When Naeche Vincent’s employer told her she had to start coming to the office last year, she decided to make a TikTok video about preparing to step foot inside the Wall Street investment bank for the first time.
The 24-year-old, whose videos have garnered more than 2.4 million likes, had been working from home since she started as an analyst in 2020 and wanted to make a good first impression. She needed to buy new work clothes, get her eyebrows done and switch to a less dramatic manicure.
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“I cannot have claws, like in the corporate world claws just aren’t happening, not with the people I work with,” she said in the video, waving her long nails.
One thing Vincent didn't mention in the video? Where she works. And in future videos, including one about pulling a 19-hour workday, she was also careful not to reveal her employer.
“The banking world is very strict about what you can share online,” Vincent said in an interview. “If you're online posting about a specific company, then you basically become a spokesperson. I just don’t say where I work.” Vincent also asked Bloomberg not to disclose her employer, which she has since left.
Gen Z Americans have grown up sharing their lives on social media and see no reason to stop just because they’ve entered the corporate world. For Wall Street, where confidentiality is bred in the bone, this poses a conundrum. Unfiltered day-in-the-life videos like Vincent’s can serve as a recruitment tool for an industry that is struggling to attract young, diverse talent. But the content can also shed a less-than-ideal light on New York’s biggest banks by capturing the “work hard, play hard” ethos of Wall Street.
There are TikTok videos that show JPMorgan Chase & Co. interns partying on a boat cruise around Manhattan, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. employees lining up for food trucks outside the office and the food served at Morgan Stanley’s summer internship orientation. There are also recent videos that show employees in the office early enough to watch the sun rise over the Hudson River, or analysts working past midnight.
So far, the firms are navigating this new reality cautiously. Some banks are encouraging social media use, while others are taking control of their own narrative. Goldman plans to launch TikTok content soon that will share glimpses of a typical day from some of its junior employees.
At the same time, Goldman and Bank of America Corp. employees have removed videos that the companies say violated their guidelines. Most of the young people posting across social media don’t disclose where they work to shield themselves from potential backlash and to separate their content from their employer.
Read the full article here by Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou, Paulina Cachero, Advisor Perspectives.
