 And welcome to our session at the Linguistics Career Launch called non-salary compensation. I'm Nancy Frischberg, I'm going to moderate the session but mostly you're going to hear from our speaker today who is Janet Frischberg, a freelance HR person currently but we've invited her because she has a good history with startups and corporate in HR and the kinds of compensation that you might be offered, or you might ask about in this in your process of interviewing. And so, without any further ado, Janet Frischberg, tell us about yourself. Hi everybody. And yes, Christina, even though we do have a very common last name we also happen to be related. I'll tell you a little bit about myself. I started working in tech at Airbnb in 2013 when the company was about 250 employees in San Francisco, less than 1000 globally. And I worked there for the next six years so when I left it was close to 4000 employees I personally made hundreds of offers and hired close to 10% of the engineering team. And then since leaving Airbnb I've been doing recruiting strategy consulting. So I work with companies that are in a high growth phase. Most of my clients are in different parts of tech. And basically what this means is that I've got an exposure to seeing the details of offers at all different phases of growth from super early startups like 20 people to very, very big public companies products that you're using every single day, or used to use every single day. And I really love sharing what I know with people who are earlier in their careers or changing their lives because there's just so much that gets left on the table in the offer process because people don't know the different things that they could ask about. Okay, so with all that being said about my experience I want to offer a few disclaimers about my perspective so that you know, you know how to hold it in light of other people's advice. The second thing is I'm over indexed in tech. I have had exposure to companies that aren't pure tech companies like more media companies, but I have very little knowledge about government jobs. I have very little knowledge about academia. I did work in the nonprofit space for a little bit and I have a lot of contacts there so I know a little bit more about that but a lot of what I'll share will apply to other jobs, but when it comes to stock. So I just want to like note that for you all. The second thing is I'm not going to give really specific negotiation advice today because without really knowing the role that you're interviewing for and the industry it's hard to do that effectively and I don't want to give you bad advice. So I'll sprinkle in some tips about negotiation we could spend like two hours on just negotiation if we wanted, but we're not going to get into the ins and outs of that. And the last thing I'll say is just, I do think it's really important to think about the offer package but I also think there are other factors that are going to be really big determinants of your satisfaction or happiness and a particular job, non monetary factors. So, I advise people to get information about all those other factors before you get too attached to the offer numbers, because I've definitely seen people get swayed by an offer that has higher comp and ignore some major red flags in the overall offer or the overall position. And then they end up leaving the company way earlier than they would want to which means that they didn't actually make as much as they kind of thought that they would when they were getting wowed by the hard numbers of the offer. We can talk about that a little bit at the end. So, briefly, we're not going to spend much time on salary today, but it's probably the most straightforward part of the offer. The main things I want you to know about salary are you should always ask for more. There's an asterisk there so I'll talk about that but almost always ask for more when it comes to salary. And then something that a lot of people don't know is that there are laws in place in many states. So, including California, New York where a lot of employers in tech are that help you when it comes to salary negotiation. So, the first thing is it's illegal in these states for not just California, New York, you can research this but it's illegal for anyone from the company to ask you what you're making. So, if you do have a job right now it's illegal for somebody to ask you what your current salary is if you're interviewing in those states, they can ask you what your expectations of salary are. So that's different but you don't have to disclose your current salary if the company is based in those states. So it's a good thing for you to know in terms of, you know, negotiating your offer. And the next thing is that there are also some states including California, Maryland and Washington state that say that employers must provide job applicants with the salary or hourly wage range for a position upon what's called the applicants reasonable request. So basically that means that if the applicant has gotten if you as a candidate have gotten into an interview process with the company so not just when you apply but when you're actually interviewing. When you ask them what the salary range is they are legally required to tell you what it is. So a lot of recruiters and hiring managers are getting into the practice of this, even if they're not based in California New York because it's becoming more of the norm nationally. So, I'm not an employment lawyer and I, you know, I don't play one on TV but these are good things for you to know. In terms of knowing what the salary is for a role once you've gone through at least one interview and also having a legal right not to have to disclose your current pay if you're worried it's going to disadvantage you in the negotiation process. And then when it comes to that asterisk about asking for more. There are a few times when a salary can be fixed in a role. So in particular with new graduate or entry level roles, sometimes a company will define really tight salary bands for that. And they'll really just offer everybody the same salary, and then you can make more as you move through the company but you're not going to have different people starting in the same role with different salaries. And you would want to know if the salary is truly fixed, meaning they're offering everyone the same exact amount. And it's really good to know so that you don't feel like you lost if you try and negotiate and they say actually the salary is fixed. There are also some companies that are moving towards a fixed salary policy because it leads to better pay equity and less of a wage gap. It's a policy that some tech companies are implementing in general. So ideally your recruiter your hiring manager should tell you that proactively at the beginning of the process, so that you have that expectation and you're not expecting that the salary they offer you is just starting place to talk about. A lot of people are scared to ask for more when it comes to salary they're nervous that the company could take the offer back or revoke it. And what I can say is that this rarely happens in my experience, I mean, I've never done that personally I've never worked at anywhere where that was a policy. I've heard about it happening to people that I know occasionally very very occasionally so there's always a slight amount of risk to asking for more. But if you do it in a respectful way it's very unlikely that that is