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I'm a recruiter. I've known for a long time it drives people nuts that job ads don't have salary, or have a wide salary range. The fact is that many employers

I'm a recruiter. I've known for a long time it drives people nuts that job ads don't have salary, or have a wide salary range. The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. Until they have met them, assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the team. The conversation almost always goes like this: Employers come to me and say "we want a great senior C# .NET developer". I say "what do you want to pay?". They say "don't know, we just want someone great, what do you think we need to pay to get the right person?". I say "I think it will be about $X, but lets put a job ad up and indicate it's top of range $ and see who we get." It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and experience. Government agencies are required to carefully define salary ranges because that is the way they work. So it does not surprise me that governments would legislate to require job ads to do the same - essentially because of ignorance about how the world works. If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply. Being angry about it or feeling that employers/recruiters are playing some sort of manipulative game is ignoring the reality set out above. And when you come into a position that requires recruiting, likely you'll speak to your recruiter and say "what do you think we'll need to pay for someone like this?". Far more important is to know the salary target that you are aiming for. EDIT: lots of unhappy responses to this, but don't shoot the messenger. Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works.

e12e 4y ago
I suppose if employers don't know what employees are worth - they certainly don't know what recruiters are worth? And I suppose that information assymetry works out in favour of the recruiters?
nathan_compton 4y ago
"This is convenient for corporations so suck it up." isn't a very compelling argument. The purpose of the government is to represent the interests of the people in situations where there is sufficient agreement to pass legislation. If your company doesn't like complying with local laws, its easy, just don't look for people in this country. The people have a right to set the terms of exchanges in the marketplace.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  That's a fairly uncharitable way to phrase his point. I think what he's getting at is that it is hard for market participants to accurately price goods and services when they are working with insufficient information. If I asked you to tell me how much you'd pay for a shirt, you'd either have to give me a wide range, or start asking questions to understand what you're getting. A formal tux dress shirtfront? A dirty old Hanes undergarment?
  - idontpost 4y ago
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    No, I wouldn't say it is uncharitable at all. The balance of power and information already lies on the side that does more of these negotiations, and has less to lose in each one. It's time that balance starts to swing the other way, and if corporations don't like it, too damn bad.
    - xeromal 4y ago
      What's your reaction to their shirt analogy?
      - actually_a_dog 4y ago
        If you don't have those questions at least mostly answered, you're not ready to go shopping. You don't show up at Target looking to buy a bespoke dress shirt, unless you want to be very disappointed and/or waste a lot of time.
  - joe5150 4y ago
    A job advertisement is meant to address the major questions a candidate would have that will contextualize the pay being offered. If I asked you to tell me how much to pay for a shirt with a sufficiently detailed list of requirements and expectations for the shirt, you could probably give me a pretty useful range.
zerr 4y ago
If your client tells you secretly that the base salary range for the position is 200K-250K. And the prospective employee tells that s/he wants 150K. Would you disclose that s/he can ask up to 250K or would you rather make your client happy by getting them a bargain?
- orev 4y ago
  Recruiters typically get paid a commission based on the final salary, so it’s in their interest to get you as high a salary as possible.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    Much like real estate agents, their best interest is to close the deal at any price. They'll make more money getting the employer a bargain and a second req. There is a reason real estate agents homes sell for more than anyone else's -- because they know the real value of the market and have an incentive to go high when it's their own home. Recruiters are the same.
    - brianwawok 4y ago
      Bingo.
    - tech_tuna 4y ago
      Exactly, came here to say exactly this. BTW, I don't think this in inherently evil, it's just a conflict of interests. Employer. Employee. Recruiter. Different incentives for all three parties.
  - throwaway292939 4y ago
    This is incorrect. It's in their interest to get as high a salary with the least effort involved. Obviously for them, being able to close more candidates at a "high enough" salary is preferable.
