114: Standing Up For Yourself as a Data Analyst w/ Shailvi Wakhlu

[00:00:00] The person with the best SQL skills is not necessarily guaranteed that promotion, but the person who has the adequate level of SQL skill and then make sure that the person who is in a position to promote them sees it, understands

[00:00:13] it, appreciates it, that is the person who's going to rise to the top of the line of the promotion. Welcome to the Data Career Podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring data professionals land their next data job. Here's your host, Avery Smith.

[00:00:27] Welcome back to another episode of the Data Career Podcast. I'm here with Shelby Waklu, who has had an amazing data career and really made it all the way to the top. Some of the companies that she's had the opportunity to work for in the last 16

[00:00:39] years are Strava, which I absolutely love. Komodo Health, Salesforce, Prezi, Fitbit, Monster Job Board, like so many cool companies and so much experience. She is the author of the book, Self Advocacy, Your Guide to Getting What You Deserve at Work.

[00:00:55] We're going to talk today about how we can all be self advocates for ourselves. So Shelby, welcome to the podcast. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me Avery. Yeah, no problem. One of the things I think makes your story very unique is, you started

[00:01:10] your journey at Monster Job Board. So for those who are applying to jobs, they might be familiar with Monster. And you were just kind of an individual contributor there. You were a web engineer, a software engineer, a business analyst there.

[00:01:21] And that's where you kind of dipped your toes, started your data career. And then you've really grown from that spot where you became a lead analyst, a senior analyst, a senior manager, all the way up to head of analytics and senior director, head of data at Strava.

[00:01:36] So you really started from the bottom, then you made it to the top in the data world, which is absolutely incredible. And I think you can offer us a lot of insights on how to do that.

[00:01:44] And I imagine one of the keys to your data career, if I'd sit you down, I'd say, Hey, how did you do this? I think self-advocacy would probably be one of the key terms that you'd use in that journey. Is that true? Oh, absolutely.

[00:01:57] I think my career would have been at a very different place if I hadn't raised my hand at the right time or brought up my concerns or challenges or, you know, just asked for things at the right time, I got a lot of success

[00:02:11] in my career through just speaking up at the right moments. I love to hear that. And I'm excited to talk to you about all of this because one, I don't think I a hundred percent knew what self-advocacy was, so we'll talk about that and get into it.

[00:02:25] But two, when I started researching and I started looking at your book and some of your LinkedIn posts and YouTube videos and stuff, I realized, oh man, I'm not very good at this. And when I was actually at ExxonMobil, it was a really interesting time

[00:02:38] because I was there before I started right before COVID, but then COVID hit. So for a lot of the time I was out of the office anyways, and then eventually got to the point where I was like, Oh, I'm not really happy in

[00:02:48] this position and I had an option to like speak up and say something about it or to not and to leave. And that's pretty much what I ended up doing was, was leaving. So I'm excited to see what I can learn in this journey.

[00:03:00] Let's let's first start with like, what your definition of self-advocacy is. Yeah. So self-advocacy to me is just anytime you decide to speak up or do something that is in the benefit of your career, that isn't in your best interest. That is self-advocacy.

[00:03:17] Whether you do it proactively or whether you do it reactively when a situation demands it, that I think everybody has different situations that arise in their career, but that is essentially what self-advocacy is. Well, it sounds like a good thing. Why do you need to talk about it?

[00:03:31] Like why can't people just do this straight out of the gate? That's a brilliant question because for some people there is an understanding they are aware of the need for self-advocacy and their hesitation is they don't know how to.

[00:03:44] So they have a lot of hesitations, like either internal mindsets that, you know, will I sound odd if I do it? Will people judge me for it? How do I pick the right word? So that entire gamut. But then there's people who don't really like even understand

[00:03:59] why they need to focus on it. So, you know, if you are someone who's been lucky enough in your career to have had a great boss or worked for a great company that proactively tried to help

[00:04:10] you with your career, maybe you feel less of a need to advocate for yourself because you are in a system that takes care of you, that allows you those opportunities for growth. But I think most people are not in that situation.

[00:04:23] Most people, you know, either their boss changes or their company changes. Like they lined up in a situation where someone else being in charge of their career is not a winning strategy because they don't have control over what that other person is thinking or doing.

