18. Tech Social Work with Leslie Taylor, MSW

Taylor (00:00)
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Social Work to Wealth podcast. I'm Taylor and Faith is still on maternity leave. I miss her greatly, but she'll be back at some point. Still doing well, but today...
We're gonna be talking about social workers in tech. And I'm just, I'm so excited for this. So the guest that I have today is Leslie. She works at Found Ever. She hasn't started there yet, but she'll be, I mean, you will have started when this episode releases. And you said your title is Director of Integrated Solutions.
Leslie Taylor (00:37)
Yeah.
Taylor (00:43)
Trust and safety. So we're going to be talking about trust and safety, which I knew nothing about until I saw Leslie's post on LinkedIn where she talks about we need more social workers in tech and like, these are the various kind of, I don't know, tech niches that social workers can work in. And my mind was loaded and blown and I was like, I need this lady on the podcast. So welcome Leslie.
Leslie Taylor (01:12)
Thank you. It's so good to be with everybody today and talking with you, Taylor.
Taylor (01:16)
So,
yes, thank you for joining us. This is, oh my gosh, so I think we should start with just your career journey and what, how you got into tech. Like, let's just, let's go there. Maybe let's start with like grad school. Tell us a little bit about your internships and let's go from there.
Leslie Taylor (01:41)
Yeah, that's so that's a good question. I'm going to start a little bit before. So I was working in for a professional or a trade association company and I wasn't necessarily this isn't my passion, right? It was the first job I got as BA. So I kind of started looking at different job descriptions and seeing, hey, what would make me happy? And everything said, Masters of Social Work was needed. So I said, I have to go to grad school. So went to grad school.
Taylor (01:44)
Okay, let's do it.
Leslie Taylor (02:11)
to help children and from there I didn't get some of those roles that I wanted when I was applying but ⁓ I ended up getting a job as an intensive in-home therapist. So I was with the clients eight to ten hours a week in their homes and it's a lot.
Taylor (02:30)
Wow, that's a lot.
That was your first time out of grad school or in... Wow.
Leslie Taylor (02:35)
Yeah, first job out of grad school.
So it was, I would come home and I'm like, my roommate would hop on my bed, let's talk. And I'm, I don't want to. ⁓ I'm tired. I'm burnt out from today and dealing with everybody's, I mean, you know, when it's therapy, it's a lot that you're. Yes.
Taylor (02:51)
Yeah.
Yeah, and that's intense. And
I imagine the pay was...
Leslie Taylor (03:01)
Very low, I don't even remember what it was.
⁓ But it was definitely not enough to pay back my student loans at the time.
Taylor (03:09)
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (03:11)
⁓ But from there, so I had a friend that worked at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and she knew in grad school, I wrote all of my papers on human trafficking. There wasn't a lot back then, but really fell in just in love with, I wanna be able to help survivors, right, of human trafficking. And she told us, hey, our human trafficking team, they're not hiring. ⁓ Actually, I think it was called Child
Taylor (03:26)
Fascinating.
Leslie Taylor (03:41)
sex trafficking team. ⁓ But she goes, the cyber tip line is you should apply. I think you would really enjoy it. And I always heard about like what she did and it always sounded fascinating, right? So I applied. ⁓ I'm very thankful that I got hired. And so the cyber tip line at ⁓ NETMEC is so all of the, all of the ESPs, electronic service providers like Google, Facebook,
SNAP, they all have to report by law, federal law, any ⁓
child sexual abuse material, which we call CSAM. So if I say CSAM throughout this, you'll know what it is. ⁓ But they are reported, they are required to report that to the cyber tip line at NCMEC So I was the one reviewing those cases. So I would review the images, the videos,
Taylor (04:26)
Okay.
Wow. ⁓
Leslie Taylor (04:39)
and package up the report and send it off to law enforcement. And then law enforcement took it from there.
Taylor (04:44)
Interesting. So
yeah, I feel like it's a little trigger warning for maybe some of this content and what you're, I just am realizing like, yeah, the stuff, the work that you've been doing, you've been seeing some probably pretty egregious things. Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (05:02)
I've been seeing a lot, and
we'll go into a little bit more later, but I've seen the worst of the worst that the internet has to offer. But from there, mean, when you, at NetMick, the routes are either you go law enforcement or tech, and honestly, I applied for both. just let fate choose my path. ⁓
Taylor (05:11)
Yes. Yes.
Interesting.
Leslie Taylor (05:27)
and
I ended up getting a job at Snapchat on the Trust and Safety team. And I was employing number four on that team. So it was really when Snapchat was still very, very small.
Taylor (05:40)
That's
wild. Yeah, I see near LinkedIn it was in 2015. So within, when you say the net Mac, that's.
Leslie Taylor (05:49)
Yeah,
I also say the center or it's nicks. ⁓
Taylor (05:52)
That's the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Okay. So the people that work there, there's already kind of this conversation of like, okay, where are we going next? We can go to tech, we can go to law enforcement. And so, I don't know, was there kind of like a light bulb moment or it just was, it was just kind of normal that people transition into tech. Did it seem odd to you? Okay.
Leslie Taylor (06:17)
It wasn't normal. I think
on my team, I was the third employee to transition into tech. And it was shortly after that the other two left for another company. But now it's pretty normal.
Taylor (06:25)
Okay. ⁓
Yeah, okay. want to...
Okay, interesting. What? I'm just like, I'm curious about your, I don't know, application process and did you find that like using a social, I mean, it's like our social work resumes are very...
⁓ I don't know, just like social work-y. I don't have the adjectives for it, you know? So were there tips or anything or things that you did to your resume to make it a little bit more tech-y? And I guess we're kind of gonna get to that later, but I'm just curious about like, was it a hard transition to like get this job? ⁓
Leslie Taylor (07:09)
Yes.
For me, it wasn't. think I have a different path because I talk to a lot of social workers about transitioning, right? First off, I transitioned when trust and safety, a lot of people didn't know about it. ⁓ Still, people don't really necessarily know about it, right? ⁓ So it was definitely different. There were not a lot of jobs. ⁓
Taylor (07:30)
No. I just learned about it last month when we met.
Leslie Taylor (07:42)
And so it was, I think it was still fairly new. Like the frontier, right? There were people even before me, they have like 20 years of experience. So they were like, really the grandmothers and grandfathers of trust and safety. ⁓
Taylor (07:45)
Yeah, you kind of were in on the ground floor. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Leslie Taylor (07:59)
So I don't remember what I did, but
Taylor (08:01)
Okay.
Leslie Taylor (08:02)
I think for me it was I had a contact at Snapchat and they knew who I was. So I just, I saw a position available and said, Hey, well, are you guys willing to refer me? And they, they, they did. So I'm very grateful for that. So I think it was just knowing somebody that knew me that was able to refer me.
Taylor (08:09)
Okay.
Awesome.
