$30,000
Black workers in the Bay Area earn about $30,000 a year less than white workers, and the gap shows up at every education level.
Your degree and your title will not close it on their own.
Source: Bay Area Council
Services
What I do,
and what it costs
For first-generation and underrepresented Bay Area professionals negotiating for the roles they earned. Every engagement is fixed-scope and fixed-price, so you know what arrives and when. Start wherever you are: most people begin with the Blueprint and step up if the search needs more pace.
Career Blueprint · $499High-Velocity Campaign · $1,499Executive Concierge · $3,499
Book a free consult
Who this is for
You earned every seat you have
You are a Bay Area professional three to fifteen years in, across tech, healthcare, finance, biotech, the public sector or nonprofit, and often the first in your family to build a career at this level. You got here on merit.
Your background is not a diversity checkbox. It is an edge. You move between worlds without losing yourself in either, and you are used to hearing no and finding another way.
What is in your way is simple: nobody in your family has negotiated at this level, the inherited advice is to take the offer, and the recruiter works for the company. That advice kept earlier generations safe. At the level you have reached, it costs you.
You're an urban professional. You work directly with me, one on one, from the first call to the signed offer.
When to call
An offer in hand
The number is on the table and the clock is running. This is the moment the first-offer tax gets decided.
When to call
A promotion on the table
The title is moving. Whether the pay moves with it depends on what you ask for before you say yes.
When to call
Planning the next move
You're not leaving yet, but you know you will. The move after this one is built now.
The cost of staying quiet
55%
More than half of workers take the first offer. Of those who negotiate, 78% get a better one.
If you do not ask, you are paying to be polite.
Source: Resume Genius 2025 survey
$269,000
A $10,000 increase on a $120,000 offer, carried through 20 years of 3% raises, is worth about $269,000.
Every raise, bonus and next offer is built on this number.
Generic negotiation scripts are written for someone else. Research from Harvard's Program on Negotiation finds that biased evaluators penalize Black candidates for negotiating the standard way. That is why your approach is built from your market data and your read of the room, not a template. Read the research →
Same words, different risk
The standard advice assumes pushing back is free. For you, it isn't.
Two people can deliver the same words and face different consequences. Economists at Boston University showed how employers can end up watching Black workers more closely than white workers, so the same mistake gets caught and punished more often, even when the two groups are equally productive (Cavounidis and Lang, NBER, 2015). Their follow-up found layoffs start out higher for Black workers than for comparable workers (Cavounidis, Lang and Weinstein, 2022). Data current as of September 2026.
So the negotiation plan can't only raise the number you ask for. It has to protect how the ask gets read.
01
Get the request in writing
"You asked for my honest read. Confirming before we meet." Now the record shows you were asked.
02
Frame it before you say it
Name what you're about to do: "Here's the market data," or "These are the team's words, not mine." Framing takes the heat off the messenger.
03
Document it afterward
A short recap email: what was asked, what you said, what you proposed. Anyone who punishes you for it is punishing the accuracy.
In their words
If you are a high-level professional looking to make a major career move, McKinley is the absolute best investment you can make. He completely overhauled my resume, transforming my extensive background in Learning & Development and enterprise strategy into a high-impact narrative that instantly resonated with top-tier employers. The results speak for themselves: shortly after working with him, I landed a competitive Associate Director position in late 2022.
Client testimonial, unpaid. Some details changed to protect confidentiality. How results are presented
I had been stuck at Senior Director for three years and kept getting passed over for VP. The Executive Concierge program changed how I framed my strategic value. The positioning scripts and board-prep sessions were the part I did not know I needed. I signed a VP offer with a 35% base increase.
Client testimonial, unpaid. Some details changed to protect confidentiality. How results are presented
The method, measured: 41 of 41 applications confirmed by the employer's own system, three interview processes and an offer on day 19. Read the case study →
Internal case: the candidate is affiliated with Urban Human Resources. Same method paid clients receive.
Tier 01
Career Blueprint
$499
Delivered in about two weeks · 1 session
Upgrade credit: move to the High-Velocity Campaign within 30 days and the full $499 comes off the Campaign price.
The foundation. You leave with materials that pass a recruiter's first pass and a plan that tells you what to do each week rather than "keep applying".