[00:04:37] So that is why I need, like, that's why I felt the need to talk about it. I think I know enough people who know they have to do it and just don't know how. But I think there was also a section of people who, you know, suddenly found

[00:04:49] themselves in situation where they really needed to advocate for themselves and they had no idea how to do it. That makes a lot of sense. I think this, the cool thing about this is it literally applies to hopefully

[00:05:02] everyone listening, whether you haven't landed your first day at a job yet, you just landed your first day at a job and you're like in a junior position. And even if you're in a senior position or trying to, you know, make your way up

[00:05:12] the corporate ladder, these skills that you're learning and that you're practicing the self-advocacy can really take you to the top. One of the things I noticed on your book, I think it was like on the front cover or no, maybe it was on the Amazon description.

[00:05:25] It said this quote, I really liked it. Self-advocacy is the ultimate career skill in the modern workplace. And I thought about that and I was like, is that true? But one of the things I will say, I was like, are you sure it's not SQL or

[00:05:38] it's not Python, but like one of the things I will say, and this is, this, I say it all the time on the podcast is like how skilled you are does not like

[00:05:47] how good you are at SQL or how good you are at Python does not determine how quickly that you land a day to job. There's like almost no correlation between it. My experience is your skill level in SQL and Python doesn't necessarily correlate

[00:05:59] to how quickly you get promoted or how much you get paid at your job. Like how big your raise is. A lot of it is more about how you're able to advocate for yourself and kind of prove your worth. Is that true? A hundred percent.

[00:06:10] So the person with the best SQL skills is not necessarily guaranteed that promotion, but the person who has the adequate level of SQL skills and then makes sure that the person who is in a position to promote them sees it, understands it,

[00:06:26] appreciates it, that is the person who's going to rise to the top of the line of the promotion. And that's the same thing. Like, you know, again, you may have great skills. You may have great technical skills.

[00:06:37] You may be an expert in Python, but when you go to an interview, if you cannot articulate what you have done with those skills, how you have translated those technical skills into something that makes the company more money, you're at a little bit of a disadvantage.

[00:06:51] So I do believe like everything, you know, negotiating your pay, negotiating opportunities, negotiating promotions, rising through the ranks, finding out what your next thing should be. All of that requires you to be very clear, very consistent about articulating your value to the right people.

[00:07:09] And that's one of the reasons I'm a huge fan of doing projects, especially when you don't have any experience when you're first trying to break in is it's like, this is you proving your worth.

[00:07:18] This is like you showcasing, Hey, I not only have Python on my resume, but look, I can do something with it. For those of the people listening who are already at a job, how can they showcase their work?

[00:07:29] How can they actually like show the, you know, the boss that they're doing good work? One thing that I'd always like to remind people is that your boss is busy. They can't comb through everything that you're doing.

[00:07:42] They don't know whether something was hard and you got it done anyways. Like they don't understand word by word, like what is going on with you? So I think people have to build that skill of one.

[00:07:54] Like I think that's some bare minimum, like at least make sure your boss understands what you do. Understands the complexity of what you solve for and understand what it unlocks for the business.

[00:08:04] And I think, I think that is a skill that, you know, if you focus on just that aspect, like I think there are a lot of other pieces like your peers should, you know, should respect the work that you do, but there are

[00:08:14] other people who can be sponsors of you in your career who should get it. But like at least even starting with like that one really critical relationship that you have with your boss, that I think is a great first step.

[00:08:25] And even if I say like, you know, one thing that everybody can do starting tomorrow is that when you talk in your, let's say it's your daily standup, or maybe it's the one-on-one that you have with your boss, describe your work with the impact that it had.

[00:08:42] Don't just say you checklist finished XYZ, like really go into, you know, this is what you did and this is the impact that it has, like it really anchors people on thinking of you as a valuable resource if you can constantly

[00:08:57] tie back your work to something that is better for the business. I like that. So the idea of like not saying, you know, oh, I, I finished making the model or I finished making the dashboard, but really being like, yeah, you know,

[00:09:13] I just finished the Power BI dashboard. I sent it to, you know, the economist or, you know, the key stakeholder that needs to look at it and now they can make informed decisions, you know, quickly, hopefully with, you know, with real live data and that's going to

[00:09:27] allow them to, you know, hopefully be more accurate by 30% or something like that. Exactly. Exactly. Like I can say that even, you know, in my last two corporate roles, I was in an executive position.