Yeah, definitely. Okay, so let's get into you're working at Snapchat. This is a platform that I'm, mean, like, I feel like we all used it at some point in our lives. And I just, I want to know a little bit more about like the work that you did there and like what you were seeing. ⁓ Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (08:50)
Yeah, so I was a trust and safety specialist. ⁓ I did get promoted into a senior specialist, but essentially I was doing content moderation. So a lot of it was we would get user reports and if like harassment, ⁓ online bullying, ⁓ suicide threats, ⁓ child sexual abuse material. I mean, terrorism, like the list goes on animal abuse, like just think
the worst of the worst that you can even think of. And those were what I was seeing. So if it was against the policy, we would delete it and like warn the user, right? So sometimes people report things like, hey, I didn't like Kim Kardashian's outfit today, right? That's not a violation. kind of, but those still came into our cues as well.
Taylor (09:38)
Mm-hmm.
Wow. So was your job just all day, you're reviewing these snaps and this content, like just all day you're going through and deciding whether this needs to be deleted or not, whether this user needs to be removed from the platform or not. Like you're just looking at content all day.
Leslie Taylor (10:03)
you
even
like yeah even if doesn't need to be escalated to NC MEC or doesn't need to be escalated to to law enforcement right so yeah that's essentially what I did all day we were a growing like we were a small team right so there were other things that we helped with too whether it was ⁓ looking for the trends a big one is hey we started seeing people eat Tide Pods ⁓ this is not normal we don't have a policy for this too so really looking you're
Taylor (10:28)
you
Leslie Taylor (10:34)
on the front line so you're really able to see those trends and kind of move them up right to the policy team to say hey we need a little bit of help sorting this out. ⁓
Taylor (10:44)
Interesting.
Leslie Taylor (10:46)
So
that was a little bit of what we did as well. We also focused a lot on wellbeing as well. Wellbeing is such a huge aspect ⁓ of trust and safety. And I'm a huge, I think every trust and safety team has some sort of wellness component now. So we did ⁓ group sessions together. We had access to individual therapy if we wanted, right? But we did also a lot of team bonding exercises as well. So wellness was also a big part of our day as well.
Taylor (11:16)
And when you say wellness, it's like wellness of the employees is a part of what you guys tried to kind of push and implement throughout the organization. Interesting. Wow. So, wow. I'm just like, I'm just like, it's just mind blown. Do you, do you feel like when you were, when you transitioned into working at Snap that people were, ⁓
I don't know, valued your opinion. know that like some people could have maybe some just imposter feelings about social workers not being valued. I mean, it's imposter, but also it's real life. We're not, you know, our perspectives and voices are always valued in the workplace. So what was that like there?
Leslie Taylor (12:08)
I
think at Snap I was very lucky. ⁓ I think in pretty much all of my tech jobs I've been very blessed with a team that really did value me and really valued my opinion. So I think part of that too is not just the social work background, but I think also just having that pillar of the child safety at NCMEC and having that experience also I think helped ⁓ elevate me as well.
Taylor (12:33)
Yeah, that's awesome. So, I mean, we've been saying trust and safety for kind of just generally, like, is your definition or how do you explain trust and safety to people?
Leslie Taylor (12:48)
Yeah, so I think it's part of the easiest way to describe it is it's part of the tech world responsible for keeping users safe from monitoring harmful content, which you already heard about.
Taylor (13:00)
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Taylor (13:01)
It's also building the systems that really prevent that abuse and the fraud and exploitation. And it's everything that really happens behind the scenes to ensure people can engage with the platforms in really healthy ways. ⁓ And I think social workers are really a natural fit for this field. ⁓ But simply put too, trust and safety professionals are the social workers of the internet.
Taylor (13:21)
Absolutely.
my
gosh. my, I just got chills. That's so cool. We need that on the tagline. We need that in a tagline. my gosh. I love that.
Leslie Taylor (13:31)
I should.
We definitely do. I mean, I
can't take credit for that, to be honest. ⁓ This one person I know, he came to TrustCon, which is the big trust and safety conference, and he's a social worker trying to get into the industry. after the conference, he kind of said that to me. And I go, I have been saying it's like social work, right? But I haven't put that tagline, so I cannot take credit for it. ⁓
Taylor (13:55)
Okay.
Yeah. Yes, yes.
my gosh. Of the internet. No, that is seriously, ⁓ that's seriously amazing. So yeah, there, it's your guys' role is to keep us safe. I mean, yeah, just kind of when it boils down to.
Leslie Taylor (14:20)
Yeah, and there's a lot. mean, I know I'm talking
a lot about content moderation. I think that is the big that is the biggest bulk of trust and safety, but it's so much it's more complex than that. You also have people that are writing policy. You're having people leading crisis escalation teams, building well-being programs for content moderation, right? So also just product design, like how can we design this product to ensure it's safe for our users? So there's a lot of different aspects.
Taylor (14:31)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Taylor (14:50)
within tech and trust and safety that social workers can be part of.
Taylor (14:55)
Yeah,
out of those things, the crisis escalation, that really stands out to me. Can you go into that a little bit more?
Leslie Taylor (15:05)
⁓ Yeah, there's always a fire when it comes to trust and safety.
So I really think in simple terms, crisis management, the team and trust and safety, they really jump into action when something bad or unexpected happens on a platform. ⁓ Every day we're putting out fires when it comes to trust and safety. So it can be just, I think one of the biggest ones too is like harmful content going viral. That's something that we hear a lot about, right? ⁓ Or it can also be something as like a corner.
Taylor (15:25)
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Taylor (15:39)
needed attack. So what they need to do is they they have to act fast. They have to respond really quickly to stop the harm from spreading. So if it is viral content going ⁓ like
Taylor (15:51)
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (15:55)
the shooting. So that was going viral. And so they would have to step up and talk to the different, the product teams and engineering teams like, how can we take this content down? But they also have to make that decision. Are we going to take it down? this newsworthy? ⁓ So.
Taylor (16:06)
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Taylor (16:14)
And they also have to coordinate with the teams, like I mentioned, and also just communicate it across to internal teams, leaders, and sometimes even the public on what's going on. But also, yeah, another big one is also always reviewing and learning. So once the crisis is over, ⁓ look at what happened and how you can improve for the next time, whether it's, hey, do we need to build something to stop this going viral or
Taylor (16:27)
Interesting.
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Taylor (16:45)
Hey, is there a misstep that we took in our actions? How can we respond to this crisis better? Next time.
Taylor (16:52)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow. That's interesting. I think it's just, it's, it makes so much sense that there is, I feel like when I hear a crisis, when I hear about crisis, I think about it being in person and like us social workers supporting people in crisis, wherever that is, right? But that can look...
It can look different online. Like the actual user could be in crisis, but then there could be, I don't know, a crisis that's happening in the world that's then being filmed that then is like being shown to the rest of the world. ⁓ yeah, that's interesting. I'm curious about like, if a user was expressing like suicidality, for example, like what would be some, like how would you address that?
Leslie Taylor (17:43)
Yeah, so that's a really, that's a really good question. ⁓ And this is something that we actually brought up ⁓ to our teams because I felt like we were just not doing enough. And the of the social worker in me was like, we need to do more. I don't like what we're doing, right?
Taylor (17:56)
Mm-hmm.
You
Leslie Taylor (18:04)
So what we ended up doing is creating a push notification to users. And if somebody did report them saying, hey, I'm worried about this person, right? They're showing self harm or they said they're gonna do this. ⁓ So that push notification would just send them localized resources on how to get help and saying like, hey, somebody's worried about you. Just letting them know that, hey, people care and here are some resources. If it was,
Taylor (18:15)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (18:34)
like almost a suicide attempt, right? And it was like very specific, planned out. We would escalate it to our law enforcement team. So at tech platforms, they also have a law enforcement team that handles all of that.