- andrewstuart 4y ago
  >> would you rather make your client happy by getting them a bargain Recruiters are usually paid based on a percentage of the salary. It's actually in the interests of the recruiter that you are paid as much as possible, strictly speaking. In reality, my goals as recruiter are: * happy client * find a new employee who the employer is super happy with six months down the track * find a new employee who wants and enjoys this job, and will thus stay * at a salary that the new employee is happy with, that will not have them looking over their shoulder thinking they have udnersold themselves * at a salary that will ensure we are not beaten to the punch by another higher paying employer * at a salary that fits the goals of the employer The idea of "getting an employer a bargain" implies that I don't care about the job seeker. Believe it or not, I do. When someone comes to me who is a great developer, and is asking under market rates, I discuss that will them and let them know where I think market rate is for their skills and experience. It might sound cliched, but my job is to negotiate a deal that everyone is happy with, and every gets what they want. Anything less will fail because the employee feels they are underpaid, or the employer feels they overpaid. I believe the above approach to dealing with salary gets everyone what they want. And yes, I the more it is the happier I am, but it would be very much against my interests to manipulate that.
brk 4y ago
Far more important is to know the salary target that you are aiming for. I think people would be more willing to accept this if the application process was not such a complete cluster fuck 99% of the time. So many sites want you to upload a resume, and then also re-type the whole thing into some clunky form so that the company can seemingly index it or search it or whatever Then after your resume has been randomly selected for review you get to waste more time with useless recruiters and/or HR people for some kind of preliminary screening process that makes little sense. If you're lucky enough to actually start to enter a real interview process you can plan to sink another 2-8 hours of your time before the discussion of salary ranges is even remotely danced around. Finally, after a ton of hassle you learn that the company wishes to pay approximately minimum wage for this position and wants to pay you in IOU's, bottle caps, or gift vouchers (only a slight exaggeration sometimes). If a company cannot give a salary range that is even +/- 20%, perhaps they're not actually ready to make a job posting and invite people to hopelessly waste their time on the application process.
orev 4y ago
I think many here will disagree, but this is spot on. Having a fixed salary range also implies there’s a fixed/well-defined set of tasks for that role, which is only applicable to typical lower-level jobs that do repetitive tasks. Once you get into higher skilled positions, the roles become much more flexible and negotiable. The HN crowd is exactly the opposite type of people who would benefit from this. Job definitions become fixed. You want to try your next project in Rust? Implement a new database? Start learning the customer-facing side of things? Too bad, the job description didn’t include that, and your salary range is locked in to the job description.
- bumby 4y ago
  While it seems logical that a fixed salary implies a fixed set of tasks, I don’t think it holds in practice. I’ve worked my share of fixed salary positions where the day-to-day looks nothing like the job posting. It seems all you have to do is add a clause like “and other duties as assigned”. There is a chance your duties get so out of whack that you request HR to reinterpret your pay, but not only is that a laborious and somewhat arbitrary process, but it seems both HR and management are incentivized to not rule in the employees favor.
- chickenpotpie 4y ago
  > Once you get into higher skilled positions, the roles become much more flexible and negotiable. So make the salary range bigger.
- incone123 4y ago
  While this applies to public advertisements, once you are employed then I don't see why you or the company can't renegotiate based on changed responsibilities.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Depends. 95% of candidates fit into a salary band. If you didn’t do that, the company would get ripped to shreds by lawsuits about pay equity.
- welshwelsh 4y ago
  The important part is that employers post the maximum salary so that job seekers know what the budget is. Employers should make a separate job ad for each pay grade, and they should provide a detailed explanation of how they determine salary. If the range is $150k to $250k, what are the criteria to make $250k? What's the difference between someone who makes $150k and $175k? That information belongs in the job posting.