[00:09:37] I was leading a department and in both of those, like sometimes I would have people on my team who take a lot of initiative and they'd say that, Hey, this process is broken and we're going to fix it and I'd always push them on like,

[00:09:50] okay, but explain to me why you fixing this broken process is great. Like, you know, does it make us more efficient? Does it mean we put out less errors? You know, like whatever, whatever that value is, like getting people in the

[00:10:05] mode of constantly thinking about that value and explaining it is a great skill. I like that a lot. One of the things, and this is, this might be like a personal coaching session for me,

[00:10:15] because this is just bringing up a lot of feelings when I was at Axon mobile, kind of like a young person in the data team, but wanting to make a big impact and thinking I had a lot of good thoughts and good skills.

[00:10:26] What happens if like, you've done something really cool, but you just feel like your, your like boss or whoever's just not noticing you, like they don't really care about it and you feel that underappreciation. Yeah, I think.

[00:10:38] And, you know, again, like that's happened, I think to all of us that where we end up having things that don't get the level of visibility that we really hope for. I think in all of those situations, it's good to really take a step

[00:10:51] back and diagnose what's going on. Is it genuinely that you don't have a great understanding of, you know, what is, what is something that is actually valued for you to be considered performing at the next level?

[00:11:04] So one way to find that out is a lot of companies have something, some equivalent of a leveling document that says, you know, here's what an analyst is expected to do, here's what a senior analyst is expected to do. Here's what a lead analyst is expected to do.

[00:11:19] You can always look at that as a starting point to then sort of like reverse engineer that, you know, that should be a document that you can push on and say, Hey, so, you know, it says this, like it says people should be doing XYZ.

[00:11:31] Would this be like this particular project I'm working on? Would this be the type of example that would, that would sort of meet that requirement? So, you know, one part of it is just reconciling on expectations

[00:11:42] that do you just have, have you just misread the expectations of what is considered good and valuable work? If you can, you know, meet that, like if sometimes you just ask other people and if generally there's alignment that yes, this is valuable, then the problem

[00:11:58] is in some ways, maybe not easier, but it's a little more clear that then the problem is that you are doing something that is valuable only either people are not seeing it or they're seeing it and not appreciating it.

[00:12:10] So you can start breaking down that problem that, okay, if visibility is a problem, what forum do you need to go to? Do you need to choose different words to explain the value of something so

[00:12:21] that people, people understand that, you know, a lot of, a lot of work like in data science, like, you know, the, the, the, the joke is that you spend like 90% of your time in the trenches in like cleaning up data and then,

[00:12:34] and then there's the 10%, which is, you know, the final model you create. But people don't understand that 90% work, right? Like they're like, yeah, okay. You were data cleaning. Who cares? But if you really explain that, if you say like, you know, this is something

[00:12:47] that takes X amount of hours, if it's not done, like if it's not done well, then your entire model can be completely worthless because you basically built it on a shaky foundation. I think that's really interesting because basically what you're saying

[00:13:02] is just know the rules of the game and know what they're kind of looking for. And then try to speak to those terms. Right? Because I think there'd be a lot of pent up frustration, myself

[00:13:12] included when I was at Exxon, where it's like, I don't really know what you guys want me to be doing. Cause I think I'm doing like a really excellent job here, but I don't necessarily feel all that much, you know, love and so really understanding

[00:13:23] and being like, okay, this is what they're looking for, you know, this is how I put it in their language so that they kind of recognize what I'm, what I'm doing, because if you don't put it in their language, even if you

[00:13:33] speak up, it's probably not enough to kind of get to make you feel better in the end, because they need to be recognizing, oh, this is, this is good for the business as well. They're actually contributing and making a real difference. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:13:46] And I think in this one, I also feel that, you know, even as, even as data professionals, I think this is a skill that we do try to build that if we have a dashboard, if we have a story, if you have a

[00:13:56] presentation, we are making sure that it is in, you know, to your point, it is in the language of the audience that is going to consume it. You know, you show X data point to somebody who that's not the data

[00:14:09] point that they get about, like, you know, even for them to be inspired into action, you have to customize it to the specific audience and make sure it meets. So that's the same thing that we do for our own careers too, right?