Taylor (18:43)
Okay.
Really? Okay, so
when you say law enforcement, it's not like the... the city... it's not like the city or county, whatever law enforcement. It's like your guys's interdepartmental.
Leslie Taylor (18:52)
I'm not reaching out to law enforcement myself.
Yeah, so we, yeah, and then
they would kind of say, all right, are we going to escalate this to law enforcement? So they can specifically reach out to law enforcement, ⁓ like city or state, right, wherever the user is located, do a welfare check.
Taylor (19:09)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Wow, so yeah, then I mean thinking about it's like, again, just kind of comparing, this is just, yeah, social work on like just such a broader scale because when I think about when I worked in the emergency department and someone would come in and maybe they were expressing, you know, SI or maybe they had, you know, attempted, ⁓ I would give them resources, local resources.
Right. But you all in this tech world are managing content and trying to keep people safe. who live all over the world. And so, yeah, just kind of like creating these resources. Obviously there's teams that can do that for you. I would assume you're not doing that. Maybe you are.
Leslie Taylor (19:56)
Yeah.
⁓
that was something, so that was a project that was given to us. So, ⁓ I didn't specifically work on that project, but my coworkers did.
Taylor (20:18)
Okay.
Leslie Taylor (20:19)
of kind of gathering up the resources, but they did it on a national level for like, you
Taylor (20:22)
Yeah. Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (20:25)
know, like the hotlines ⁓ of where the users were based. So that was a big project that they undertook. But something else too is just like when you search ⁓ like suicide or if you search, ⁓ I know some platforms are like, hey, here are some resources if you need help. So even being more proactive like that, I know if you search Google, ⁓
Taylor (20:27)
Yeah.
Yes.
Leslie Taylor (20:49)
I don't call a lot of the public calls it calls a child pornography, which is not correct. It is CSAM child sexual abuse material. But if you search that in just the Google search, it will pop up with an alert like, hey, this is illegal content. And if you need help, this is where you should get help. Right. ⁓ So there's a lot. I think that's also it's a proactive approach. Right. ⁓ I mean.
Taylor (21:07)
Wow.
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Taylor (21:15)
You could just be searching for news articles, right? Not necessarily for that content because you won't find it ⁓
Taylor (21:22)
Totally. Yeah, I've seen that
before on Google where I don't know what I've typed in and then it's like, you know, people love you and you need, you know, here are a resource. Here's a resource. I like, that's nice, but that's not what I was doing. But I see what you guys are doing and I respect it. I like it. Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (21:34)
Yeah.
Yeah, and there's
people behind that doing that. And that's definitely a space for social workers.
Taylor (21:45)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's so fascinating. And it's like I initially, you know, had a question of like, what are some skills and like that you rely on most? But it's as you're explaining what you do and I can just it feel it seems so clear of like
Like what your friend said, we're just, you're the social workers of the internet. You know, it's all the same skills. It's their transferable skills. ⁓ which is just super fascinating. ⁓ what surprised you most about working in tech as a social worker? Just in general, good, bad way, challenging all that.
Leslie Taylor (22:09)
Like that.
Yeah, that's a good question. really had to think about this. ⁓ I mean, honest, I'm going to be honest. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say it. ⁓
Taylor (22:39)
You're allowed to be, you're allowed to say whatever you want on this podcast, except, you
know, we're just not trying to slander organizations, but other than that, other than that.
Leslie Taylor (22:45)
Yes, ⁓ course not, okay.
But how many dick pics I would see? Like, I wish I was joking. Like, I mean, people in Reportland are like, I'm like, I did not think I would see that many in my life. ⁓ I wish I was joking.
Taylor (22:51)
god!
I can't do that.
was not expecting that. ⁓ my gosh. So. ⁓
Leslie Taylor (23:14)
But
it really is like I think before I started I was really naive I mean as a social worker you're aware of the real life art right like you realize how fucked up the world is ⁓ but I think about the online aspect I was so naive about it it's a whole nother world and it's enormous
Taylor (23:21)
Okay.
What? Yeah, totally.
Absolutely.
Yeah. Honestly, feel like a lot of, I
feel like a lot of us are still very naive about it because there are people like you that are keeping us safe and shielded from the harm, right?
Leslie Taylor (23:42)
people are.
Yes,
I try to educate people, especially like my siblings or my nieces and nephews write about it, especially children online. ⁓ Like don't accept friend requests from anybody you don't know, like in real life, right? You just can't trust it. It's probably, they say they're a...
Taylor (24:03)
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (24:08)
15 year old girl, but it's probably a 70 year old man, right? Like or somebody from a different country just I mean sexual fine Financial sextortion is huge and they have people from other countries that are just trying to It's a group of people that are just trying to sex do sextortion for financial gains for for teenagers, right? ⁓
Taylor (24:32)
Interesting. Can you explain explain a little
bit more about that? what? Yeah, it's like I can maybe deduce what that might mean. But yeah, explain.
Leslie Taylor (24:39)
Yeah, so people will
I think I'll put it in simple terms. So I always try to like to explain things in kindergarten terms for people, somebody will let's say there you're on a platform. I can't even say platform X anymore because there is an X. We'll just say you're on platform ABC and somebody sends you a friend. You are a 15 year old male and somebody sends you a friend request and they say that there are a 16
Taylor (24:45)
This is perfect.
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (25:09)
old female and you guys just start to chat right and they really gain your trust and then that 16 year old female is like hey send me some some nude photos of you so you do and then they use that photo and say hey I'm not really that 16 year old female that you thought I was and you have to give me money or I'm gonna show your photo to
to all of your friends and they have the list of friends from like your account.
Taylor (25:42)
because they've been close.
⁓ yeah, they're friends with you on your account. my.
Leslie Taylor (25:46)
And yes, you can see all of their friends and they're like, I
know your mom and dad and I'll send it. And so they, the teen will either give them the money or try to find out, ⁓ figure out a way to send them the money or they're like, I don't have the money. ⁓ and it's really unfortunate, but you do hear about these suicide cases where teens have killed themselves over this and it's extremely heartbreaking. ⁓ but there's a lot of groups, ⁓ outside of the U S that are
Taylor (26:09)
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Taylor (26:16)
doing this to children.
Taylor (26:19)
Oh
my gosh, that is so heartbreaking.
So yeah, then after Snapchat, you worked at Adobe, Community Safety. You know, when I think of Adobe, I think of like Photoshop and being a software company and video editing, it's like...
What kind of role can a social worker play in an organization like that? How are you impactful there?
Leslie Taylor (26:49)
Yeah.
I, Adobe, that's a good, I get that all the time. ⁓ I asked myself that a lot, but, ⁓ before the role, ⁓ but at Adobe, I managed the team that handled user reports. ⁓ so I think, so Behance is one of the platforms that Adobe owns and it's like the LinkedIn for creatives. So think about it's almost like, Hey, if you have an issue on, on LinkedIn, right.
Taylor (26:53)
Hehehehehe
okay.
Totally.
