When Cinneah El-Amin started her professional career back in 2017, she dared to do what the young professionals are advised against: she job-hopped. She defied the conventional advice that she stay put, gain tenure, and wait and watch for opportunities for growth.
She made strategic jumps, purposeful exits, well-informed negotiations, and a stubborn refusal to accept anything short of what she deserved.
And five years on, her strategy has borne fruit, in more ways than one. The 28-year-old New Yorker more than doubled her salary, jumping from $72,000 a year to a whopping $186,000 a year, bonuses and benefits aside.
The reward? A career that’s well paid and on her own terms, more and more.
And yes, she’s not done yet.
From Humanities Major to Tech Professional
El-Amin’s roots were found in what could be considered a less likely place to begin: an Africana studies major at Barnard College. She later attended a one-year master’s program at Wake Forest University School of Business.
That is where she was given a fellowship by American Express, which resulted in her first corporate job offer upon graduation.
The offer was for a senior product analyst position with AmEx, which began at a salary of $68,000. However, El-Amin felt that she had a little leeway for negotiation. She told CNBC,
“I didn’t really have a strategy back then. I was just kind of happy to have a job at that point,”
But she played the traditional advice and always negotiated, asked for more, and was able to negotiate her salary up to $72,000. It was nothing earth-shaking, but it was a start.
She’d been put in product development and promoted to $89,000 by 2019. A few months later, with some changes in the equity at the company, she was just short of six figures. Something wasn’t right, though, even with the increase in pay.
“There was supposed to be a transparency I was supposed to have gotten,” she recalled, “and for some reason, I wasn’t.”
The Strength of a Timely Exit
Now, El-Amin could have remained stationary and ascended the corporate hierarchy. What she did instead is what still sends shudders down the spines of some hiring managers: she quit.
She began reaching out to old classmates and coworkers, one of whom assisted her in getting a referral for a product manager position at Mastercard. It was 2020, and the job market was shaky, but timing was on her side. The position was almost a match for her skill set.
With some salary research and good referrals from within, El-Amin went into the interview process knowing her worth.
When she was asked about her expected salary, she turned the tables and inquired about the range from the recruiter. She discovered that the position was paying $119,000 to $160,000. She negotiated it up to $130,000.
At year’s end, she had collected her full bonus, which pushed her to a total income of more than $150,000. Her career leap had earned her a return of $50,000+. Not a bad result for a girl who had been advised to tough it out.
With almost a year of experience under my belt, seeing that I made more than $50,000 for jumping into it, I was definitely justified in choosing to do it.
The Tough Job Hunt (and the Big Payoff)
In 2021, El-Amin found herself job hunting once more. She was more anxious about returning to the office and was eager for a remote job in the technology sector. That began a brutal seven-month job hunt, with well over 150 applications and rejection after rejection.
“I was a little too confident that I could just get another product manager job,” she admitted, “it was a wake-up call, and it was a learning experience that concentrated her job search efforts.”
She finally applied for a technical product manager job at PayPal. Despite her application initially getting lost due to internal turnover, she contacted the interviewer and restarted the process.
Once initiated, the process proceeded very quickly. And she was more prepared this time.
She made her salary request up front. When the offer came across for $186,000, she wasn’t afraid to bargain and asked for the sum of $197,000 based on her experience and a good match for the job.
While the base salary wasn’t negotiable for PayPal, they made her a $29,000-signing bonus offer as an incentive. She said on this offer,
“It was a very proud moment. There were days when I didn’t know what I was going to be able to get. I just got so many rejections. It really took a while to get my groove back.”
She stayed on at PayPal until the beginning of 2023, when she was hit with a round of redundancies. Instead of hurrying into the next job, she once more made the unconventional choice: she quit corporate life, at least temporarily.
Pivoting with Intent
El-Amin is now concentrating on expanding her business, Flynanced, providing career advising with personal finance to women of color. It’s not a plan B. It’s a pivot, driven by a growing passion for building something for herself in addition to working toward helping others.
“I’m leaving Corporate America,” she said, “to start building my business and find out what success on my own terms looks like.”
That choice positions her among a rising tide of millennial and Gen Z workers becoming freelancers or going on a career hiatus due to layoffs and burnout.
In a 2023 piece on CNBC, lots of young workers who were let go during periods of technology slowdown aren’t running back to the standard 9-to-5. Instead, they’re freelancing, starting companies, or just readjusting their priorities.
The Negotiation Playbook
Despite her professional successes, El-Amin indicates that she remains nervous when she negotiates compensation.
“I learned that the feelings are normal,” she says, “but nevertheless, I have to make the request even when I am nervous.”
How does she accomplish this? She prepares ahead of time.
She writes out a script prior to negotiating, listing her credentials, who she is, and what she brings to the company, and what salary she thinks she deserves as a result.
She backs up her request with internal job posting data, recruiter conversations, and employee networks, or in layman’s terms, “I basically made the case for why I deserve these other things,” she said.
Her advice to others: don’t leave money on the table just because you’re afraid to ask.
Busting the Myth of Job-Hopping
El-Amin’s case challenges one of the oldest career-planning myths: job-hopping is irresponsible. It was a tactic for her. It allowed her to accelerate her career, gain diverse experience, and ultimately earn more money along the way.
At the same time, it gave her autonomy over her earnings, her workplace, and finally, her entire work-life balance.
While there are still career coaches and mentors around who would counsel the “loyalty above all” ethic, the future workplace sings a different melody.
Pay transparency is still spotty, promotion doesn’t always follow performance, and hanging in there can sometimes translate to freezing rather than stability.
For a professional like El-Amin, the shrewd play was to make a move. Strategically. Decisively. And with a script. And in a world where the labor market is changing faster than ever before, perhaps being ready to leave is exactly what gets you to where you need to go.
No Comments