[00:14:21] Like how do we tell our story supplemented with data, which says that here's what we do. And here by your own definition of what you consider as next level performance, I am meeting that I'm meeting that criteria when you align

[00:14:35] that as a story that, you know, follows the rules, as you say, it is more likely to get you the desired outcome. And yes, a lot of companies are very vague about the rules. They don't share a lot of information.

[00:14:48] They will not tell you what the promotion criteria is. It's a little bit of, you know, do something and find out. But I do think that there are ways that you can try to go get more clarity, try to course correct with your manager sooner rather than

[00:15:03] later to get to that outcome. Love it. Let's talk about something that I think everyone is a little bit nervous about, and that is negotiating salary. So both negotiating salary, maybe on like a new potential job and maybe,

[00:15:18] maybe like promotions and negotiations when you're already at a company. How can we be self advocates for ourself in the negotiation process? Yeah, I think we are very lucky right now that there is so much information out there that helps us sort of benchmark.

[00:15:33] I think there's so many websites, like I love levels.fi because it also helps you compare that, okay, what is a Facebook salary versus a Microsoft salary for this level or something like that? Like, I think, I think it gives a lot of data.

[00:15:47] Unfortunately, the more niche your title or your position, sometimes it becomes, it becomes harder. So I keep telling people to go a little bit more generic for smaller companies, for examples, for startups often, you know, there may be one

[00:16:00] data analyst salary, for example, but try to benchmark with a software engineer and, you know, see if that can give you a ballpark. So I think for newer companies, like for a new position, that negotiation has

[00:16:12] to start with what are the market realities, you know, for either that type of company or that role in, in that company, how many people does it have? Does it tend to pay above, you know, the mid range of what the market is paying?

[00:16:25] But then also like, think about yourself, like you are allowed to have thresholds that you need met. Right? If a role does not meet your minimum threshold and everybody doesn't have one, like some people are just like, give me the most money amount of money.

[00:16:40] Like I don't, I haven't thought of like that personal threshold, but I really encourage people to sort of spend some time thinking about their own worth. What is going to help them meet their goals?

[00:16:50] Is it just money or is it, you know, money like above a certain threshold, money trades off with work-life balance or opportunities or brand name or something like that. So I think the more time that people spend upfront, clarifying their own

[00:17:04] value, clarifying what they want out of something, and then reconciling that with the, with the market realities, with how the interview goes. It's much easier. I would say for the, you know, for the second piece that you mentioned,

[00:17:16] like once you're on the job, how do you, how do you sort of navigate these things? Arming yourself with as much information as possible, whether it is about, so, you know, promotions, is there a structured framework?

[00:17:28] So I run these workshops that actually teach people how to really like improve their awareness about the promotion process. Like when does it happen? What is the criteria? Who decides who signs off? What do you have to do before?

[00:17:42] Like, you know, like really like try to figure that out. And every time you ask a question, I honestly believe that even if the answer is no, you're not ready for a promotion. You still, you still are getting something of value out of it.

[00:17:55] You still now like when your manager or whoever is, you know, partnering with you, they now know that that is something that you want. They can help you. Like you can even frame it as like, Hey, can you help me get to the next step in my career?

[00:18:09] What should I be working on? Are there projects that I just don't work on right now? Or if I'm already working on those projects, like what level of performance would you have to see to be supportive of my growth? I really like that.

[00:18:22] I like that you as a data person or like when you're offered a salary, you got to present data. And so whether you're using levels, whatever levels.fyi or whatever it is, I know they have like a lot of like tech salaries.

[00:18:36] And even if your company's not on levels, you know, you can go to Glassdoor and the majority of Glassdoor employees are like, Oh, I'm not going to do this. And the majority of Glass companies have some salaries on Glassdoor that you can

[00:18:46] look at and you can get a feel for, you know, what this position makes it this company, what this position makes in this region, you know, and compare and contrast. And that way, if they've presented something where it's a little bit lower

[00:18:59] than you think you might deserve, you can come with data and be like, well, look, this is kind of what the going market rate is. And of course the companies can say yes or no.