Leslie Taylor (27:19)
Or
hey, if a creative, like there was an IP issue or a copyright issue, right? Or they're like, Hey, Coke stole my, my design off, off being hands or whatever it is. ⁓ or if it's, we remove something because the artwork was against policy. so that was also kind of one of the things that we did was appeals. So we remove something and the user is like, Hey, you should have removed this and we'll take a
Taylor (27:25)
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Leslie Taylor (27:49)
second look at it and you're like either no our action was correct or no you're right we shouldn't have removed it let's put it back up and we're we apologize about that so that's also another aspect of trust and safety too is that those appeals making sure we don't always get it right right ⁓ we use AI we use humans but nobody AI is not perfect humans are not perfect we're gonna get it wrong at times so
Taylor (28:05)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (28:19)
Having that appeals process is a really big part of it.
Taylor (28:22)
Yeah, that's great. I love that. ⁓ Let's talk about, I mean, I think you've touched on this a little bit already, but just kind of directly any decision that you've made or initiative that you felt like really was like social work-y within the tech world.
Leslie Taylor (28:47)
You know, I recently caught in this question and it was, it was hard for me just to think of one. think it was just the, the biggest thing is just advocating for the users. I think in social work, we advocate for our clients every single day. Right. So I think whether it's, Hey, this new policy came out and we're like, that's going to really impact the user or that's not correct. Can we change it or this policy's.
Taylor (28:57)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Leslie Taylor (29:17)
⁓ It doesn't make sense, right? And I don't think we can understand it. And I don't think the users are gonna understand it. So really, I think the biggest thing is just advocating for the users.
Taylor (29:29)
Yeah, do you have any
policies that like come to mind that you can think of ⁓ that you remember being like this is going to be harmful or like it is going to really impact people?
Leslie Taylor (29:47)
I can't necessarily think of one. Yeah, right off the top of my head. It's been a while. ⁓
Taylor (29:49)
That's okay. ⁓
Yeah, no worries. Okay,
so we're moving through your career journey and you go from Adobe to Genpak.
Leslie Taylor (30:07)
Yeah. So then I completely switch, right? So I started a nonprofit tech, right? ⁓ Or big tech, I should say. And now I'm kind of, call myself Tech Adjacent. I work, Genpact is a BPO and consulting company. So good question. was about to that.
Taylor (30:25)
What's a BPO mean? Okay, thank you.
Leslie Taylor (30:29)
I didn't even know, right? ⁓
It stands for business outsourcing process, but essentially it's outsourcing. So companies hire ⁓ BPO's to do their work because, and I'm just going to talk from trust and safety perspective because these companies, BPO's do so much more than just trust and safety. Trust and safety is just a sliver of what they do. ⁓ But content, and I'm going to stick to content moderation because I
Taylor (30:46)
Okay.
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (30:58)
I
think it's the biggest piece, but companies cannot handle these billions in pieces of content to moderate every single day. So they hire BPOs to help them manage that process. Not only is it because of the scale, but they also want to make sure that they're able to provide this service 24 seven, 365, right around the clock. Cause they have users across the world.
just work in California eight to five, right? It's not going to work, ⁓ especially when a crisis arises. ⁓ It never arises Monday through Friday eight to five, right? ⁓ So, but then there's also the consulting piece of it too. So ⁓ some companies will come and say, Hey, we don't necessarily, we need help with this piece or we need some advisory on this piece. Can you come in and help us and guide us on what we should do? So there's that.
piece of it too.
Taylor (32:00)
Okay, so when you
say companies, are you talking about like these big, like LinkedIn, like these big tech companies or are they smaller companies that you're usually working with?
Leslie Taylor (32:10)
⁓ Every BPO is going to decide on what type of companies that they want to do manage, Or work with, partner with, I should say. ⁓ But they can be startup to enterprise. So it can be a very small startup. ⁓
Taylor (32:18)
Okay. Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (32:31)
Usually they're handling those in-house though. It's a little bit when they start getting to the, we can't handle this by ourselves anymore. And then it's all the way up to one of the biggest companies you can think of,
Taylor (32:33)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. So, okay.
Interesting. So there are, it's like, I don't know of all of these different platforms, like are a lot of, there's so many, right? So it's like these platforms that maybe you've kind of worked with adjacent to through Genpak, are they social media platforms? Like what kind of companies need Genpak support in terms of like trust and safety and content moderation?
Leslie Taylor (32:51)
I don't even know the mothers.
Yeah, that's a good question. So I can't necessarily talk about the clients for Genpak. I'll talk about BPOs in general. Yay. Okay. So they
Taylor (33:18)
Yeah, that's fine.
Leslie Taylor (33:23)
BPO's help social media. help dating platforms. help online gaming. They help search engines. Everybody is coming online, right? You have insurance companies. have banking companies that are coming online. any company or e-commerce, any company that is online is going to need trust and safety. There's just different issues, right? Like you think about an e-commerce site, they're going
Taylor (33:28)
gotcha.
Fascinating. Okay, that makes so much sense. Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (33:53)
If people are able to leave reviews, well, that's user generated content. So once you allow somebody to post pictures or videos or say anything they want, that can be a little dangerous, right? You don't know what they're going to say. ⁓ So are they uploading appropriate pictures, right? Or are they putting curse words in their reviews? Is that allowed by the platform? Right? Or are there fake reviews? There's a lot of people that do.
Taylor (34:06)
Hmm.
Leslie Taylor (34:23)
fake reviews is a huge issue. So trying to spot those as well. Trust and safety, ⁓ it's so complex.
Taylor (34:25)
Yeah.
my gosh, yeah, that makes so much sense.
Yeah, yeah, and there's so many
different, yeah, like you're saying, there's so many different issues depending on the platform, just as there are, you know, in person, depending on the setting that you're at, hospital, school, doing therapy. Like when you mentioned e-commerce sites or banking, like any platform that's online that has users interacting with it.
Like I think, you know, I'm thinking back to I was needing to cancel my T-Mobile internet, for example, and I didn't want to call them. So I'm chatting with, you know, I'm chatting with whoever works there, but I imagine that T-Mobile probably has some sort of trust and safety team. You know, I don't know in case I'm sharing things through this chat that make it seem like
I'm not doing well, you know, and whatever that might look like. But I just, yeah, that makes so much sense. I'm curious, like when you said banking platforms, like them too. Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (35:44)
Yeah, and I'm not too
familiar. I've been seeing like job postings for banks for trust and safety. So I know it's on the rise. I don't know all of the issues so I can't go into depth. But if you think about it too where ⁓ like earlier I talked about the financial sex distortion, right? How are they getting this money? It's through banking.
Taylor (35:48)
Okay. Okay.
Mmm.
Leslie Taylor (36:10)
So the banking plays a role in it. So they are really trying to stop this as well. But like I said, I don't know everything that goes on with the banking, that's one aspect, right? But I'm sure it's also too, like scammers. You hear about ⁓ people getting scammed out of money all the time. So it's, mean, I get alerts or emails and I love it because it's proactive. It's like, hey, this scams on the rise. ⁓
Taylor (36:12)
Mm.
No, that's fair. Yeah, no, that makes...
my gosh, right?
