Salary or purpose: the wrong question companies ask about Gen Z

Every time someone at an HR conference says that "Gen Z prioritises purpose over salary", there’s someone in the room nodding along and someone else rolling their eyes. They’re both wrong.

The question isn’t whether Gen Z prefers purpose or money. The question is why we keep treating them as if they were mutually exclusive options.

The myth of the altruistic candidate

The narrative of young people who work for impact rather than money is convenient for companies that pay poorly. If you convince the market that young candidates value "purpose" more than salary, you have the perfect alibi for keeping entry-level salaries below market rate while talking about mission and values on your Careers page.

Junior candidates in Spain aren’t altruistic. They’re people with rent to pay, student loans in some cases, and the pressure to become financially established in a housing market that’s hostile to them. They want a fair salary. And they also want to work on something that makes sense. Both things at once, exactly like any worker from any generation.

What really sets Gen Z apart

What is different about the candidates entering the labour market now isn’t their relationship with money. It’s their tolerance for inconsistency.

A company that talks about sustainability but prints 500 sheets of paper a day doesn’t create abstract distrust: it creates active disengagement. A manager who talks about flexibility but calls on Sundays doesn’t seem like a demanding boss: they seem like a red flag. Gen Z has a very good radar for spotting the distance between what a company says and what it does.

That isn’t idealism. It’s a way of assessing employment risk that previous generations also had, but expressed differently.

What this means for your company

If you want to hire junior talent well, you don’t need a purpose strategy. You need operational consistency. Pay what the market demands. Offer conditions that don’t need to be sold through storytelling. Manage with the same flexibility you promise in the advert.

And if your company can’t compete on salary, be honest about it and make up for it with other things you can offer: genuine development, early autonomy, access to interesting projects. But don’t use "purpose" as a substitute for fair compensation.

Young talent isn’t naïve. They’re just waiting for companies to stop treating them as if they were.