[00:19:08] But I also liked that you said that even when you get no's, it's a little micro yes, because they at least know that that's the direction you want to go in the future and they have that back of mind, which I think is really powerful.

[00:19:19] So I guess the moral of the story when it comes to negotiations, the worst that you can do is ask and say no. The best that you can do is make tens of thousands of dollars more than you did previously. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:31] I always love to share this stat that in your first job, if you negotiated $5,000 more with like, you know, just add up the cumulative interest over the years, the extra that you get. So even without like, you know, super complicated sort of compounding interest,

[00:19:47] you've still made more than a half a million dollars extra by the end of your career. So it's a really powerful way to think about it that, you know, if the only difference between you and half a million dollars was you literally just asking,

[00:20:01] you know, how much time would you spend perfecting that one sentence that you that you say at that time? Yeah. Or how much more confidence does that give you? It's like, okay, I'm in it.

[00:20:12] This is because that's one of the things is like, it's awkward to ask for more money. It's uncomfortable. No one wants to do it. But if you're like this one sentence can lead to $500,000 in my career. I'm just going to blurt it out and see what happens.

[00:20:24] If you know it's a yes. Great. If it's a no, then I'm exactly where I started in the first place. I do want to highlight one of the things that you had just mentioned though, that money isn't everything that like, for example, let's say there's company A and

[00:20:36] they're offering you, let's say 90,000 company B's offering 85,000. Everyone's different. Of course, you have to really go through and think about what you want, but just because one pays more than the other doesn't mean that it's going to be a better decision for your career.

[00:20:51] For instance, the one that pays lower might have more company growth. So you could potentially get promoted faster. It could have a better work life balance. It could have better insurance. It could have just like more meaningful, enjoyable work or better, a better manager or a better team.

[00:21:05] And that's something you have to keep in mind when you're comparing different offers as well. Right? Oh, absolutely. I love that you brought that up because I think, you know, getting that clarity on career values that what am I trying to maximize in my career?

[00:21:19] What am I trying to maximize and what am I trying to just reach a minimum threshold of? Like, I think, I think the more time, like every time I've run this as an exercise with people, they themselves are surprised by the result. They're like, huh?

[00:21:31] I thought I cared about money a lot more than I actually do, but you know, you couldn't pay me more to give up on this other thing that I really care about. That like, you know, I want to work on smart problems.

[00:21:42] I want to work on something that I'm excited about and like, you know, like I wouldn't give that up for, for five grand extra. So it's an interesting thing for people to think about. It's a hard balance for sure.

[00:21:54] But obviously it's something that you did well in your career to be able to go, you know, from where you did. I don't want to say the bottom, but from an individual contributor to, you know, the head of data in your two different companies basically is pretty awesome.

[00:22:08] I wanted to also ask you about like getting the bravery to speak up some of the things that you mentioned in your book of examples of self-advocacy or maybe lack of self-advocacies. What do you do when someone mispronounces your name?

[00:22:25] Or what do you do when someone gets your pronouns wrong? Or, you know, if someone says an offensive joke, what do you do? Asking for mentorship? You know, asking to take time off. All of these situations are things that people will be presented as a data career

[00:22:39] and they'll feel kind of that itch in their stomach of like, Oh crap. I don't really want to bring this up. So what tips do you have for people for like, you know, speaking up in those situations? Yeah.

[00:22:50] I, you know, first I think anybody who encounters a situation where the situation goes through and they just look back at it and wish they had spoken up or done something differently. Like, you know, I always want to want them to give grace to themselves

[00:23:06] as well that it is hard. You know, it is not a muscle that's easy for us. We are not taught from childhood to always speak up for ourselves. I think a lot of us who have been in tech careers, this was not part of our curriculum.

[00:23:18] It was not that we had a class that told us like, and here's how you position yourself for success, or here's how you negotiate a salary. So I do appreciate that this is hard for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons.

[00:23:29] But I think the best thing that we can do is have that commitment to wherever we are at today in our self-advocacy journey. Like let's pick a goal and a timeline and say like, okay, what, what steps can I take that get me closer to that goal?