Leslie Taylor (36:40)
or hey here's some safety tips so you don't give out your information and I'm getting that actively from the banks and I love that.
Taylor (36:46)
Me too.
I know I'm thinking back like those texts, you know, when I need to get a text code to put in something that's like in all caps, do not share this with anyone. You know, like just, I'm sure that's, that's stress and safety, right? Just like little things that I never even really thought about in my life where I'm like, okay.
Leslie Taylor (37:07)
⁓ Yeah. And to be fair, I hate putting that
code. Every time I'm like, my God, I hate this. Why am I like, I know why like it's saying.
Taylor (37:15)
The code's annoying, I know. And it's
so funny, like when I'm with my husband and you know, I manage our finances and like investments and all those things. And so sometimes I need to get into his account and so he, you know, it texts him a code and I'm like, okay, what's the code? And he's like, well, I'm not supposed to share this with anyone. I'm like, what's the code?
Leslie Taylor (37:30)
Yeah.
you
Taylor (37:38)
⁓ But yeah, that's wow. This is just so, it's just so fascinating. And I think there's so many social workers. I mean, you even said so many social workers are blowing up your DMs because they're so curious about this, you know? And yeah, it's like, I wonder why. I wonder why, like I think it's super fascinating, but I wonder why you're getting such... ⁓
I don't know, just people are so interested in it. Why do you think?
Leslie Taylor (38:10)
I think one thing is I've been a huge so One of my goals one year I think it was a few a few years back was to be more active on LinkedIn and so I kind of I posted random things and I was just like I have to make who do I want to be right or who am I that I want to showcase on LinkedIn and I think that's big for everybody but it was What makes me unique is I'm a social worker in tech
Taylor (38:37)
So true.
Leslie Taylor (38:39)
And so I was like, I want more social workers ⁓ in tech and I want them to make money, right? So that's a big thing.
Taylor (38:45)
Mm-hmm.
Period!
Leslie Taylor (38:53)
And
so that was just my biggest thing is, hey, I'm going to post more. And not only am I going to post more for social workers, but a huge aspect of me posting is also just to make hiring managers and recruiters aware more. Just because it says social worker, I should take an extra look at this resume and I should maybe have a screening call with them, right? Because I think it's one of those things where trust and safety jobs don't
Taylor (39:17)
Interesting.
Leslie Taylor (39:23)
the job posting does not say social work degree. Granted, I've seen a couple and I'm like applauding those companies and I'm so excited when I see them, but a majority of them don't. And I think that is a big people, especially women, we don't apply to things unless we meet 100 % of those boxes, right? And we're like, ⁓ it says I need a whatever like,
Taylor (39:32)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes, yes.
Leslie Taylor (39:53)
A sociology degree, well I have social work, right?
Taylor (39:56)
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (39:58)
whatever degree
it is, you're like, I can't apply. And that's not true. I think it's one of those things where you don't have to check all of those boxes. I'm also seeing more job descriptions say, hey, you don't have to check all of these boxes. We're going to encourage you to apply. And I apply to those companies. I think more companies need to do that as well. But if you do not meet 100 % of the criteria, still apply because your skills are relevant.
Taylor (40:27)
Yeah, I love that. So, I mean, yeah, that's probably a huge reason why their social workers are so underrepresented. ⁓
Leslie Taylor (40:34)
Or we also don't
know because in school, do we ever talk about this? We don't.
Taylor (40:38)
Literally never. I was just talking with my with with Faith yesterday and Again, I don't I feel like I keep saying it but just like our minds are literally blown with this path that social workers can take and We've we graduated seven years ago, you know, and we're just learning about this this year You know, it's It's like yeah, we I mean this is the point
One of the points of this podcast is to give social workers kind of exposure to the various things that they can do. Um, so thank you again for coming on and sharing your experience because this is exciting. You know, it's something unique and it's an, I'm sure it's just seems like an evolving field. Like the
Leslie Taylor (41:18)
Thanks
Taylor (41:29)
The internet is just going to continue to get more complex and scary and we need people like social workers to be integrated and keeping the community safe.
Leslie Taylor (41:42)
Yeah, and there's a growing number of us in tech. a lot of us too are starting to put MSW behind our name so you can find us because we want you to know this is a path.
Taylor (41:54)
Yes,
yes, yes, I love it, I love it. So yeah, you were like, I want social workers to make more money, that's amazing. Just generally, let's talk about the salaries you had. obviously, I mean, not obvious, I say obviously, but like you going into your first grad school, know, first job after grad school, intensive therapy, probably were getting paid super low.
Leslie Taylor (42:14)
Thank
Taylor (42:24)
Yeah, what in the 30s? 30,000? Yeah. That's fine. Yeah, that was in what? I'm looking 2011. Okay. And then into Snapchat. Everyone's like, Ooh, okay.
Leslie Taylor (42:27)
Honestly, I don't I think it was 40,000
Yeah, so this is when I worked at Snap, it was still startup, right? We were on Venice Beach. ⁓ it was.
Taylor (42:46)
Yeah.
my gosh, that sounds amazing.
Leslie Taylor (42:52)
We were walking on the beach to go to our next meeting. It was amazing. We did move over to Santa Monica at one point, but it was still startup. So I think when I started there, I started around 60,000. I'm really bad at knowing my salaries. ⁓ But by the end, I was around the 80,000 range. I do know after shortly I left that they did some, they raised everybody's pay.
Taylor (43:07)
That's okay.
Okay.
like internal equity reviews.
Leslie Taylor (43:20)
Yeah,
so I know that's more of my colleagues got raises just to make it they benchmarked across that industry. So and then obviously the higher you go, the more you get paid. Yeah, so once I got to Adobe, that's when I hit the six-paper mark. ⁓
Taylor (43:31)
Yeah, totally. And since then, I mean, I remember you like offline, you were like...
Leslie Taylor (43:40)
and now like it's definitely a different world than what I made as a social worker. So I'm well into the six figures now and it still blows my mind. I'm like I make ridiculous money. And TSPA, which is the Trust and Safety Professional Association just released their report. ⁓ It's a report on salary compensation. ⁓ So the roles in trust and safety specifically, the median is
128,000 to 255,000. And that was just the median. They also post the 25th percentile and the 75th percentile. it's, you can make good money. I've seen ranges recently. I think it also depends on the location you're in, right? Like I've seen some in the Bay area for that are like three, 400,000 the job posting. So
Taylor (44:29)
Mm-hmm.
Good Lord.
Leslie Taylor (44:40)
it's
Taylor (44:41)
I mean, that's just like money that we've never even, like as social workers, it's just not something that even seems possible or it's not a normal conversation, you know, like with us. Like I am slowly transitioning into financial planning and have just learning from people who are in this field and just like,
Leslie Taylor (44:52)
No.
Taylor (45:05)
entry level jobs being 120,000, know, people opening their own practice firms, making 250,000, 300,000. And that's normal. I'm like, these are just like salary numbers that we don't just hear about in social work, you know? So yeah, that's, that's amazing. What do you think about like, how has the work, the work life balance been and
It's, you know, you're making a good salary, but do you feel like you're being overworked and you're tired? And I mean, maybe you're tired, but yeah.
