She Nearly Tripled Her Salary in Under 3 Years. Now She's Launching a Tool to Help You Answer a Big Question: Are You Getting Paid What You're Worth? Hannah Williams, the Gen Z creator behind TikTok sensation Salary Transparent Street, wants young professionals to know their real market rate.

If you've ever found yourself on FinTok, a personal finance-focused community on TikTok, you've probably encountered Salary Transparent Street — the account where Gen Z creator Hannah Williams interviews people about their occupations and salaries, making pay more transparent for her 1.2 million followers.

Williams became a staunch advocate for pay transparency after she found out she was underpaid approximately $20,000 in one of her prior roles as a senior data analyst. And although she almost tripled her salary in under three years with strategic job-hopping, she "couldn't shake the experience" and its impact on her.

"I wanted to normalize pay transparency, and talking to people about their jobs and salaries on the street was the solution I came up with," Williams tells BIZ Experiences. "I got a cheap logo made on Fiverr, bought a shirt with the logo added on, bought a cheap microphone on Amazon, and recruited my fiancé to film me on the street. The first video we posted on TikTok went mega-viral, and the rest is history."

Related: Ways to Make Job Hopping a Smart Career Move | BIZ Experiences

Williams launched Salary Transparent Street in April of 2022. She's since left her full-time job — her last position was as a senior data analyst earning $115,000 per year — to pursue the venture full-time and continue helping young people take control of their finances and get paid what they're worth.

Some of Williams' must-know tips for young professionals who want to ensure their salaries are fair? First, always negotiate — even if the first offer is within your market rate. Of course, that means researching and determining your market rate (it should have a minimum and maximum with a difference no greater than $20,000). You should always ask for the top of that salary range too; if you start at the bottom, the final offer could be less than you'd like.

Williams says her favorite tip is waiting 24 hours before accepting any job offer. "Even if you're satisfied with the rate, tell them you need 24 hours to review the offer," she says. "This has not only helped me get more money in the final offer if the company is pressured to fill the role, but has also brought me peace of mind in thinking through and making my final decision."

Related: Why Young Professionals Don't Negotiate Salary (and Why They Should)

But Williams acknowledges it can be "incredibly difficult" to complete the research necessary to determine if your salary is in line with the market rate.

"The biggest issue was that many large, reputable databases provide aggregated rather than raw data, meaning I would see an average salary based on thousands of recorded salaries," Williams explains. "I needed to compare myself to other workers in a similar role and location with similar skills, but this was hard to find online and even more difficult to ask those workers directly."

So Williams is tackling that problem head-on too — with a crowd-sourced, non-aggregated contextual database launching at the end of July. The database, which lets users search job titles and filter by location, has already collected more than 5,000 salaries with little marketing.

"Each salary response is also filled with extra contextual information provided by the anonymous respondent, including their educational background, years of experience, company, career advice and more," Williams says. "This will help workers find salaries directly related to their own experience instead of comparing to an average number, which will help them conduct more accurate market research, ultimately resulting in higher, more equitable salaries industry-wide."

Williams will also launch a community group alongside the database — giving people the much-needed opportunity "to connect with one another in a safe space to discuss their pay and careers," she says.

Related: How Salary Transparency Empowers Employees -- and When Not to Use It