[00:23:45] So even if you start, like, even if you pick one thing that, okay, if you know, the mispronouncing name, like it happens to me very often. So that is like maybe one of the very easy things and you know, it's not super heavy either.

[00:23:56] But I'm like, okay, I'm at least going to perfect the sentence that I say when somebody mispronounces my name, like, you know, let's just start there. And then you actually try to do it. And then, you know, you try to preempt it so that it doesn't

[00:24:09] happen in high stakes situations. Like if I was winning an award, I will make sure to go and tell them from before how to say my name. Cause I don't want to have to deal with that, with that sort of situation.

[00:24:19] So again, this is a more low stakes problem, but I think if people pick, you know, one thing that they want to sort of stand up for more, one thing that they want to sort of get better at speaking up about, and then sort

[00:24:31] of working backwards that, okay, who will I be saying this to? What can I say? What is a version of the thing that I can say that explains it without it feeling like a conflict ridden situation? You know, I'm not angry at them.

[00:24:46] I'm not sort of showing that I'm upset. I'm just being very factual and sort of trying to get the outcome that I want. Thinking beforehand, I think is the key in what you just said, because when these

[00:24:57] stressful dilemmas present themselves in front of us, it's almost too late to decide what you're going to do. We'll probably always default to the easier thing to do. I know like, for instance, for me, I'm trying to lose weight and it's like,

[00:25:11] if I haven't decided if I'm going to eat the dessert before I see it, then I'm going to eat the dessert. It's just like the easier thing to do. And I think, I think that goes for self-advocacy.

[00:25:21] It's like, at least for me, I will default to the least confrontation when presented, unless I've thought about it beforehand. So that's like a good strategy to like think through what situation that you're going to encounter next, whether like you're up for promotion or

[00:25:36] maybe you're interviewing for jobs. And so, you know, that the hiring manager, I guess probably the recruiter is going to say, what is your salary expectations? Don't be surprised by that question. It's going to happen and be prepared to know, to be like, to speak up for

[00:25:49] yourself and be like, yeah, I want to make $10 million if that's what you want to make and just be prepared for those situations and really the best way to prepare is, is to practice and to, to role play and to think through, okay, what is

[00:26:00] actually going to happen down the road? Cause if you've waited until the concentration is there, it's, it's probably too late, maybe at this point, you know, after writing the book on self-advocacy you can do it in the moment.

[00:26:10] But I think for me, I'd have to like prepare beforehand. Oh no. You know, like that's a good point that you brought up that I also, I think there are many situations that I've played out over the years. I've, you know, I've changed a lot of jobs.

[00:26:22] I've negotiated a lot of salaries. I've got tons of promotions. So there are some things that come to me relatively easily, but then there are other situations that are always going to be somewhat new. Like it's a new spin on something I've seen before.

[00:26:35] And yes, it helps that I am a person who is constantly building my self-advocacy muscle, so it might be easier for me or I draw from some other similar situations. So I kind of know how to respond or know how to preempt something, but there are

[00:26:50] still going to be situations that are going to be just, you know, they just throw you for a loop. It's like, Hmm, was not expecting this, not fully prepared and that's okay. You know, it is ultimately a journey.

[00:27:00] Like nobody has reached that final point where they just can always get exactly what they want all the time. Like that's, that's not going to happen. I like the analogy of the muscle that you're, you're building muscle because

[00:27:13] I mean, we were just meeting for the first time, but you don't strike me like a lot of the times for like self people who self advocate. And once again, I have, that's not a term that I've used a ton in the past.

[00:27:23] I'll just say the people who speak up for themselves and stand up for themselves. Oftentimes they have like a certain. Like are around them of like, they ooze confidence and they're like almost maybe cocky or maybe like too confident or something like that.

[00:27:36] And you don't strike me as that type of person necessarily. I think you're confident, but maybe they didn't come to you naturally. I know I listened to a part of your interview on Ken's nearest neighbor with Kenji's podcast.

[00:27:46] And one of the things you mentioned was your background that you're from India and like that culture isn't always about like speaking up and causing a confrontation. So this is something that you've really had to develop over time, kind of like, like building a muscle. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:28:00] It was a difficult muscle for me to have, you know, besides the fact that I grew up in India, I'm also an army kid. My dad was in the military and you know, you focus a lot on like politeness and protocol and, and things like that.