going to happen to you and the most likely thing that would happen as long as it's not a fixed salary role is that you end up getting paid thousands or even 10s of thousands of dollars more per year. So, I would recommend always asking for more. So, let's talk about stock first. I want you to really understand this at the most fundamental level to start and then we're going to get into some of the nitty gritty because this is something I didn't understand until I worked in tech. So, at a really basic level, getting stock means that you're becoming the owner of a very small portion of the total value of the company that you're working for. You become a shareholder of the company through the time that you spend working there. And for public companies, you know, we can become shareholders of those companies by buying their shares at the market price. But for private companies, it's very difficult to become a shareholder unless you're like a VC. So, an investor. So, this is a way that regular people can become early shareholders of private companies. And you earn your shares through the work that you do over the course of time. So, generally, there are two different types of stock. There's RSUs and there's options. RSUs stands for restricted stock units and options. You can think of it as standing for option to purchase because you don't own them until you buy them. So, both of these shares typically have what's called a vesting schedule. This is the amount of time it takes for a share to become yours. So, if you get granted shares, it's not that you receive all of them on the first day of working at the company. The company needs to create an incentive to get people to stay there over time, and having a vesting schedule that lasts over the course of many years is one way that they create that incentive. So, we're going to talk about RSUs first. They're a bit more straightforward. Their shares that as they vest, so as time passes, they become yours. You don't have to purchase them. You don't have to pay anything to own them. RSUs and options do have different tax implications if anybody really wants to get into the nitty-gritty of that, we could totally talk about it, but I'm going to skip it for now because I don't want to overwhelm you. So, RSUs are the more straightforward option, and generally a company will transition to doing RSUs when their share prices become very expensive for somebody to purchase. So, that's the trend in tech right now anyway, as a company will often start off offering options. So, if it's an earlier stage company and they're still private, they might be doing options. And then they'll transition to RSUs at this inflection point where it becomes prohibitively expensive for somebody to purchase their options. Options are a little bit more complicated, but they're not that difficult to understand. Basically, you can purchase your options as they vest. As that time is going forward, you can purchase your options and you purchase them at what's called a strike price. That is a price point that is granted to you when you first get your options. So, your strike price is set when you first start working there, and it's usually the strike price that is the case on your first day of work, or sometimes it's like a specific day during your first quarter of work. So, the other thing that makes stock different is private equity can be very different than public equity. With private equity, that money is not, or those shares are not turned into money right away. You have to wait for an event, so either an acquisition or a public offering. With public equity, as soon as your shares are vesting, they're becoming real money if you were to sell them. So, they're more straightforward. And I want to tell you a little bit more about understanding private equity because I think that that's probably the most tricky thing and the thing with the most maybe like mystery around it in tech. So, the only other thing that you really want to know if you're interviewing for roles at public companies where you might get stock is you want to understand how they're actually making you that grant. So, public companies might structure the way that they do their shares in a very different way. You can have one company that would say, we're granting you $150,000 worth of our stock. And then they calculate how many shares that is based on an average share price during your first month. Another company might say we're granting you 3000 shares of our stock. And then you get those shares no matter how if the price went up or down from when you accepted the offer. The reason that I like to talk about this when I'm talking to people who are still in school is because you may be accepting an offer, nine months ahead of when you're actually starting that job. And if that's the case the stock price could change a whole lot between now and when you start. So if you're comparing two offers and those two offers are structured in those two different ways. You really want to make sure that you're accepting the one that is going to be more advantageous for you based on how you think their stock is going to go. I don't know more about that at the end but it's just you want to understand what does it actually mean that they're granting you if it's a public company how do these, how does this number turned into a number of shares that you get when you actually start working there. And when it comes to vesting schedules you definitely want to understand this. So this is basically you understanding on what schedule does the stock actually become yours or become available to you for you to purchase if it's options. The vesting schedule that you see in most companies is a four year vesting schedule with a one year cliff where you have 25% vesting at that one year cliff. What that means the cliff is that there's going to be a date. Usually it's one year from your start date or one year from another date during the first month that you start when a quarter of your entire stock grant is going to vest all at once. Companies do this are mostly to get people to stay for at least a year before they get that big value. Some companies are getting rid of the one year cliff they're saying you know what employees are adding value as of day one we want them to be rewarded for that. And some companies do it differently they have the majority of your stock vesting in the fourth and the fifth year, for instance. And so what that means is they're trying to get people to stay longer. So, and so basically, you always want to know what the vesting schedule is, if you're getting granted stock, because if you have to stay somewhere for five years, versus you could stay somewhere for two years. And to get the same amount of value. It's a really good thing to know if you're comparing different offers. The other thing I'll say and I always said this to my candidates when I was making offers, there's never a guaranteed value for stock. So, the company could have a really bad year even if they're a public company and the stock could tank in value. And in a private company, it could be wildly overvalued when you join and then the business could go downhill and your stock could be worth absolutely nothing. So stock is really important but you don't want to have all of your eggs in that basket, especially if you're early in your career and you don't have a safety net. And you should never just take for granted what a recruiter or a hiring manager is telling