Leslie Taylor (45:50)
So the thing about trust and safety, it's high burnout. Just like social work, right? Because you are dealing with some of the worst of the worst. And it's the same thing with social work, right? You're dealing with not the greatest of, right?
Taylor (45:54)
Hmm.
Not fun stuff. Not the
good stuff. Yeah, we're the social workers of the internet. we're, it's same stuff, same issues.
Leslie Taylor (46:10)
It's also
the same thing, the same issue is you have to, safety is sometimes treated as an afterthought, right? Like you're fighting for your resources. It's the same thing as social work. ⁓
But it's impactful. It's really impactful work. And we do this work because we're driven by the mission and that's protecting people. So I think it's one of those things where, yes, we do have wellbeing programs and that really does help. But I we need to do a better job of recognize, our body always gives us signals, right? Like, hey, you can't sleep tonight or hey, your shoulder's hurting. Those are the signals that are like, hey,
Taylor (46:39)
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Taylor (46:53)
you're getting burned out. But sometimes even us, like even as social workers, we don't see it until it's too late. And we're just at that burnout stage. So I think we need to do a better we can always recognize it in other people. I was always so good at that on my team, you need to take a break. But for myself, I couldn't I would even one of my colleagues was like, Hey, I can't handle this report. Can you do it? I'll do it right? Like trying to be the superhero of the team. And I think that just
Taylor (46:54)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Leslie Taylor (47:22)
is the social worker in me. I want to save everybody, right? I want to help. So it is very high burnout, but you need to start recognizing ⁓ your burnout and take time off when you need it. I'm very fortunate that I get unlimited vacation. Another benefit. ⁓
Taylor (47:26)
Yeah.
Interesting.
Mm-hmm.
See, another benefit of being in tech with unlimited
PTO, what does that even mean? Please tell us.
Leslie Taylor (47:50)
as Americans, we don't ever use PTO. So I think they did that to not have to pay out, ⁓ when you leave a company, right? ⁓ that's my
Taylor (47:59)
that's fascinating.
Leslie Taylor (48:02)
That's
my theory. So, but it's also I honestly love unlimited PTO because I want to take PT or sorry, time off. If people don't, use PTO, but don't know if social workers are going to know that abbreviation. But I would never use it because what if I get really sick? Like I got COVID and I was out for 10 days.
Taylor (48:15)
Yeah.
You're
talking about like in a previous job where you didn't have a limited PTO. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (48:29)
previous job right like
and it was just one of those things where I'm like what if I get really sick I have to have time off so I have to bank my time so I love on lemon in vacation because I don't have to worry about it when I'm sick
Taylor (48:47)
Yeah, you're not like, oh,
actually, I'm already using my PTO for this like trip that I'm wanting to take in a couple months. So I actually can't take this time off while I'm sick. So.
Leslie Taylor (48:59)
And I think
most people don't abuse it, right? Like people are gonna show up. think last year I took maybe two weeks off. ⁓
Taylor (49:02)
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (49:10)
which isn't a ton of time off, but I think that's what average people get. But there was another year where I took three weeks off, right, total. So it's just one of those things. It's nice to have. You don't have to worry about being sick or if you're sick, right?
Taylor (49:27)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. But unlimited PTO
is not synonymous with every time you put in a vacation request, it's approved. Right?
Leslie Taylor (49:38)
I've never had an issue with it.
Taylor (49:40)
⁓ okay. That's cool. So you need to be taking more time off. Let me just say, okay?
Leslie Taylor (49:42)
So I think.
Yes.
Taylor (49:53)
We all need to. Okay, I'ma hold you to it. I'ma hold you to it. Okay, that was so helpful to just really kind of dig into the weeds of what you've done and what you've seen and all that stuff. If there are social workers listening and they're like, this sounds amazing, but I don't have experience in tech or like...
Leslie Taylor (49:54)
2026 goals, more time off.
Taylor (50:21)
anything that feels related, what would you say to them? Like what are some of your recommendations?
Leslie Taylor (50:28)
I say it's bullshit, you do. I think it's one of those things too, where I think you do have experience, right? Whether it's, I think a really good, I'm trying to think.
Taylor (50:41)
Yes, yes.
Leslie Taylor (50:49)
So look at the really look at the job description, right? And look at you. I think you just have to change the language. Social workers and tech, they have two completely different languages, even though they may be doing some things that are very similar. Right. So if you are helped with pre vent out of home placements, you can say you implemented safety interventions, right? Safety interventions is going to imply more to the tech rate. Or if you built support plans, call them well,
Taylor (50:56)
Okay.
Absolutely.
So true.
Leslie Taylor (51:19)
⁓ So I think you just really have to, yeah, I think you really just have to change the language. I also want to say AI is our friend. So if you're not sure how your ⁓ resume goes with this potential job, you're like, my God, this sounds like a dream job in tech, but I don't have experience or I don't know how to correlate this experience to tech, right? Use AI.
Taylor (51:23)
Interesting.
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (51:49)
to help you like hey first off warning AI is not 100 % correct right but it can be a tool and I think that we can use it especially to help build our cover letters and our JD's especially when we are trying to switch industries I think it's really helpful so really just look at the JD and align your language to the role and really I think I used to hate I would always tell people don't do cover
Taylor (51:55)
Yes.
Yes. Yes.
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (52:19)
letters. hate cover letters. ⁓
Taylor (52:22)
You hate writing them
or you just think they're dumb in general?
Leslie Taylor (52:24)
Both. But
I have been telling people, write cover letters, especially when you want to switch industries, because then you can explain how you have this unique lens, right? You're trained to see the harm before it happens. So I think the cover letter is really going to help you tailor ⁓ how your experience does translate.
Taylor (52:33)
Yeah, that makes sense.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, no, that's awesome. And all of these tips and things, everyone just, resources that Leslie's mentioned, know, TrustCon and all this stuff is gonna be in the show notes. Link in, there'll be a link in the show notes to a blog post with a little bit more details. ⁓ So that's where you can find all of that. But that is such a good point, like kind of explaining.
Yeah, how our skills translate and how we can really be an asset to these teams because our perspective is so unique. Like I actually yesterday, I was telling my friend about this field and I found a job posting on Spotify, Associate Policy Support Specialist. And I just pulled it up because I just want to read one of these. ⁓
a couple of these like, you know, what you will do. So conduct objective and timely investigations into reported content in queues to ensure compliance with Spotify's platform rules. So to me that sounds like you're reviewing.
Content to see you like this the content moderation, right? ⁓ Triage and handle high-profile and or time-sensitive escalations We know how to do that including communication with internal stakeholders Again, we are collaborative There's yeah again. We can do that We what Totally
Leslie Taylor (54:26)
We know how to build rapport. That's a big one. Yeah. We know how to build rapport.
And that's part of that communication piece, right?
Taylor (54:35)
Yeah, and like partner cross, cross functionally with policy teams and vendors. Like, yeah, we, we know how to collaborate with our people that work in our organizations, but also external organizations and
Yeah, I'm like everything that is listed here. I mean, this job is based out of New York. I'm not applying for this, but just like, it's interesting seeing this and yeah, it's kind of, it's written with this tech lens and with this like the tech lingo, but ultimately I could say, yeah, I've done everything that's on this list and the requirements are a bachelor's degree, one to two years of experience. ⁓
in operations role supporting content moderation. I feel like if I wanted to apply this, would look up normally, you know, I would see that and be like, oh, I don't have one to two years of experience in content moderation. I'm not gonna apply for it. But you're saying we should. Or maybe I do have experience. Tell me, do I have the experience?