[00:28:13] So finding my version of getting what I want, which does not seem confrontational to people, but still gets me what I want. Like that has been, you know, a real unlock for me. And I often tell this to people, like if you knew me six, seven years

[00:28:28] ago, I was a different person. You know, I'm still smiling. I'm still like, you know, making jokes, but I had a lesser likelihood of getting what I wanted because I had not spent as much time building that self-advocacy muscle.

[00:28:41] Plus you're a minority in the fact that you're a female and especially in tech, which is something that I think is very difficult to do. So on top of that, that was just like extra hard work.

[00:28:51] One of the things I want to talk about is like, cause a lot of people listening to this, they're trying to apply for their first day at a job. They're getting rejection after rejection, or a lot of the times they're not even applying for fear of rejection.

[00:29:04] They read the job requirements and they just like get parallelized. And you had this awesome LinkedIn post that was directed to women. And I think it needs to be emphasized to women, but also applies to literally

[00:29:14] everyone, and as you said, I wish women applying to a job, they don't a hundred percent meet all the qualifications for had the same confidence as the presidential candidate who is convicted of felony charges on 34 accounts.

[00:29:26] Now we'd have to get into politics, but like the idea of like, of like, it doesn't seem like if you have 34 accounts that you should be, you know, applying to the presidential job, that would seem like you don't reach all the

[00:29:36] qualifications maybe, but like, there's something to be said for, you know, all these women, all these minorities, everyone who's looking to apply to these data jobs, like to just try it. Like it's okay if you don't meet all a hundred percent of the qualifications,

[00:29:48] you bring value and you're awesome as you. Yeah, absolutely. And I, and I think, you know, if every time people who saw something, somebody doing something cool and it's amazing how many times the only reason they ended up

[00:30:02] doing something cool was because they tried, like they asked, they're like, Hey, can I, so, you know, it is like literally the difference between getting things that you want and not sometimes really is just raising your hand or asking or just

[00:30:16] stepping up and saying, okay, what will enable me to try this out? So yeah. I mean, you know, I hope people aspire for being a much better presidential candidate with a few less felonies, if nothing else.

[00:30:30] But at the very least, like let's apply to jobs that are very well, very much within our reach. The truth about all these things that are scary. And I don't want to take that away.

[00:30:39] All of, a lot of this stuff asking for promotion, applying to a job, you know, correcting someone on a name pronunciation. They're all fairly scary. But one thing that really helps me when I'm looking at my fear, something I'm

[00:30:52] afraid of is I asked the question, what's the worst thing that can happen? And a lot of the time, it turns out the worst thing that can happen is I'm in the exact same boat as I am right now. Like not much actually changes.

[00:31:03] If you know, worse comes to worse. If best comes to best a lot, you know, can happen like once again, with that salary, if you ask for $5,000, the worst thing that happens is they say no. And you're right where you're started.

[00:31:14] The best thing that happens is, you know, you make half a mil more than you would have previously. And so I just encourage people to, you know, to, to at least ask because at worst, a lot of the time you're right where you started.

[00:31:27] It's not that big of a deal. Exactly. Exactly. And even if you are right where you started, you now have one more piece of information. You now know how your boss will respond or how that hiring manager or recruiter,

[00:31:40] like you, you have a little bit more information than when you started with. Cause sometimes honestly I have in some cases during an interview, I've asked, you know, for something extra and sometimes the response, like it's, it's

[00:31:52] not just that they said, no, it's also sort of everything else that they said along with it, I was like, maybe this is not the right opportunity. It's not even about the $5,000 anymore. Now it's about, you know, like how you, how you treated that question, which

[00:32:07] was posed respectfully and, and as an optional. But plus you made me just realize you don't have the regret of not asking sometimes priceless. That's amazing. Shelby, thank you so much for this conversation. If you guys want to learn more about self-advocacy and you guys want to learn

[00:32:24] more about, you know, how to go from the bottom of the data totem pool to the top. Make sure you follow Shelby on LinkedIn. We'll have her LinkedIn description down at the bottom and also check out her book,

[00:32:35] self-advocacy, your guide to getting what you deserve at work as well as Shelby's YouTube channel. Love that in the description. Shelby, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much for hosting.