you about the value of private stock without asking some follow up questions to really investigate whether you agree with how they're valuing that private stock. And then the last thing I'll say which is negotiation is that when it comes to equity. It is especially private equity, it is my opinion that it's always a good idea to ask for more when it comes for stock. This is really where I saw the most left on the table during my time as a recruiter. And once you have a few years of experience the ranges for stock, especially within private companies can be quite large and the ranges can be defined in pretty arbitrary ways. So I would really encourage you to ask for more when it comes to stock if you have multiple offers, especially where you're getting stock from both places. It is a very good idea and sometimes can be a really lucrative part of your offer. If you're getting private equity, I wanted to give you some questions that are good idea to ask if you're getting offered this so you can assess the value of the private equity that you're being granted. The first thing is you want to understand the estimated value and how the hiring manager or recruiter is getting to that number. So they'll probably tell you we estimate these shares will be worth could be worth, they have to say could be worth, you know $500,000 in the next five years. And you really want to understand oh that's that's so exciting talk me through how you're getting to that 500,000 number. What are the data points that they're using to estimate that value what's it based on. I always want to know what is the fair market value of the stock. So if you have options that's basically the that's the same as your strike price, or the price it can cost to purchase. If it's RSUs. It's also sometimes known as an FMV or a 409 a valuation. And so, basically, it's good to know what this number is because this is given to the company by a third party evaluator, it's generally left inflated then some other numbers. So it has some grounding in like being audited. Um, the other thing that's really helpful to know is the most recent preferred value. The preferred value is the price that investors paid for stock, most recently in an investment round. The reason why I like knowing this number is because it's generally a bit more aspirational and it takes into account future growth plans. I'm the founder of a company and I'm pitching investors and telling them about all the great things that we're about to do as a company, not just our past track record. So investors are buying into a somewhat future state of the company that's a bit like projected out. And so that's helpful for you to know, because you're a potential investor, you're just investing your time to become a shareholder. So, exactly the FMV is like a current snapshot of where the company is at. And it usually changes or is updated quarterly, and the preferred price is usually a projected future state, unless the last time this company went through an investment round was like three years ago they may have already, you know, realized the, the aspirational aspects so when in a healthy company what you often see is that the FMV is catching up to the preferred price as the company goes forward and then eventually it eclipses it and then the company goes through another round of funding, they get a higher preferred price, and then the FMV clients again to eclipse that finally the company goes public, and hopefully it meets or outperforms its most recent preferred price this is obviously best case scenario. So you really want to understand like what's the gap between these two numbers where does the company have to grow and where do I think the company might go public at and that can help you estimate the value of your private stock. It's not always possible for companies to share the most recent preferred price but it's really nice if a company can be transparent about that. So Kya asked how would you negotiate stock options if you don't have the savings to purchase it, ask for something different. So I would say that it is still a good idea to ask for more options, even if you don't currently have the stock to purchase it, because it's not going to be granted to you until you're working at the company for a number of years probably. So as you're working there, hopefully you're able to save money to purchase it along the way. But even if you can't, you could wait until the company goes public, and then you could sell some of the stock when it goes public and purchase the stock at that time so you sell and cover. So it doesn't cost you much to sometimes it doesn't cost you anything to get more stock granted to you when you're in your offer negotiation process. And it's possible that your financial situation will change as you keep working at the company and you'll be able to purchase your stock down the line. So it's totally okay if you don't have the cash to purchase it right off the bat, but I do think it's a good idea to always ask for more when it comes to stock. If you're worried that your offer is over indexed in stock and you want there to be more salary that's also something you could totally tell your recruiter, and it's often really helpful for them to know why that is and to say, you know, for instance like I have a lot of students loans to pay off. It's really important to me to have a cash heavy offer because I have real bills right now that that needs to go to and even though I really believe in the trajectory of this company. I need to make sure that I have my expenses covered. That's like a talk track I might use for that, or that my candidates would use for that. That's a great question. And then the last thing is just whenever somebody's giving you numbers whether it's recruiter or hiring manager or a CEO if it's really small company, you always want to know where the numbers coming from, and what has changed in the business since these numbers happened. So these are my very like basic questions that I think are really good to ask of somebody. And the last one would be just what's the total addressable market for the product or business. If you've got two offers, and you've got one company that has a total addressable market of $50 million, and another company that has a total addressable market of $3 billion, then those are very different potential trajectories for those companies and also for what your offer could become, what your stock could become in the future. So bonuses. There's mainly three types of bonuses that are common in tech companies. The first one would be a yearly bonus. So this is a bonus that most are all employees are eligible for, usually at the end of the year, around holiday time or at the beginning of the first or the following year. So just good to ask questions about like, is there a yearly bonus. What is the yearly bonus how is it calculated is it different depending on my performance review. And you know, is there different eligibility for it based on role or level. These are good things to know about. And I will just say that if you're interviewing with mid stage or smaller private tech companies. Sometimes they are choosing not to do yearly bonuses in favor of reinvesting that cash into the company. So this is in favor of doing bonuses in the form of equity in order to save cash or business costs. So you're not necessarily like being scammed if you're interviewing at an early stage tech company and they don't have a yearly bonus. And