Social Media Coaches Millennials: The Bill Is Coming
A 24-year-old in London just spent £3,000 on a "personal brand accelerator" course taught by someone who had never held a corporate job.
Social Media Coaches Millennials: The Bill Is Coming
A 24-year-old in London just spent £3,000 on a "personal brand accelerator" course taught by someone who had never held a corporate job. She learned to optimise her LinkedIn headline and post motivational quotes at 7am for "maximum engagement." Six months later, she was unemployed and £8,000 deeper in student debt.
This is not unusual anymore.
Generation Z has turned career advice into content — and content creators into career experts. TikTok strategists with 50,000 followers are charging more per session than headhunters who place executives. Instagram coaches promise six-figure salaries to graduates who have never negotiated a contract. The economy of inspiration has become an economy of exploitation.
The mechanism is simple: social media rewards extreme claims over measured advice. "How I Made £100K by Age 25" generates more clicks than "How to Research Industries and Build Networks Slowly." Young professionals, desperate for shortcuts in an expensive world, pay premium prices for premium promises. The coaches cash out. The students discover that viral tactics don't survive contact with actual managers.
The casualties are mounting. HR departments report interview candidates who speak in LinkedIn platitudes instead of demonstrating competence. Recruitment firms see CVs stuffed with "thought leadership" and devoid of measurable results. First-year analysts arrive believing their personal brand matters more than their spreadsheet accuracy. They learn otherwise.
The deeper cost isn't financial — it's temporal. A generation is spending their early career years optimising for algorithms instead of competence. They are building audiences before they have built expertise. They mistake visibility for value, engagement for employment.
Real career advice is boring. It involves understanding industry dynamics, developing specific skills, building relationships over years rather than weeks. It requires accepting that most success happens slowly and privately. It cannot be packaged into seven-slide carousels or 60-second videos.
The correction is already underway. Companies are learning to screen for substance over social presence. Managers are promoting based on delivery rather than digital metrics. The economy is reasserting its preference for competence over content.
For the young professionals paying coaches more than they earn: your career is not a brand. It is a series of problems you solve for people willing to pay you to solve them. Start there.
The advice is free. And worth exactly what good advice should cost: your time, not your money.