Leslie Taylor (55:39)
you do have the experience, right? Like,
I mean, just because you don't in content moderation, right? But to me, it's also you have it dealing with people in a different aspect. ⁓
I just think that as hiring managers and recruiters we can get a better we can do a better job at writing job descriptions. I think there's definitely and make sure that more people apply make it more universal right. ⁓ But some people yeah won't apply because they're going to say ⁓ I don't have this exact experience right. I'm to see my social work experience is not content moderation.
Taylor (56:04)
Yeah.
Yep, yep, that's... Just go for it. Just go for it. ⁓ You never know.
Leslie Taylor (56:28)
I mean, you never, it's a thing, yeah, you never know. Like I applied
like the Adobe job. That was, I went from senior specialist to a senior manager. That was like three levels above, right? So it's one of those things where, it's just one of those things. Like just try it, right? Like you never know. The hiring manager may see something really special in you. ⁓ I know that there's one specific tech company where they have a couple.
Taylor (56:42)
Okay, Leslie, I'll see you. ⁓
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (56:58)
social workers on their team and it's amazing. it's definitely just try it.
Taylor (56:59)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, I love that. ⁓ Any roles, job titles social workers should look out for when exploring these jobs? I mean, the one that I just came across was associate policy support specialist. ⁓ I think from what I've seen in my limited digging is trust and safety seems to be kind of like some good keywords to use. What else?
Leslie Taylor (57:32)
Yeah, so
it's a, I used to love when everybody used Trust and Safety because it was so easy. But it's a growing space and now they're trying to make fancy titles. ⁓ So I used to post on LinkedIn a Thursday edition of like different jobs, right? Just to give social workers to like, hey, these are some jobs, they stopped for a side project, but I will start up again shortly. There's somebody else that does that.
Taylor (57:38)
Yeah.
okay.
Okay, I'll try to
source those and I'll link those in the show notes also, yeah, for sure.
Leslie Taylor (58:01)
Yeah, can definitely, yeah, yeah, I'll definitely do
that. So some of them for trust and safety are trust and safety specialists, which I mentioned I was, right? Community manager, policy manager, which that one was policy, right? Or policy analyst. Yeah, wellness lead, incident manager.
Taylor (58:23)
Yeah, policy support specialist.
Leslie Taylor (58:30)
law enforcement response specialist. if you want to move more into that law enforcement route, right? ⁓ Mental health and well-being policy lead is one that I just found one of my connects on LinkedIn has, trust and safety program manager. The list just goes on. There's different ⁓ job titles.
Taylor (58:49)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's,
I love that. We, we need this because I think that's the other thing is like, what do you search for? If you, one, if you don't know about it, but now people are getting exposed to this information, but then also it's like, okay, this sounds interesting. Now what do I put in the search?
Leslie Taylor (59:12)
So.
Yeah, I think
another one is if there's any company that you're like, I would love for this to work for this company. ⁓ I'm really into gaming and that's the space I want to be in, right? not only do you follow those companies on LinkedIn, but also set up job alerts. ⁓ So then you're going to be getting, can be, think LinkedIn does like weekly or weekly. think you get to choose how often you get those updates, but then you can, one, you can see those job titles.
come in but you can see like ⁓ this looks this title seems interesting let me click on it and you're like this is right up my alley right so definitely if there aren't any specific companies that you're like I want to work for because I have a passion for this space or I have a passion for this app where I want to make it better definitely set up those alerts
Taylor (59:50)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Do you find
that, are there any like special job boards that these jobs are on or just all of the kind of regular ones that we use for everything? LinkedIn, Glow Store, Indeed, whatever.
Leslie Taylor (1:00:15)
Great question. So
I think LinkedIn is going to be your best friend. ⁓ But there's also the Trust and Safety Job Board. ⁓ That just came up. But that is you get like a third. It's paid. So you have to pay for it. ⁓
Taylor (1:00:19)
Okay.
Okay. Okay.
Leslie Taylor (1:00:33)
But I think you get like a, there's a 30 day free trial if you want. So that might be also just good to see like, hey, what are some of the job titles? They also post on LinkedIn and they post some of those job titles and then they put and more and then you can go and look for some of them. ⁓ Another big resource is Jeff Dunn. ⁓ He is a trust and safety professional and he posts jobs every Tuesday. So he's a really great person to follow as well.
Taylor (1:00:37)
Okay.
Ooh, awesome. Leslie, these tips are gold. ⁓ You know, I had a question of like, what courses or education would you recommend for social workers? But we don't need anything more. We don't need to be getting any more credentials. I mean, that's my perspective. Now that from hearing what you said of like, you have everything, you have it. So what do you think?
Leslie Taylor (1:01:24)
Yeah, you have
it and honestly, I've talked to so many social workers and I get this question every single time. ⁓
Taylor (1:01:32)
Yeah. Like, do I
need a new certification or... Yeah, like... Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (1:01:36)
Yeah, I'm like, it's great that you want to learn more, right? ⁓
I do like first off, there's no degree yet, but universities are starting to teach trust and safety. So there are starting to become trust and safety courses. If you're interested, sure, like.
Taylor (1:01:53)
Okay.
But doesn't seem necessary.
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (1:01:57)
That's not necessary. ⁓
There's also people you can follow on LinkedIn, right? Or there's different things that you can, if you're interested in learning more, like sending up Google or alerts like, hey, I want news articles on like these topics related to like trust and safety, right? So I have that. ⁓ I do simple trust and safety. And I think I do content moderation. I forget what the other one is, but I just get news articles and then I can learn about too.
what's happening in the industry. So then you can also, hey, I'm learning about it. I'm learning about what some of the issues are, but you're also learning about how to talk about it as well.
Taylor (1:02:39)
Ooh,
I love that. I love that. Okay, any other strategies, tips? ⁓
Leslie Taylor (1:02:47)
I think my biggest
tip is be bold on LinkedIn. ⁓
And when I say that is you can, if this is something that you really want to explore, you can add a line like social working, social worker exploring tech or MSW interested in online safety and policy, right? And then reach out to people in tech that have jobs that you're like, that seems really cool. Even cold DMs like Taylor, you are a cold DM and look now. ⁓
Taylor (1:03:09)
Yeah.
I know,
I'm like a cold DM has blossomed into Leslie being here and you sharing all this info and like then you connecting me with a whole group of other social workers in trust and safety and yeah, I feel like over...
the past like five years, I would say I think I'm the queen, A queen, I'm not the queen, I'm A queen of cold DMs. Like I literally would just message people and be like, Hey, what you're doing sounds awesome. Like, do you want to talk? And I don't think I can think of one person who said no. People are so willing to talk.
Leslie Taylor (1:03:57)
Yeah, I don't know.
They really are. And the thing is, too, I I work remotely. So another huge benefit, I work from home. And I can't say that about tech everywhere, because there's a lot of research, the office mandates. But it's one of those things, too. People want to talk, right? They want to network. So yeah.