this is something that you would see in like a mid stage company or a more mature public company. And that bonus type would be a sign on bonus. So this is different from a yearly bonus in that it's a one time bonus that's granted to you when you're as part of your offer process. And it can often be negotiated, although I will say for new graduates sometimes it is a set number. And a lot of times in order to try not to create really big inequity when it comes to salary recruiters or hiring managers will use sign on bonuses to bridge gaps between their offer and your other offers through a sign on bonus. So it is a really good idea if you have two offers, let's say one is 100k and one for a salary and one is 80k for a salary. And you really want to go with the 80k salary offer. And you also know that that company does not want to increase or cannot increase the salary by 20k. It's a good idea to ask is there any way to make up some of this gap in a sign on bonus. Sign on bonuses typically are paid out within the first three months of you joining but if you were to leave the company before years time you would have to pay it back. Some sign on bonuses have a two year term, which means that you would have to pay back a portion of it if you don't stay for two years so that's also a really good thing to know. In engineering roles sign on bonuses historically that in my last, you know, seven or eight years of hiring for these roles have been can be quite high they can be almost as much as your actual salary. So there are some of the bigger tech companies who will offer sign on bonuses, even to, you know, especially to new grads I would say that are upwards of 35k a 50k or sometimes even 75k. So it's something that is really good to know, and really good to ask about. That's not normal by the way for a smaller tech company or a private company, I know. So, don't like I don't want you to get that number in your head like oh I'm going to get a 75 case sign on bonus when I graduate. If I'm going into an engineering role it's not necessarily normal but it is possible so it's, it's a good thing for you to know that it exists. Um, I would say a more normal sign on bonus that you see would be for for technical roles, especially would be like 10k or 15k. All right, so the last kind of bonus would be a relocation bonus or a relocation stipend. So these are usually preset based on the location you're relocating from and to, and unfortunately I don't really know how companies have been handling this with coven and work remote policies. So my knowledge here may be a little bit outdated. Typically this is happening in a bigger or more mature company and it's often just like set in stone it's like if you're relocating from New York to California we will give you $3,000 relocation stipend. If you have, you know, your money to spend on your move you can use it however you want or sometimes it's a reimbursement so you have to submit receipts. But if it's a smaller company sometimes if you ask for it, especially if you have one of these bigger companies that are offering it to you and the smaller company wants to compete, you can say hey, you know blah blah blah is offering me a 3k relocation bonus it's really helpful for me because I'm relocating across the country for this role. So if there's any chance of having something similar with you all really help and then sometimes the recruiter can get that for you. Another thing is that sometimes recruiters just miss that you're reloading, and they don't realize that you're relocating. So it's always worth asking about if you're getting to those late stages and you're relocating for the job. So those are bonuses. There's lots of other benefits that can result in significant value or positive impact for you so I want to talk about some of them. The first one would be health insurance. What are the benefits that they offer. Do they cover all of your premium costs or do you have to pay a part of your premium, if so how much that can be worth many thousands of dollars a year. And what about time off, how many paid days of paid time off do you have one thing I want to caution you around is that when a company says that they have unlimited PTO. That's why I'm going to talk about Christina. So when they talk about having unlimited PTO. It's not necessarily a good thing unless the company's culture actually supports you taking those days off. So I've read studies on this that companies with unlimited PTO often people end up taking less than 14 days a year, because of the manager, or, you know, cultural pressure in the company to not take time off. So, I'm not saying that every single company with unlimited PTO is this way there are companies with unlimited PTO where they mean it. PTO does mean paid time off and it's different from sick time off usually so that's a good thing to find out about though because sometimes it's not different. So if you only have 14 days of PTO and that's supposed to encompass your sick time off as well. That's something you definitely want to know about upfront. So anyway, if somebody says that they have unlimited PTO, you should really ask them follow up questions around that. What's the average number of days that an employee would usually take. Overall the company what about on your team, what's the culture around it do they have separate sick days, what's their parental leave policy, you know all of these things are good things to know so you really want to understand what the time off and leave policies are. Ideally you're asking that not only of your recruiter or future manager but also of some of your peers who are going to hopefully be more honest with you about what the actual culture is around time off. Not that recruiters and hiring managers aren't going to be honest, many are, but I just think it's always a good idea to get as many opinions as possible. The next thing is 401k matching. So this is something that unfortunately isn't common in a lot of earlier stage startups but when you get to a company that's more mature more, more mid stage. So, and if they're thinking about like stages of companies I would say series C, or so onwards is typically what I would think of as more mature. And then any public company I would expect them to have some sort of one K matching hopefully if they're competing with some of the bigger tech companies. And similar to sock packages you want to find out is their investing schedule for the 401k match, or does it start immediately. The next thing probably very relevant to all of you is around education stipends so sometimes companies reimburse continuing education, and this can be up to thousands of dollars a year for employees as long as it relates to the role that you're actually doing for the company. So it's worth looking into this it's also worth knowing what the policy is around covering conference costs and supporting employees to develop their public speaking skills so if there's something that you've developed expertise in during the course of your master's PhD program, you really want to know whether the company will continue to support you in being a subject matter expert in that and speaking at conferences and continuing your learning and education around it. This is really good for them and their brand like it's great to be like we have somebody who's amazing in an LP in the specific area or who's an expert in you know internationalization, and they spoke at XYZ conference. It's great