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Is there anything in this text that would prevent a company from posting offers with very large ranges? "this position salary can be from €35k to 75k€ dependin

Is there anything in this text that would prevent a company from posting offers with very large ranges? "this position salary can be from €35k to 75k€ depending on multiple factors" Such ranges would render it pointless

lentil_soup 5y ago
I'm not sure. If you can afford to be picky such a large range might be a bit of a red flag. Also, if I'm looking for something close to the top of the range the possibility that I may get a way lower offer might put me off. Specially if I'll need to fight the company to get the top of the range salary.
- LanceH 5y ago
  I can think of some unusual situations with a really small company. Say you're looking for people who can do two tasks and those two tasks either don't come along in the same person or take too much time for one person. So you're looking for two people, but you're also looking for one of them to be senior and head up the team -- you don't care which one. I feel like this comes up in the sub 10 people startup situation. You need someone to work on anything that comes through the door, and you need junior guys to just pick up the grunt work and do tasks.
astaunton 5y ago
I would think that it will be benchmarked and compared against the same role/roles in other Europen countries (taking in to account cost of living etc). So as an example Junior Software Engineer / Developer in one European country may be 35-45k salary but could be 30k-40k elsewhere (where property prices / food prices etc are lower). This would also may it easier for job applicants to know what the expected pay scale is before interviewing (in my experience recruiters often contact people with roles that would be below their salary expectation e.g. software developer with 10 years experience being sent a role with a salary scale equivalent to a recent graduate)
new_here 5y ago
I think this is going to be the natural side-effect. I remember seeing Monzo posting salary ranges of £40k - £100k for certain positions. So for the right person they'll make a plan but they can also lure in more candidates and low-ball them when making an offer at the end of the process.
quietbritishjim 5y ago
That doesn't work very well because if you have a large range then most candidates would be disappointed if they got towards the bottom end, even if that made pratical sense. Maybe you could mitigate this by making the range even larger at the bottom end, below the minimum that you would ever pay, but then you'd put off the best people (who are the people that you most want to avoid putting off).
- yoden 5y ago
  Why would the best candidates be put off by a low minimum? Their salary isn't going to have anything to do with the minimum. If anything, the best candidates should prefer a wide range. That would mean there is more opportunity for them to distinguish themselves beyond just "years served".
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    I don't have a problem with wide pay ranges for the same job as long as it's detailed - e.g. "job X with 1 year of experience pays this much, job X with 10 years of experience pays that much". It HAS to be made transparent, else people will just troll with a range of "minimum wage" to "trillions per second".
  - toyg 5y ago
    > Why would the best candidates be put off by a low minimum? Because they now know they're competing for a position with (a lot of) people willing to work for half their salary, and they know employers like to pay as little as possible if they can get away with it - so their chances are pretty low. It becomes obvious that there is little point in going through the process altogether.
  - light_hue_1 5y ago
    Because a low minimum signals that the position is not as senior and not as serious as the description claims it is. If you advertise for a senior software engineer and your range is 50k-250k, why would I apply? It's clearly not a senior software engineer position if you're willing to hire someone for 50k.
Glawen 5y ago
Why dismiss the proposal based on how companies can avoid it? I like this proposal because it is a step towards transparency. It is not perfect, as any law, but the small steps are compounding over time.
- glofish 5y ago
  It is not as much about dismissal of the proposal - they are just pointing out a trivial mechanisms to bypass it, all the while making us all worse off. I for one suspect that better the "equality enforcement" gets the less ability a company has to reward a better worker over worse ones. This applies to both men and women. When everyone is "equal" it just means more productive people subsidize the work of less productive ones. Which at least today can be rewarded.
  - thinkindie 5y ago
    If someone is not productive up to the company standards is usually let go, at least in private sector for small-medium companies ( Public Sector and large corporations are different thing). At the same time, even if the range is large you might still give an hint to the employee for how far they can go with their raise requests.
JanSt 5y ago
* Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value.
IanCal 5y ago
If an applicant cannot get the high end for that position then it seems reasonable to counter. Also, it'll just look stupid to applicants. 35-75 would also help rule out the role for quite a lot of people.
Double_a_92 5y ago
I assume the range has to be based on actual salaries that are being paid in that company for similar positions.
tgv 5y ago
> Such ranges would render it pointless Employers will pull shenanigans, surely, but it's a start. And when the lower bound doesn't compare well with competing offers, the employer might risk losing the best.
- CommanderData 5y ago
  Then we have more regulation to prevent said shenanigans. We either do nothing at all and leave the marketplace to the forces of favoring the employer or the other way around.
cloverich 5y ago
The reality (based on my current interviewing) is open roles already have this range, and it is relatively wide. But by not disclosing they can get you lower. Say range is 170-220, you are coming from 170; they offer you 170 and you negotiate 180. You feel good and got a bump, but employer could have gone higher. But not all employers are offering the same range. I ask up front now and select the higher paying ranges to start, then ideally you get an offer from multiple of them at the same time, and you know how high you can push it. By simply going back and forth between them they negotiate for you. Obviously that is a luxury, but by merely knowing the range, even if wide, you greatly increase your ability to land a higher paying job.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  If they post 170-220 they can afford 220, and everybody will be hitting the upper margin of that.... this means that they'll advertise 140-190, you'll get 180, and be happy, even though they had a budget for 220, if they couldn't get you to do it for 180.
  - cloverich 5y ago
    Everyone won't hit the upper margin of that; only those that are either exceptionally strong, experienced, or landing offers at multiple companies will. More generally though, the trick is to research and interview at multiple companies, and get the salary range established early (first call). Companies compete on talent heavily right now, so you can push the ranges by simply talking (not even interviewing) to enough companies, asking ranges, and selecting out the lower ones.
mchusma 5y ago
I don't get why pay range guidance isn't just completely standard. I have pretty much always had them and it's really helpful to weed out bad fits. As a job searcher, it also helps me to understand what opportunities to look for, and save everyone time. I don't think this needs to be regulated, but I feel it's a good practice period. The best reason I can think of for not displaying it is because of some other regulatory concerns. Removing regulatory barriers could maybe help here.
blunte 5y ago
> Such ranges would render it pointless They would surely make current employees ask, "So what do I have to do to move from my 45k to the theoretical 75k max?"