- Resume & LinkedIn rebuild: rewritten and formatted against the roles you are actually targeting.
- One 1:1 strategy session: target roles, market read, and the honest gaps.
- Custom 90-day execution plan: week by week, with the outreach volume named.
- Negotiation script pack: the words for the salary question, the counter, and the deadline.
Tier 02 · Most chosen
High-Velocity Campaign
$1,499
Four to six weeks · 4 weekly sessions
Already have the Blueprint? Within 30 days of buying it, the Campaign is $1,000. Reply to your Blueprint email for the upgrade link.
For a move you want to make this quarter. I run the search alongside you and keep the pace up when the week gets away from you.
- Everything in the Career Blueprint.
- Targeted market outreach: a named list of companies and people, with the messages written.
- Four weekly 1:1 sessions: review what landed, adjust, set the next week's actions.
- Live interview prep: real questions, out loud, until the answers are yours.
- Direct offer negotiation: I price the package and coach the call, or take it with you.
Tier 03
Executive Concierge
$3,499
Three to four months · 8 bi-weekly sessions
For senior leaders positioning for a board seat, a C-suite role, or an exit worth negotiating carefully. Longer horizon, quieter search.
- Everything in the High-Velocity Campaign.
- C-suite positioning: narrative, public profile and the rooms you need to be seen in.
- Eight bi-weekly 1:1 sessions: sustained across the whole search.
The outcome
What you walk away with
Every tier ends in the same place: you know your number, you have the words, and you know what to do next week.
When we're done
- Materials that clear a recruiter's first pass, written for the role you actually want.
- A week-by-week plan that names what to send, to whom and how many, instead of "keep applying."
- A number, a range from real market data, and a walk-away you set before the first salary conversation.
- The exact words for the three hardest moments: the salary question, the counter and the deadline.
What I need from you
- Your current resume, the roles you are targeting, and any interview or offer already in motion.
- Time for the sessions your tier includes: one for the Blueprint, four weekly for the Campaign, eight bi-weekly for the Concierge.
- The outreach itself. The plan names the volume; you send it, and we adjust on what comes back.
See the work
Run your number
What one ask is worth
Enter the offer in front of you and the increase you are weighing. The math assumes 3% annual raises over 20 years, each built on the higher base.
Over 20 years, that ask is worth
$268,704
A 8.3% ask today. The High-Velocity Campaign is $1,499, and direct offer negotiation is included.
Book a free consultYour leverage
California already put the number in your hands
California employers with 15 or more employees must post the pay range on every job listing, and every employer must give a current employee the range for their own role on request. Most candidates skim past it. Used right, it tells you where you can land before you say a word.
Source: California Labor Code section 432.3. Data current as of September 2026.
Compare
| Included | Blueprint | Campaign | Concierge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resume & LinkedIn rebuild | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 1:1 strategy sessions | 1 | 4 weekly | 8 bi-weekly |
| 90-day execution plan | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Negotiation script pack | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Targeted market outreach | No | Yes | Yes |
| Live interview prep | No | Yes | Yes |
| Direct offer negotiation | No | Yes | Yes |
| C-suite positioning | No | No | Yes |
Before you choose
Which tier should I start with?
Most people start with the Blueprint. If you need to move this quarter, or the search has already stalled, start with the Campaign: the Blueprint is included in it, so nothing is wasted.
Can I upgrade later?
Yes. Move from the Blueprint to the Campaign within 30 days of buying it and the full $499 comes off, so you pay $1,000. Reply to your Blueprint email and I send the upgrade link.
Do you guarantee a job?
No, and nobody honestly can: hiring decisions are not mine to make. What is fixed is the scope: the materials, the sessions, the plan and the negotiation support all arrive as written.
What if the consult says I don't need you?
Then I say so and send the free resume audit and a reading list instead. The consult costs nothing either way.
For urban organizations
HR advisory, by the engagement
Alongside the individual tiers I run full-scope HR services for urban organizations across nine disciplines: talent acquisition, compensation and pay equity, benefits and leave, employee relations, compliance and policy, global workforce and mobility, leadership development, HR technology, and labor relations and M&A transitions. Scoped to the question, priced before I start.