for their brand it's great for their hiring. So it's in their best interest but it's a good thing for you to know about it, especially if you're considering like multiple offers from I would say like mid stage or early stage companies. And working remote policy this has been shifting a lot because of coven, but I would say it's really good to understand your own preferences around whether you want to be remote first or not. And also what their policies are and what their plans are for going back to the office. And if they're going to be doing that at all. And then also this can be a very, you know, compelling thing to some people but you know there might be offerings related to meals at the office. There might be wellness offerings like a gym on site or a stipend for that. So those are all really good things to understand because that's going to tie into the culture of the company. So the last thing I want to say before we just open it up and we can have more of a conversation about any other questions you have or anything you want to know about what I shared is that I want to make up one last plug for thinking beyond the offer especially if you end up having multiple options that are going to give you a similarly good quality of life in terms of the pay and the compensation. What I mean by that is, once you know that you're going to get an offer that is above whatever your minimum threshold is that you need, sometimes you can find more satisfaction in taking a slightly lower offer that still meets all of your needs or exceeds them, but with better non monetary factors rather than doing the reverse. Obviously that's a very personal decision but I think it's worth spending a moment talking about because I've seen people get really wowed by numbers and lose track of the other things that really matter to them at the beginning of their job search and end up somewhere that they might not be happy and then they have to go through a job search again 18 months later. So these are some of the factors that I really encourage people to consider and what's the actual work like, what's your team going to be like, who's your manager if you can know that ahead of time. The culture of company, your career growth, especially for all of you this being potentially your first job in industry. How do people go from the role that you're starting from how does that process happen how does mentorship happen at the company is it structured is it unstructured. What does it look like when you're working remote, all that stuff. And then also especially if it's an earlier stage company what's the product trajectory what's going to happen with the product or the business over the next three to four years while you might be working there or even longer. So these are questions that again, you could ask your recruiter. I know the answer to all these questions, especially if they're hiring for multiple teams within the same business, they might not have as deep of an understanding as you need. So it's totally okay to ask for another conversation with somebody that you met during your process whether that's the hiring manager or somebody that you interviewed with even better if you can through you know your network or friends of friends, find somebody who would be more of your peer at the company who doesn't have a stake in whether or you need to offer and who you can have an honest conversation with. But these are all questions that I think are super important to ask, ideally during the interviewing process, but if not then as soon as you know that you're getting an offer. And asking about raise how raises work would totally be something that you should ask about a great call out Kia. And that's something that the recruiter or the hiring manager should be able to answer for you. And then that would be red flag for me. Unless it's a really, really early stage company, it might be a bit of chaos where they might not have implemented a structure or a system for that yet. All right, how does turning down an offer affect your future opportunities at a company that's a really good question. And I see you also every so um, I would say that if you turned out an offer in a polite and respectful way ideally it shouldn't affect your chances at the company in the future. Um, if you string the company along for a really long time, and while you're interviewing other places and they think that they're your top choice and then they're kind of surprised by you not accepting the offer a few weeks into the, you know, offer negotiation process that might kind of sour them a little bit. Um, as long as you and see my internet connection is unstable, I hope you can hear me. But as long as you're respectful and fairly prompt about it, it shouldn't sour your chances. And if it did, I would be, you know, it might not be the place that you want to work if they're like really, really, you know, really not understanding. Um, the other thing I'll say is that the thing that can sometimes sour your chances is if you accept an offer and then months later you what's called a renaig on that so you take back your acceptance. That is not something that is never done but it can hurt the relationship where they might not want to consider you again. Um, because they, you know, saved a spot for you and they were planning on you starting and then they have to rehire for this role and their ideal candidate pool may have already been hired other places so that's that's the main thing I would advise against. If you want to keep the door open. Okay. I'm going to go to Aubrey and then I'll do Leila's question. Hi, so firstly, thank you. This was, this was great. And I'm wondering for those of us who are kind of new out of school and we're open to a lot of directions. If we are comparing like, so for me, I'm, you know, right now I feel like I'm just interested in so many different types of linguistic, you know, applied linguistics and everything. What if we have two different offers which are very different types of roles, but maybe we're equally excited about both. I'm just wondering about how to how much information to give if we were to be, you know, talking to two companies and trying to decide and saying well I have an offer over here for you know conversational design and then I have an offer over here for analytical linguists and whether the companies would be kind of saying well what do you want to do and if that would hurt our chances and just how to how to handle that. That's a great question. So, the first thing I'll say is that companies that hire new graduates or people straight out of academic programs are often used to talking to people who are confused about what they want to do next. So, you would not be the only person having that feeling. And if you work in what's called University recruiting, or you're hiring people straight out of school, even if it's PhD programs, you kind of get used to the fact that people have a lot of open questions about their careers. And this is just your first time. Exciting. So I'd say like don't be too self conscious about it. But I do think it is important for you to do some thinking, you know, on your own or with mentors or with your peers around what are the things that you think, at least are most important to you in this first role is the most important thing to you that you have really great mentorship is the most important thing to you that you're super passionate about the product and it's a product that you