This HR pro is using TikTok to dispel HR myths

Gone are the days when stitching was the purview of seamstresses and doctors, and duets were reserved for Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. Thanks to TikTok, HR pros like Daniel Space can do both regularly on his account @dan_from_hr.

Space is using his years of professional HR experience and knack for social video shorts to change people’s opinions about hiring and the workplace, as well as to correct the abundance of bad advice on the internet.

After college, when Space didn’t secure any lucrative work in his field of study, classical saxophone, Space landed his first HR gig in leave-of-absence administration. He later earned a master’s in HR management and spent more than a decade at WebMD, Electronic Arts, and Spotify in a number of HR business partner-aligned roles.

He left in-house work in early 2020, ready to start a consultancy. And then came the lockdowns.

“The pandemic made me feel isolated. I was living by myself in this small little basement studio and I was like, ‘Alright, let me just download TikTok’…and started just mindlessly scrolling,” he said. “Then I typed in, ‘career advice’…and I just saw so much bad advice, video after video after video.”

Then he spotted one video that would inspire him to join the world of content creation.

“There was one person who gave advice that would actually really ruin your chances,” he said of a video that suggested that candidates ask a hiring manager what the budget was to fill an open position if they were asked what compensation they were expecting. In an advice column on his website, Space writes that this “shows a lack of awareness on your part that the compensation will be based on your merit and experience, and [implies] instead you just expect to be paid at the higher range. Do not do this.”

Space told HR Brew that he’s seen managers immediately cut candidates who ask for the salary budget in interviews.  “So, that is why I created an account, so I could take that video, stitch it, and say, ‘Do not listen to this person. This is terrible advice.’”

He's since leveraged his experiences in HR to help his more than 160,000 followers navigate the wild world of misinformation on TikTok and has created a niche for himself as an HR and hiring myth-buster, with users tagging him in other videos asking if the advice is legit. Fact or cap, as the kids say.

He offers career advice and job-search tips to users, as well as insights into other areas of HR: compensation, internal development, promotions, and management best practices.

“I find that anything that reveals information that [makes] people think to themselves, ‘I had no idea that this is how it worked,’ that is the content that performs the best,” he said, adding that being authentic and avoiding gimmicks is important to him, too.

HR needs better PR. Space realized early on in his TikTok career the scope of HR’s not-so-great reputation from the comments of his videos.

“I made a video saying…this is not your place to write a five-page paragraph about how your HR person screwed you over, because that has nothing to do with me, and I’m sorry that happened, but I’m not going to be held accountable for someone else simply because they shared a profession.”

Space says HR does a “terrible job” of marketing itself, and suggests HR pros work with managers to better communicate what the function does because “in the absence of information, people just assume the worst.”

With his audience, Space is helping showcase the scope of HR work, and along the way helping mend some of his followers’ relationships with their own HR teams.

“I really liked that a lot of people have written me and said in the comments…saying, ‘You helped change my opinion of what HR does, and as a result, I’ve been able to build a better relationship with HR because I had no idea that this is what you actually do.’”