lentil_soup 5y ago

I'm not sure. If you can afford to be picky such a large range might be a bit of a red flag. Also, if I'm looking for something close to the top of the range the possibility that I may get a way lower offer might put me off. Specially if I'll need to fight the company to get the top of the range salary.

LanceH 5y ago
I can think of some unusual situations with a really small company. Say you're looking for people who can do two tasks and those two tasks either don't come along in the same person or take too much time for one person. So you're looking for two people, but you're also looking for one of them to be senior and head up the team -- you don't care which one. I feel like this comes up in the sub 10 people startup situation. You need someone to work on anything that comes through the door, and you need junior guys to just pick up the grunt work and do tasks.

astaunton 5y ago

I would think that it will be benchmarked and compared against the same role/roles in other Europen countries (taking in to account cost of living etc). So as an example Junior Software Engineer / Developer in one European country may be 35-45k salary but could be 30k-40k elsewhere (where property prices / food prices etc are lower). This would also may it easier for job applicants to know what the expected pay scale is before interviewing (in my experience recruiters often contact people with roles that would be below their salary expectation e.g. software developer with 10 years experience being sent a role with a salary scale equivalent to a recent graduate)

new_here 5y ago

I think this is going to be the natural side-effect. I remember seeing Monzo posting salary ranges of £40k - £100k for certain positions. So for the right person they'll make a plan but they can also lure in more candidates and low-ball them when making an offer at the end of the process.

quietbritishjim 5y ago

That doesn't work very well because if you have a large range then most candidates would be disappointed if they got towards the bottom end, even if that made pratical sense. Maybe you could mitigate this by making the range even larger at the bottom end, below the minimum that you would ever pay, but then you'd put off the best people (who are the people that you most want to avoid putting off).