could actually, you know, be really feel really excited to work on every single day. And is it really important to you to be building something from scratch versus working somewhere where there's amazing systems already in place and you can see what master class looks like right. So these are all like different factors and I would encourage you to do some thinking about them with people that you trust maybe people who are farther along in their career to get a sense of your own values around that, knowing that that might change during the interview process as you get exposed to new information. And as you talk to more people. So that would be my advice around it it's really nice if you're talking to a future potential manager and you can say to them. These are the things I think I care about the most in my next role, and then it's really their job to be able to pitch you on why their company and role meets those needs or hopes that you have. So you don't have to have all the answers in that way. Okay, great. And so would you say like if you're trying to leverage you know an offer against another offer. Yeah, and you know you know which one is more important to you or something that obviously wouldn't want to let them know. Would you say to kind of keep back the actual title of the job and just say, well I'm talking with you know this company this company and maybe. It's okay to keep back as much information as you want I've had candidates refuse to tell me where they have another offer, you know they could have been lying. It doesn't you know I can't do anything about it. So you can be as secretive or as open as you want to. And to some extent I think that depends on how much you actually trust the report that you have with the people I would say for me as a recruiter the more that my candidates were willing to share with me the more likely it was that they were actually going to get their questions answered and be able to make a decision based on all the information. So somebody would be, you know, but also it's a risk to tell somebody all that information because maybe they'll you know use it against you. But if you feel like you trust the person you think that they are genuinely, you know approaching this an open way you could say, I have this other offer. I'm more excited about yours for XYZ reasons, but they're offering this that is really compelling and so it's giving me pause. And maybe it's just information you need to know about the other company maybe it's related to the monetary part of it like whatever that is I always really like to know what my candidates sticking points were so that I could actually try and get them either the information or the changes that they need. Or I could just be honest with them and be like, you know, if the most important thing to you is x thing. We're not actually going to be able to provide that and so it sounds like maybe that is a better fit for you. If that truly is the most important thing to you. So I think it's somewhat up to your judgment, but I would say that you're never required to tell anybody, you know, you can just say I'd prefer not to answer that or I'm actually not comfortable sharing that right now. And that's totally an okay answer just because somebody asked you a question and recruiters will ask you questions. That's part of our job is to ask very direct questions and it's totally okay to say I'm actually not comfortable sharing that right now, or I'd prefer not to share that. And that's totally an okay answer. Okay, thank you so much the expectations are what I was looking for that's perfect. Yeah, yeah. And, and you should know that you might be making your recruiters life harder because they're going to be trying to like guess where you're at or guess what you're thinking, and if they don't know they might guess wrong. They might connect you for a conversation with somebody that you're like that was not really useful for the questions I actually have right so the more you can share with them about where your heads at and what your confusion is or your hesitation, the better they can at least have a chance of answering those questions. Um, All right. I want to figure out if the salary is being offered is fair. I see. Yes, I see some plus ones and also how do you politely inform them that the salary offers nowhere. Okay, so you can do research online for sure. I think that the best way to try and figure out what the salary range is appropriate is, so there's a few things. And this is all shifting a lot with work remote policies because people are trying to figure out like what do we pay in a world where somebody could be working in Chicago or they could be working in the Bay Area and the cost of living are very different between these places, but the role is the same so some of this is shifting rapidly but I would say the best way is if you can talk to people who are actually in that role or in a related role and you can ask them. You're not asking them how much do you make you're asking them, what do you think would be an appropriate salary for a role like this at a company like this so asking people who are in the industry that you you know are doing informational interviews with or people who have graduated from your program and gone into industry is a really good move. The reason that salary can shift so much is that salary can be really different depending on location. It can be really different depending on the location of the role. So, you know, I would often see 2250 K differences in salary for an entry level engineering role in New York at a startup versus an entry level engineering role at public company in the Bay Area, right. So you and that and I don't know if that range would be as big for all other roles but you can see quite large variants depending on location depending on stage of company. So the best thing to do is if you can talk to somebody who's as close to that role as possible. And I would say that that that would be my number one piece of advice. If it's a bigger company, it's likely that they're taking into account market data to target the role salary. If it's an earlier stage startup that's where you might want to be really careful that it's actually a fair salary because they may not have as much data points to go off of, or as much experience, especially if it's like the first time hiring for the role. And if you get an offer a salary offer that is nowhere near what you would what you're expecting. Hopefully that's not happening at the offer stage hopefully there's some discussion of this ahead of time but if it is happening at the offer stage. So I would I put that I'd probably say, you know, you always want to be polite or appreciative so I'd probably say like, thank you so much for this offer. I'm really, I remain really enthusiastic about the opportunity because xyz. However, you know, non monetary factors, how and the and the product, however, the salary is really different from my expectations based on my research. I'm always expecting an a salary more in the range of x to y and you can give a 10 to 15 K or whatever range. And that's what I see, you know, that's what I've been hearing from other, you know, people in this industry or whatever justification you want to give. Is there any chance of revisiting the salary. The other thing that I really want to say actually for this group specifically since a lot of you are in PhD programs. So my opinion, my personal opinion, that if you have