December 5, 2019
Margaret Laffan, Lorry Tang, TalentSeer

On December 5^th in Sunnyvale, California, TalentSeer hosted a career development event for Women in Big Data SF Bay Area. Regina and Margaret kicked off the event, welcoming a room of ~ 50 guests.

Next, Lorry Tang, Director of Talent at TalentSeer stepped us through a rockstar mini-masterclass on how to evaluate a start-up employment offer. She provided concrete advice including how to calculate the value of equity that she uses when advising her clients. She also helped define the start-up lifecycle and its stages, based on funding cycles.

 

Here are some highlights from Lorry’s presentation:

• 2% of startups make it to a series A round of funding. A decision to work at a startup is an investment. There are risks and potential rewards.
• An offer usually includes these elements: base pay, performance bonus, sign-on bonus, stock options, benefits (medical, leave, 401K matching contributions, etc.), retention bonuses, and others.
• Know how to value your Stock.

Get the full slide deck from the podcast at Robin.ly.

The last segment of the evening was an engaging panel discussion moderated by Margaret, featuring:

• Tina Kung, VP of Product @ IngageApp
• Sena Zorlu, Investment Associate @ Kubera Venture Capital
• Brianna Swanson, Director, People Ops @ Kindred AI

The discussion included topics such as:

• What are the important factors to consider when making a decision to move from corporate to startup?
• Startup compensation package – let’s get into the details.
  • How do you evaluate and prioritize different factors in a package?
  • What do you see being more important factors when it comes to early-stage vs. experienced professionals?
• Startup offers are typically lower base, equity-driven; how do you think about the trade-offs in the offer? (corporate to startup/early-stage growth company)
• Can you share some negotiation tactics on how to negotiate a package that is below market/expectation?
• How to get a startup job
  • Can you give the top three takeaways for our audience today on how to approach getting a startup job?
  • What they can do to become a more competitive candidate?

Visit Robin.ly to download presentation slides and access a podcast of the event (video coming soon): https://www.robinly.info/post/diversity-career-meetup-making-the-right-career-move-how-to-assess-a-startup-offer.

About the Women in Big Data and TalentSeer partnership

The partnership has a commitment to organizing exclusive events that facilitate career advancement in AI for underrepresented groups. When we came together earlier this year to discuss our collaboration and partnership, we both recognized (through many of the women we knew in our networks) that there can be a hesitancy for women to look at startups, given ambiguous information regarding equity, the risk/reward metrics, and many not-often discussed issues on what it takes to be successful in a startup versus a corporate/more established company.

TalentSeer believes that de-mystifying the process and creating an environment to learn and ask experienced female leaders in the startup community can encourage more women to seriously assess joining one. Thus, our initial event was conceived.

We are planning a number of events in 2020 to continue these discussions. We believe that starting this type of conversation, learning from each other, educating ourselves, and keeping an open and growth mindset will encourage more women to jump into AI and Big Data startups and have incredible experiences that, regardless of outcome, will drive new levels of growth and bring more diversity into the tech space.

Thank you, TalentSeer-Robin.ly for a stellar evening, particularly Shannon Ma, Lorry Tang, and Margaret Laffan for pulling together the content, panelists, and pizza! And thank you Alex Ren for being an ally.

 

About TalentSeer

TalentSeer is the fastest-growing AI talent platform in the U.S., providing integrated talent acquisition, market research, and employer branding services. With an engaged AI community, Robin.ly, an innovative AI recruiting approach, and deep domain knowledge, TalentSeer aims to be the go-to talent partner for companies at various stages. TalentSeer has a 200,000+ talent pool and helped with 100+ partners across autonomous driving, internet, finance, retail, and healthcare industries to build strong AI teams.

For more information on TalentSeer contact: service@talentseer.com or subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter here.

Follow us on LinkedIn @TalentSeer @Robin.ly visit Robin.ly and download Leaders in AI Podcast for great AI conversations.