For some, this means that working from home is enshrined in their contracts, whereas for others it means stepping out of the office on time every day no matter what. No texting after hours or at the weekend and a protected lunch break are the bare minimum for many.
Younger workers are also bringing this put-the-individual-first attitude to their salary negotiations – and taking advice they get from social media into the meetings with them.
More than half of Gen Z employees expect an annual promotion, research by Robert Walters UK found.
And if they don’t get it, they’re happy to find a new role elsewhere. Gen Z workers could change jobs up to 10 times between the ages of 18 and 34, a survey of US students found. It is for this reason that most career influencers focus their advice on how to negotiate at a new job.
TikTok videos, often made by career “coaches”, provide scripts and “hacks” to have the difficult conversation, whether it is after a job offer has been made, or after an employee has worked at a company for some time.
Influencers often “act” as both a recruiter and a candidate, reading out a script with which younger workers are instructed to respond.
One script, which advises on how to respond to a phone call offering you a job, reads: “Thank you! I really appreciate the offer and I’d be honoured to join the team, but I would like to know if we could meet at US$110,000 ($183,000) for the starting salary.”
Following a pause, the “recruiter” returns and says no, to which the influencer replies: “Thank you. In that case, would it be possible to offer a sign-on bonus? Three weeks of paid time off instead of two, or a once-weekly work-from-home day? Or a travel stipend?”
The key message of the social media videos is summed up by the conclusion the influencer draws: “If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.”
But others say: “Don’t go in with demands, don’t go in with a demanding tone, it has to be more of a persuasive tone and you have to go with facts.”
Another video is titled: “How to negotiate when a company completely lowballs you but you don’t want to sound ungrateful, you just need more money.”
It contains the advice not to say that you “won’t” accept a lower offer, but instead to say that you “can’t”.
Other influencers advise never to offer the first number, something recruiters warn is misguided.
‘Talk take-home pay, not salary’
Some employers praise the increased confidence that social media advice creates.
Another video suggests that employees should negotiate on the basis of “take-home” pay, or how much they would be getting after tax.
“I personally find it easier to talk in terms of take-home pay, so while you are saying £80,000 ($167,000) a year, that’s really only £56,000 that I end up getting in my bank account,” the influencer role-plays.
He then plays an HR director, who is confused by this response, but as almost always in the role-played scenarios, he wins an enormous raise.
One TikTok, titled “When you negotiate bilingual pay”, which sees an influencer act out a negotiation with a recruiter, tailoring his Spanish speaking to how much extra he is paid.
At just $1 extra an hour, he speaks “un poco” of Spanish, with his fluency improving dramatically when he is offered $4 more. While the video is intended to be humorous, its message is sincerely meant, encouraging younger workers to market all of their skills.
For longer-term employees, TikTokkers advise keeping a log of praise and making sure that any conversations happen face-to-face or on a call, rather than by email.
But they are cautious about the likelihood of success negotiating a raise. One video says: “It’s harder to grow your salary in the same position that you’ve been in.”
Some employers praise the increased confidence that the social media advice creates. Nicky Lyle, director of HR at travel company Hotelplan UK, says: “We’ll generally set salary parameters for a role before interviews begin, but there is often a little flexibility.
“I’d generally have no objection if a candidate wanted to push for a better deal – or if it was a tip or script from Tiktok that empowered them to do so,” she adds.
But other experts warned that the videos might not deliver the promised results – instead leaving younger workers relying on scripts looking “stupid” or even losing job offers.
Daniel Space, a recruiter who makes online videos as @danfromhr, says that aspiring workers shouldn’t pay too much attention to viral career TikToks.
He warns: “The people with the largest followings on TikTok in this space have exactly zero years of experience doing it from a company – it’s amazing who the population has propped up as ‘experts’.”
His own videos, which are underpinned by more than 20 years of experience, have been viewed more than two million times. His most viral video debunks some of the common misconceptions about salary negotiations.
In a piece to camera, he says: “Do not evade the [salary range] question and ask for the budget range, that’s the dumbest advice I’ve ever seen. Give a large range and then ask a lot of follow-up questions.”
‘Misleading examples’
“With no industry context or specialisation you could just look foolish.” Photo / Getty Images
Space tells the UK’s Daily Telegraph:“Negotiation experts often provide misleading examples such as: ‘Whoever gives the first number loses,’ that are not accurate for employment contracts as the motivations are different.”
Those looking for advice online are likely to be missing the bigger picture, recruiter Nathan Peart, of law firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, says: “It’s such a broad brush approach. There was a video I watched about salary negotiation which was about getting $10,000 extra.
“Trying to ask for £1 extra an hour versus a $10,000 pay rise, there’s no context there whatsoever, so you’re just going to look like an idiot.”
He says that many of the videos are targeted at American audiences, where the more fluid labour market and the fact that more firms have internal recruiters, mean that conversations about money are quite different. Especially for firms that have very set salary bands, employees who barge in demanding more money can make themselves look uninformed, Mr Peart says.
He adds: “With no industry context or specialisation you could just look foolish.”
Peart says that the lack of context about the potential comebacks from employers means that those relying on online scripts could come unstuck.
“You don’t know the person you are going to ask or speak to. They might not respond in that way, they’re probably not going to respond in that way,” he says.
“What are you going to do if someone pushes back and says, ‘Actually, your work isn’t that good and we’ve been thinking about putting you on a performance plan?’”