that additional those additional years of school, you should be compensated differently than somebody who is coming out of a bachelor's degree program, unless your school does not your schooling does not apply at all to the role that you'll be doing. So, you really want to make sure that the recruiter and the hiring manager are at least considering your additional years of training and research and all of that, as they're formulating your offer and that you, you're not getting offered an offer that is a bachelor's, you know, offer unless that is the company policy, which is, you know, I can make an argument in for sake of that but I, that's not my, that's not my view. So I really think it's important that you all make sure that that wasn't overlooked when it comes to salary, especially if you get a salary that's way lower than you were expecting it maybe that they've scoped the role for somebody who's graduating from a lesser degree program from an earlier degree program and you would really want to know that and then see if they can revisit it in light of your additional training and knowledge that you'll be bringing to the role. So I hope that's helpful. I'm reading your comment Christina, they gave you a range nest if it was okay. Yes. Oh my gosh, it just shows you the story just really shows you how arbitrary this is. And this is why I always ask for more. Like, always ask for the highest number you could possibly ask for. Yeah. For sure I knew that they could do more. And that's why I said, Oh, the fire end of this range is good, which I wouldn't have done if my brother, you know, coaxed me on because he's very like, you know, he's very confident, you know, and this and this type of thing. So I did this and then they came back and they were like, Okay, we can only do a little bit more she totally misunderstood me but I was like, Okay, sure, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, everybody should channel advice from your inner older brothers. So how much do I think this applies in nonprofits. Unfortunately, I think this applies. Not much in nonprofits. nonprofits are very budget constrained. They often have really, you know, strict guidelines around how much they can actually pay people. And unlike tech companies where it's often that there's just like this flow of either investor money or other money that can kind of get redirected different places nonprofits don't always have that ability. I do still think it's worth, you know, asking for more when it comes to, you know, salary and all of that and I think it's really worth in nonprofits, especially thinking about things that don't necessarily cost them cash, but would be hugely beneficial for your experience of your quality of life while you're working. So maybe that's time off to go to conferences, maybe it's, you know, flexible working schedule or something like that. But when it comes to like, you know, with a nonprofit I'd be very surprised if you end up getting us out if the same thing that happened to you Christina happened with a nonprofit, you know, hiring manager I don't think they're going to write back and be like oh yeah we'll actually just increase it above our range. That's been my experience and obviously you're probably not you're not going to get stuck with nonprofits and the benefits. But my experience has been that benefits are often, you know, can be really good with nonprofits. But you do want to ask those questions because it's not a guarantee. hourly and salaried roles as far as they equate salary people who work on godly hours. Yes. It's really complicated between hourly and salary salaried roles because on some level it's really good to get paid for your hours. I've been in both. It feels good when you're working overtime to get paid for that overtime. Also, it can feel really bad if you need to take time off, and you lose money because you need to take the afternoon off or like doctors appointment or something and then you have to make up those hours later versus with a salaried role. You know, that might not be the thing that's happening it's, it's more flexible. So I think kind of the question before the hourly versus salary question is what is the culture at the company. What's the culture around working hours what's the culture around working on weekends, working evenings being always on versus not. And I would say that's really important and then you can, I think it's very possible to be happy and feel fairly treated, whether you have a salary or an hourly paid role. But as Nancy said, it's often that that hourly is is more likely for a contract or a temporary role and salary is more likely for a full time role. So, most important find out what the culture is, and then, you know, you can make a determination about what kind of role you want to be in. And I will say that it is not always a bad, it is, it is not always a bad idea if you get offered something that is a temporary role but it's at your dream place and there is the potential of it turning into a full time role. I've seen that work out really well for people to take the, you know, not as permanent feeling role for the state, you know, and take a little risk there obviously this depends on how much risk you can take on. And I've seen it work out really well for people and get converted into their dream job through that means so it's not always the case that a temporary role is a bad decision right after school if there's the potential of it turning into something else. Okay, a quick what to look out for with health benefits. Also I'm seeing things about what's the appropriate amount of time to ask to review and offer health benefits. I'm not an expert on but I would say the most important thing you want to know is how much of the premiums are they covering. So the premium is the monthly price that you pay for your health care, or the company pays for your health care. And in some cases companies cover 100% of your premiums, which means you don't have to pay anything for your just coverage, you will have to do co pays and stuff like that if you go in for some sort of care. You don't have to actually, you know, pay to just have health insurance, other companies they only pay you know maybe 80% of your premiums or 50% of your premiums, something you really want to know because you're going to have to pay. How much is that going to cost you each month right. Maybe a company will have like a one pager about their different health plans often there are like three plans you know like Blue Shield this Blue Shield this and Kaiser. So you want to know what those are and they'll have like a rundown of what they cover. And if you have specific things that you know you need to be covered you might want to make sure that those things are covered. Or for instance if you're going to be having a baby or your partner is going to be having a baby anytime soon, that's something you might want to look into what's the coverage for that under their plans and that might lead you to choose one company over another if all other things are fairly equal. So that's what I advise about health benefits. In terms of timing and offers a really good question. And unfortunately it's, it's not super standardized. Some companies will give you two weeks to decide and it's like no problem. Some companies will set the expectation that you're supposed to decide in two days, and you have to really push back to get more time. And so, what do I want to say about this, you