Recruiter Shares Exactly How To Speak Like A High Level Employee & Why People 18-24 Need The Advice Most
Swapping out this ingrained habit when you're at the office can make a huge difference.
Jacob Lund | Shutterstock.com It shouldn't be this way, but we are all judged all the time on all kinds of seemingly meaningless details about ourselves, from our clothes to our handshakes to the way we speak. And whether it's fair or not, perceptions easily become reality when it comes to other people's opinions of us.
One recruiter on TikTok experimented with this in her own career, and she found that making one simple tweak to your speech can have a major impact at work.
The recruiter recommended workers use 'downspeak' instead of 'upspeak' to sound high-level at work.
For the unfamiliar, "upspeak," or sometimes "up talk," is the tendency to raise your intonation at the end of every sentence or phrase, almost like you're asking a question? Even though you're just making a statement?
The Australian accent is known to do this by default, but for the rest of us, it's more of a cultural thing we've taken on. If you're a bit older, you'll know it as the "Valley Girl" accent, but nowadays, it's almost become a default way of speaking among younger people.
And much like the "Valley Girl" accent did back in the day, "upspeak" has gotten a bit of a bad rap. Many feel it makes people sound, at best, unsophisticated or unconfident, almost like you're asking permission each time you speak. At worst, many people think it makes people sound… well, kind of dumb.
Recruiter and TikToker Dandan Zhu is one of the scores of people who used to default to upspeak. But after going to a seminar about it, she found doing the opposite — downspeak — made a huge difference for her in the workplace.
Zhu said using downspeak instead helps you sound more authoritative, confident, and professional.
In a video on the subject, Zhu revealed that many companies actually train their employees, particularly those who work in sales, to make this switch. That, in fact, is how Zhu found out about it — a former roommate worked at a tech company that required such training.
In contrast to upspeak, downspeak is more declarative. Think of discussing a deadline, for instance: there's a huge difference between "I can get that to you by Monday?" versus "I can get that to you by Monday."
The former is basically asking permission, whereas the latter is telling it like it is — and they carry two totally different subtextual perceptions about you as well.
"You'll notice all the top communicators are excellent at downspeak," Zhu said in her video. This is because, according to Zhu, "upspeak makes people sound very junior."
It's a bit like code-switching, the practice many people of color, and to a lesser degree queer people, sometimes employ to blend in more to the dominant culture around them, whether for professional progress or simply for safety.
If you're a young Gen Z worker, a woman, or part of another marginalized group, you're already fighting all kinds of perceptions and stereotypes to begin with. Downspeak, Zhu said, "is a strategic, tactical approach to communication" that pushes against these preconceptions by making you sound "more believable, more confident, a stronger communicator and a more intelligent person."
Downspeak is also incredibly useful for negotiation and conflict.
It's tempting to see making changes like this as hiding who you are, but there's a more useful way to think about it — switching to downspeak is actually about getting what you want.
In a follow-up video, Zhu used the example of a job offer negotiation to explain how much more useful downspeak is. The authoritative nature of the vocal tone helps you maintain the upper hand, which is all-important when it comes to negotiating.
"Instead of saying, 'Is it possible to do $90,000?', say 'I'm looking at a range of $90,000 to $110,000…. What are your thoughts on that," Zhu advised. "It's a much more effective way to communicate and it makes you sound a lot more intimidating than [upspeak]."
Again, it's all about that subtextual asking of permission inherent to upspeak's intonation. Downspeak, Zhu said, sets a completely different tone — an "authoritative" one that says you are "to be taken seriously."
"Being in control makes you more powerful than the other party," Zhu said, adding that switching to downspeak is a key way to "learn how to get our way by using the power of language." And in today's cutthroat world, anything that helps us get our way is solid advice.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.