yoden 5y ago
Why would the best candidates be put off by a low minimum? Their salary isn't going to have anything to do with the minimum. If anything, the best candidates should prefer a wide range. That would mean there is more opportunity for them to distinguish themselves beyond just "years served".
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  I don't have a problem with wide pay ranges for the same job as long as it's detailed - e.g. "job X with 1 year of experience pays this much, job X with 10 years of experience pays that much". It HAS to be made transparent, else people will just troll with a range of "minimum wage" to "trillions per second".
- toyg 5y ago
  > Why would the best candidates be put off by a low minimum? Because they now know they're competing for a position with (a lot of) people willing to work for half their salary, and they know employers like to pay as little as possible if they can get away with it - so their chances are pretty low. It becomes obvious that there is little point in going through the process altogether.
- light_hue_1 5y ago
  Because a low minimum signals that the position is not as senior and not as serious as the description claims it is. If you advertise for a senior software engineer and your range is 50k-250k, why would I apply? It's clearly not a senior software engineer position if you're willing to hire someone for 50k.

Glawen 5y ago

Why dismiss the proposal based on how companies can avoid it? I like this proposal because it is a step towards transparency. It is not perfect, as any law, but the small steps are compounding over time.

glofish 5y ago
It is not as much about dismissal of the proposal - they are just pointing out a trivial mechanisms to bypass it, all the while making us all worse off. I for one suspect that better the "equality enforcement" gets the less ability a company has to reward a better worker over worse ones. This applies to both men and women. When everyone is "equal" it just means more productive people subsidize the work of less productive ones. Which at least today can be rewarded.
- thinkindie 5y ago
  If someone is not productive up to the company standards is usually let go, at least in private sector for small-medium companies ( Public Sector and large corporations are different thing). At the same time, even if the range is large you might still give an hint to the employee for how far they can go with their raise requests.

JanSt 5y ago

* Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value.

IanCal 5y ago

If an applicant cannot get the high end for that position then it seems reasonable to counter. Also, it'll just look stupid to applicants. 35-75 would also help rule out the role for quite a lot of people.

Double_a_92 5y ago

I assume the range has to be based on actual salaries that are being paid in that company for similar positions.

tgv 5y ago

> Such ranges would render it pointless Employers will pull shenanigans, surely, but it's a start. And when the lower bound doesn't compare well with competing offers, the employer might risk losing the best.

CommanderData 5y ago
Then we have more regulation to prevent said shenanigans. We either do nothing at all and leave the marketplace to the forces of favoring the employer or the other way around.

cloverich 5y ago

The reality (based on my current interviewing) is open roles already have this range, and it is relatively wide. But by not disclosing they can get you lower. Say range is 170-220, you are coming from 170; they offer you 170 and you negotiate 180. You feel good and got a bump, but employer could have gone higher. But not all employers are offering the same range. I ask up front now and select the higher paying ranges to start, then ideally you get an offer from multiple of them at the same time, and you know how high you can push it. By simply going back and forth between them they negotiate for you. Obviously that is a luxury, but by merely knowing the range, even if wide, you greatly increase your ability to land a higher paying job.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
If they post 170-220 they can afford 220, and everybody will be hitting the upper margin of that.... this means that they'll advertise 140-190, you'll get 180, and be happy, even though they had a budget for 220, if they couldn't get you to do it for 180.
- cloverich 5y ago
  Everyone won't hit the upper margin of that; only those that are either exceptionally strong, experienced, or landing offers at multiple companies will. More generally though, the trick is to research and interview at multiple companies, and get the salary range established early (first call). Companies compete on talent heavily right now, so you can push the ranges by simply talking (not even interviewing) to enough companies, asking ranges, and selecting out the lower ones.

mchusma 5y ago

I don't get why pay range guidance isn't just completely standard. I have pretty much always had them and it's really helpful to weed out bad fits. As a job searcher, it also helps me to understand what opportunities to look for, and save everyone time. I don't think this needs to be regulated, but I feel it's a good practice period. The best reason I can think of for not displaying it is because of some other regulatory concerns. Removing regulatory barriers could maybe help here.

blunte 5y ago

> Such ranges would render it pointless They would surely make current employees ask, "So what do I have to do to move from my 45k to the theoretical 75k max?"