should know that companies tend to use time pressure as a way to get people to accept their offer without necessarily having all the information that they need. And so it is in your best interest to get yourself more time to consider and not to cut other processes short, if you can help it. But on the other hand from the company perspective, they may have other candidates who are waiting to hear back for the role, who they are scared of losing. And even though you're their first choice if they feel that you're just kind of using them so that you can leverage them later against another company that you're still interviewing with. They might not be excited about the idea of giving you two weeks to just hold on to their offer, while they lose everybody else that they just interviewed. So, I would say that it is very reasonable for you to need over the course of say a weekend to, you know, decide on an offer. I would also advise you that if you want to buy yourself more time, a good way to do it is to have a lot of questions that haven't yet been answered. And to schedule calls to get those questions answered. And don't schedule the call for like the next day, say, I'm actually not available until, you know, two days out or three days out but I'm really excited to talk and schedule the call that way and that's a way that you can kind of buy yourself a little bit more time without having to be so direct about it. So, that's my advice around reviewing an offer you also can play the card of being where you're at in your career and say, This is my first offer straight out of, you know, my degree program I'm super excited about it and I'm still, you know, trying to understand it so I really need time to sit down with my, you know, my parents, my older sibling to understand the offer better and I'd love to have a couple days to do that, you know, they're on a trip to whatever and then they'll be available Sunday, I'll get back to you on Monday by Monday end of day and let you know what questions I have. So that's my advice around buying more time at a very high level. Okay, tax implications. The hourly does happen for full time roles but it's unusual. Um, oh yeah how much they pay for your dependence thanks for calling that out Wendy it's probably it's obvious maybe that I don't have kids that there's all these questions that you'll want to ask if you do, or your dependents who aren't kids. Okay, so I will, I'm going to wait on the tax implications thing and just read through all the other questions one sec. Um, retirement, I don't see that very much in tech companies, yeah, as 401k would be the thing government jobs might be different. So I don't know as much about that. Um, okay, so I'll talk a little bit about taxes in the last five minutes just to really like make it fun. Okay, so. And I'm not a tax lawyer or an accountant so I just, I want you to really, you know, I want you to check what I say with you know the powers that be but this is what I can tell you about taxes, especially from my own personal experience, having gone through private stock to public stock IPO. You are taxed on your rs us. When a double trigger is satisfied usually which means that one, they've vested. So the time has passed that they have become yours, but two, these are for private rs us or public, they there is a public market for them. So what that means really practically, if you're getting granted private rs us, you are not going to be taxed on them until one, they become yours into there's a public market for them. So, what's good about that is that there's no tax implications for your rs us while you're working at a private company, and they're not public yet and the rs us are not real money yet. So that's really, really great. And that's probably a big upside of rs us for people who are early career and may not have as much saved to cover their taxes right options are taxed differently. It's more advantageous in a way for the option holder it also carries more risk. So options are taxed at the time when you purchase them. And because you can purchase your options before there's a public market for the stock. That means that you could have a tax bill for your options that is quite high before there's actually those options have translated into real money. So what that means is that you're working at private company, you get granted 1000 options, you purchase them there. The way you get taxed on options is your tax on the spread between whatever your strike price was is, and whatever the current fair market value is times your number of shares. So let's say your strike price was $1 share. And by the time you get around to purchasing your options, they're worth $10,000 or sorry $10 a share. Okay, you have 1000 options. You buy them at $1, you write a check to the company for $1000 you bought all your options congratulations. But now come next tax year, April, you are liable for the taxes on the spread between one and 10 so $9 a share times $1000 so you're liable for taxes on $9000. How much that'll be you should look it up in the tax code I forget right now but it's like, you know, it's not insignificant. So this is where the phrase that I don't really love using but golden handcuffs comes in, which is the idea that you are kind of trapped at a company, because the combination of how much it would cost to purchase your options. Plus the tax liability for that is so expensive that people who don't have a great amount of cash on hand, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars on hand, cannot actually purchase their options and leave. So the good news about this is that a lot of companies have been. And the other thing I'll tell you is that it's good to know what happens to your options if you were to leave the company before there is a public offering. So let's say you start working at a company they're only series B. And you think you want to stay there until they're public but turns out that's a really long ways in the future. I ideally want to know, if I don't purchase my stock options within 30 days or 90 days of leaving the company does that mean I lose those. Or is there the potential for me to have a longer window to purchase them. And a lot of companies are doing that right now they're granting people you know a seven year window for instance to purchase their stock, which is really really great for people who don't have a ton of capital on hand to purchase their stock but they want to hold on to that value or potential value that they've earned through the course of working there. So I'm not sure this should really be like a determining factor for you if you're deciding between two offers that are, you know, really similar but if you're deciding between two offers where one of them is rs use, and one of them is options, and you know that and you feel like the companies are both really helpful. You know, it may make sense if this is your financial situation to go with the one where you don't have to invest any of your own money in order to potentially see returns from that stock versus the one where you do, or maybe it's the reverse you're like I would like to go to the place where I have a potential for huge returns on the stock, and I'm willing to invest and take some risks in you know, in this stock to do that. So that's my that's like a 2.0 version or like a 201 version on private stock, and I see that we're at time. So, um, Thank you. We are. Thank you so much everybody. Thanks Janet.