Taylor (1:04:06)
Ugh.
Yes. Yeah. And especially social workers, we want
to help other social workers, right? Like you, that's why you kind of started posting and just sharing like, I'm a social worker in tech. I want more social workers in tech. Like, yeah, us specifically, we want to help each other and like help us succeed and get the money and all the, all the things. ⁓
Leslie Taylor (1:04:37)
Absolutely.
Taylor (1:04:40)
I love that. Okay, anything else you want to share before we get into the money moment?
Leslie Taylor (1:04:46)
No, think just first off, just apply, right? Or if just learn more about the industry and think about is this a path for me, right? And there's definitely a bunch of social workers out there that are willing to help you.
Taylor (1:05:01)
Yeah.
Absolutely. No, that's great. Okay. So money moment for anyone who hasn't listened to the podcast before we try to do a money moment if we have time and we do, ⁓ which is just kind of re-centering and bringing the conversation back to money. And you know, that's what this podcast, is about. mean, it's about personal finance and career, but also helping social workers get more comfortable with talking about money and, ⁓
⁓ us just being more vulnerable with each other and normalizing these conversations around money. So we asked our guests, or if we're doing solo episodes, Faith and I will share our money moment, which is just like an insight, a win, anything in between that you want to share with the audience about money. So, Leslie, what do you have for your money moment?
Leslie Taylor (1:05:59)
⁓ Simple, negotiate. ⁓
Taylor (1:06:03)
It's simple. It's simple. It's a simple word, but not as not simple to do.
Leslie Taylor (1:06:07)
It's
not, I think social workers ⁓ may not be comfortable, right? We're not used to it or you're working for a nonprofit where there is no money, right? ⁓ And I think your first time can feel, it's terrifying. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, the worst they can say is no, but a majority of time they will say yes. I wanna tell you quickly about my first experience. I asked, I negotiate? And they said no.
Taylor (1:06:15)
Mm-mm.
It's always terrifying, I feel like.
Leslie Taylor (1:06:36)
And I was like, okay, like I didn't know, right?
Taylor (1:06:40)
Right?
Because we don't talk about this in school, right? Of like, okay, you're going into the workforce. Nothing.
Leslie Taylor (1:06:43)
No, just...
And I didn't know
how to do it, right? From then I did find out one of my colleagues came on, I think like two or three months after me and did negotiate for more on my team. So I was like, from that, was like gutted. was like, we were able to, like I did it wrong. And I took that as an opportunity and I learned about negotiating. Like I researched so much about how to do it, like what to ask for. So from then I.
Taylor (1:07:09)
Yeah.
Leslie Taylor (1:07:17)
learned a lot. Since then I've negotiated between 7 % and 33 % more in just my base pay.
Taylor (1:07:18)
Yes.
⁓ my gosh. Wow. That's amazing. And yeah, you it's, we have to get over that, like the couple minutes of discomfort that we may have with, with asking for more, ⁓ because it can really make a huge impact on, your life. That's a lot of money.
Leslie Taylor (1:07:48)
It's
a lot of money. I'm comfortable with it now, right? Like there's money on the table. Also in tech, fun fact, you get bonuses in stock. So you can also negotiate those. So I have negotiated successfully five to 10 % more in my annual bonus. ⁓
Taylor (1:08:05)
Fascinating.
Leslie Taylor (1:08:13)
as well as more stock. don't remember the percentages that I've negotiated in stock as well. So if you don't negotiate, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table. Yeah, and I think my key is always to negotiate more than what your bottom line is or what you actually want ⁓ because they're always gonna counter back, at least in my experience. it's terrifying, your first
Taylor (1:08:24)
No, that's so true. Wow.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Leslie Taylor (1:08:43)
few times but you will you do get better at it and don't ask if you can negotiate just do it.
Taylor (1:08:46)
Yeah. Don't ask. That is the takeaway here. Do not ask if you can negotiate.
Just do it. And ⁓ just do it Nike. Please be our sponsor. Anyways, ⁓ I think I love that because you have kind of gained this confidence of knowing that asking for more money does not mean that you
are a terrible person, that's gross, that you care less about the work that you do. You know, I think we've gotten these messages as social workers about like, just the money messages and wanting more makes people feel yucky. And so, yeah, that's great that you've, it seems like you've kind of overcame that.
Leslie Taylor (1:09:41)
I definitely did from my very first experience.
Taylor (1:09:44)
Yeah. How do you,
how do you, I want to end with just like, how do you prepare for this negotiation? What is your kind of like go-to process? You know, like, are you researching these, the, you know, ⁓ comparable jobs in the area or like, are you just coming in and just saying like, this is what I want.
Leslie Taylor (1:10:08)
So to be honest with you, I used to do that and I did a lot of digging to like the open door salaries, right? I mean, now they have this TSPA just put out their comp, which we didn't have as trust and safety professionals. So it was a little bit more difficult. ⁓ Now I kind of know where I want to be ⁓ just personally. So I kind of just, hey, this is where I want to be.
Taylor (1:10:22)
Yeah.
Awesome.
It's as simple as that. And people aren't, I mean, I guess like, people aren't coming to you, I don't know, with like wanting you to provide them some sort of like reasoning or whatever, right? So.
Leslie Taylor (1:10:36)
Yeah.
No,
I mean in my negotiations ⁓
I don't even know. It's usually, what was my last one? Sometimes they're over the phone, which can be a little bit awkward. Sometimes people do it over email. I don't remember. I mean, I just got hired on a new job, but it's, I don't know. I feel like I have mom brain sometimes where I forget. But they don't necessarily, yeah, they don't ask for evidence at all. I've never once had that. I did once have
Taylor (1:11:05)
I agree.
That's fair.
Yeah, yeah.
Leslie Taylor (1:11:28)
somebody come back with a very low ⁓ like counter offer back and I was just like, I can't accept this role. Like I can't, and I told them very frankly, like I can't live in that specific area with that income, right? So yeah, so it's just one of those things where I did try to provide some backup there, but it just didn't work.
Taylor (1:11:44)
The audacity.
Yeah, hmm, interesting. Awesome, well, anything else before we end that you wanna share? I feel like this was pretty robust. Yeah, awesome.
Leslie Taylor (1:12:01)
No, I think this was great. I really appreciate
you having me on so I can tell everybody about how amazing tech is, how amazing trust and safety is, and how much you can earn.
Taylor (1:12:13)
Yes.
I love that you're just, you're just open with that because that's a huge part of our life satisfaction, job satisfaction, you know, whether people, ⁓ kind of in the social work field want to admit it or not, but you know, our, our financial wellbeing is so important. So yeah, that's great. Okay. Where, where can people find you? You're mostly hanging out on LinkedIn, right?
Leslie Taylor (1:12:34)
so important.
mostly on LinkedIn, easiest way to reach out to me. And I will continue to post more about social workers and tech and trust and safety. So definitely follow, follow along.
Taylor (1:12:44)
Awesome. ⁓
Yay.
Yeah, awesome. Well, I believe this is probably our longest episode yet, which is totally fine and I love it. ⁓ Hope everyone enjoyed and if you did, shameless plug, again, please rate, review, follow us, all of the things. Thanks for listening and we'll be back in two weeks.