's like not everyone is in a position to be able to like frame it as an opportunity, but I think to the extent we can look at like these more challenging circumstances as opportunities to try a different approach, opportunities to learn something different, opportunities to develop a different part of our professional skillset I think that's like kind of my biggest advice right now.

Jamie Lee (44:52):

Yeah, I concur cuz I have coached clients this year who have decided to strike out on their own, create their own consulting agency and achieve astounding amount of success. And I have clients who decided, you know what? Yeah, I thought while getting hired at Fay, you know, Facebook, apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google. But you know, actually what I really wanna do is pursue my creative ideas and this is the great time to do it. And I have other clients who negotiate in sort of again, like back to how we were talking about negotiation at the top of this conversation. It's not just about money. It's like how do you negotiate, you know, arrangements? How do you negotiate a flexible work schedule, how do you negotiate, you know, the people that you work at, the projects that you work on? And what I was thinking about is how, you know, there are very successful companies that started during recessions like Airbnb, Microsoft, like one of some of the biggest companies that we're familiar with now and we revere look up to, they started in recessions and, and if you are entrepreneurial, this could be a great time to pursue that.

(46:06):

So thank you for sharing that. So tell us in conclusion what is Aurora? I understand 81 cent is now part of Aurora, right? And I'm curious Yes. How does Aurora work and who should check it up?

Jordan Sale (46:23):

Yeah, so when I first started a 1 cents back in 2018 I did it while I was in grad school and I emailed a professor who I'd seen quoted in the book, never split the difference, the awesome negotiation book. And I just asked if he had time to meet and kind of give me some guidance as I was entering into the negotiation space. And he told me that he had just been connected. Like another former student had just reached out to him who was also starting the negotiation company and like, would we want to meet? And so I met up with this other founder in 2018 and we, you know, shared kind of like our experience with negotiation while we were passionate about it, like what we envisioned for our companies. And then we just sort of like left it at that. Like I was kind of heading more towards like data.

(47:16):

He was heading more towards coaching. We had like different kinds of people we were hoping to work with. And so we just kind of like stayed in touch over the years, but we're sort of doing our own thing. And then we both ended up moving to Los Angeles. We ended up getting coffee, like kind of middle of the way through the pandemic and just realized like we were both still doing the work. We had both come to like really value the approach the other person had taken. We were much more aligned on kind of like the mission side than we had previously been and having nothing to do with like kind of our companies. We had both gone on our own like inner work journeys around like therapy and personal development and all of that. And so we had this like huge thing in common that was now like very important to us.

(48:04):

And so at that point we realized like, why do this separately when we can try to build something together? And we decided to join forces. And so now 81 cents and Aurora are are one. Aurora is sort of like the for-profit arm of our business where we provide coaching often to like stem PhDs from moving from academia into industry. And then 81 cents is our pro bono side where we provide data, mentorship, support, coaching to people who are very early on in their career for whom any increase, like they should be able to keep everything that they earn. And really just with this idea of like trying to educate and support and because we feel better about the work when there's like a very clear mission to it. You know, we're also curious if like five years from now, 10 years from now, the people we support for free getting their first job out of college, if they might ultimately end up being our customers because they had such a great experience with us and now that they have like more power in the hiring market and more earning power and all of that if they would be, you know, a good fit.

(49:16):

So that's sort of how we're kind of like splitting up the work that we're doing. But like very similar offering across the board focused on data kind of negotiation strategy and then also helping kind of on more of the conversation around limiting beliefs and confidence.

Jamie Lee (49:35):

So you're telling me that 81 cents services are available for free?

Jordan Sale (49:39):

Am I hearing this? Yes. <laugh> two, two early career professionals. So people who are so early finishing up college.

Jamie Lee (49:46):

Yes. Ok. So everyone who's fresh outta college, what are you waiting for? And people who want more data, especially if you're in tech or if you are coming from a STEM related PhD, it sounds like, like academia, like this would be highly relevant, highly useful for you. Please check out Rora

Jamie Lee (50:05):

If you enjoy this podcast and if you want expert guidance in your corner to help you achieve greater self-confidence and greater career satisfaction as you grow your skills in negotiating, leading and influencing as a woman professional, I invite you to book your free one-on-one sales call with me to find out how executive coaching can help you do exactly that. The link is in the show notes talk soon.