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A downside to an employer is it limits their options before they have all the information. They might be able to get a bargain on an employee who would have tak

A downside to an employer is it limits their options before they have all the information. They might be able to get a bargain on an employee who would have taken the job for less than the minimum. It can also be a bad starting point for a hire who takes a job for pay at the very low end, that their value has been pegged at the bare minimum. The new hire may be fine with it when the position is clearly an advancement for them but for others they may resent the assessment of their worth even though it's more likely based on market realities and/or the organization's finances.

emodendroket 5y ago
I meant employee but flubbed it and totally flipped around my post. Sorry!
- extra88 5y ago
  No problem. A possible downside for a potential employee is they could be a very qualified candidate who passes on applying for a position because the high end of the range isn't high enough but they didn't sufficiently factor in the other benefits. Salary is only one part of the value of taking a particular job, there are other monetary (lower out-of-pocket heath coverage, profit participation) and non-monetary (better work-life balance, more interesting work, better workplace relationships, etc.) factors.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Even if that's the case, it seems better to know those things up-front, and be OK with that tradeoff, than to waste time getting to the end and then have the whole thing fall apart because of lower than expected compensation.
    - extra88 5y ago
      Yes, it's a pretty minor downside and employers can share and emphasize benefits beyond salary to attract people for whom they are appealing. I work for a university and the job application system requires people to provide a desired salary range (I think it's a dropdown list of ranges, each $20,000 wide). I wish applicants could pick the top and bottom of the ranges themselves but it does weed out some people with unrealistic expectations (usually they're overestimating their worth but even if they're not, there are hard limits on what a department can pay). The university also publishes salary ranges but they can create problems because they are very much not hiring ranges; the hiring ranges are mostly in the bottom third, the upper limit of the salary range represents what someone might make after a long career in such a position. When I was a hiring manager, I would explain the difference in salary range and hiring range in interviews without being too specific about what the actual hiring range might be in their case (I also wasn't responsible for what a candidate was offered).

emodendroket 5y ago

I meant employee but flubbed it and totally flipped around my post. Sorry!

extra88 5y ago
No problem. A possible downside for a potential employee is they could be a very qualified candidate who passes on applying for a position because the high end of the range isn't high enough but they didn't sufficiently factor in the other benefits. Salary is only one part of the value of taking a particular job, there are other monetary (lower out-of-pocket heath coverage, profit participation) and non-monetary (better work-life balance, more interesting work, better workplace relationships, etc.) factors.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Even if that's the case, it seems better to know those things up-front, and be OK with that tradeoff, than to waste time getting to the end and then have the whole thing fall apart because of lower than expected compensation.
  - extra88 5y ago
    Yes, it's a pretty minor downside and employers can share and emphasize benefits beyond salary to attract people for whom they are appealing. I work for a university and the job application system requires people to provide a desired salary range (I think it's a dropdown list of ranges, each $20,000 wide). I wish applicants could pick the top and bottom of the ranges themselves but it does weed out some people with unrealistic expectations (usually they're overestimating their worth but even if they're not, there are hard limits on what a department can pay). The university also publishes salary ranges but they can create problems because they are very much not hiring ranges; the hiring ranges are mostly in the bottom third, the upper limit of the salary range represents what someone might make after a long career in such a position. When I was a hiring manager, I would explain the difference in salary range and hiring range in interviews without being too specific about what the actual hiring range might be in their case (I also wasn't responsible for what a candidate was offered).