jedberg 4y ago
It is hard to convince someone they are wrong when their salary depends on being right. But I'm going to try. I've done hiring myself as a founder, so I have some experience here. > The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. Then they need better data. A great way to get that would be looking at all the other job listings with salary ranges if they don't already have access to back channel data. > It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and experience. Then it should be multiple listings with different requirements, even if the only difference is years of experience. > So it does not surprise me that governments would legislate to require job ads to do the same - essentially because of ignorance about how the world works. The way the government does it is more equitable, so it makes sense that they are trying to legislate that to the private sector. > If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply. This is exactly the problem. If they aren't required to list it, they won't. And this is harmful to people who aren't good negotiators. And also harmful to women and minorities, as countless studies have shown they are chronically underpaid in large part because they aren't willing or able to negotiate. That's why there is a push to force companies to list the salaries. > Far more important is to know the salary target that you are aiming for. You're right! The best way for me to know what salary to target is with lots of data about how much similar jobs pay. A great way to get that is job listings with salary ranges, since I don't have access to data like the person offering the job does.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  >> The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. > Then they need better data. A great way to get that would be looking at all the other job listings with salary ranges if they don't already have access to back channel data. You're missing the point: the variable is the candidate, not the role. I know the market rate for a candidate that is just over-the-bar for my role, and I know that market rate for a super-star who can not only do this role, but is probably already capable of doing the next one. > Then it should be multiple listings with different requirements, even if the only difference is years of experience. So, what if you apply for a role that turns out to be wrong for you based on my assessment of you then I should reject you so you can re-apply for the other role? That's ridiculous.
llbeansandrice 4y ago
> don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. As an employee, sounds like not my fuckin problem. I'm not about to go through 3 phone screens, a take-home test, a full-day onsite, etc. just for the privilege to be low-balled or even worse denied. > I think it will be about $X Oh! So looks like it's not that hard to ball-park a number off the top of your head. I don't get this "how the world really works" junk. How the world "really works" right now is that job searchers are having their time wasted and don't have tools to determine what the market for various positions looks like. For work that apparently amounts to texting the on-staff recruiter I couldn't care less. > if the ad doesn't specify salary...just don't apply. So all job postings before these laws have been put into effect? Looks like someone doesn't understand how the world really works. RTFA. The job range has to be "in good faith" if the job posting encompasses a range of experience levels, that's allowed. The range just has to be "in good faith". That's such a low bar to clear and from your own hypothetical the work required from the employer is basically nil.
- rednerrus 4y ago
  Recruiters should be talking about numbers in the first interview. Employers should have a sense of what your number is and whether or not they can get there before moving forward with interviewing. If they're not doing that, they're wasting your time and their time.
  - gopalv 4y ago
    > If they're not doing that, they're wasting your time and their time. Actually, they're getting paid for the their time. I'm not. I'm actually burning my time. > Recruiters should be talking about numbers in the first interview. I'm going through the recruitment process right now and the numbers out of the gate are always lowball figures (possibly personalized to me), because of two reasons. Because they want to see if you accept it or not. I'm sure a lot of people coming into the bay area from other cities/countries will be like "wow, 185k, that's awesome" & they'll figure it out that the company was willing to pay upto 350k for the same work. Secondly, publicly advertising salaries have a big impact on the people who are already in the building. This is pretty much already a problem when you bring in an H1B who has to put their salary into the DoL database and post notices in the offices with their pay. But this is only base pay, not including bonuses or stocks, so it's easy to cap the base pay and fill it up with bonus packages. So the companies are legitimately balking at this because they'll have to pay their existing employees more if they put out an attractive posting, but if they put a lowball figure nobody would even show up to interview - only people who already make lower than the lowball figure will show up & then try to negotiate upwards. I'm currently interviewing and this is a weird dance, sort of like buying a car. I've only got a single response to someone asking "Is this range acceptable" - "I'm looking at multiple offers and being the second best offer is no good for you and I'm not negotiating before an interview or comparing offers. It's your bid, not my ask". I guess it's a position of privilege to deal from. My need to go to back to work isn't economic, I'll just languish if I don't find a job & become truly feral :)
phphphphp 4y ago
The situation you describe is real, sure. However, the situation you describe is far from the majority of recruitment. Most companies have a budget, most companies have a salary framework. Yes, in the minority of situations in which a company truly has no budget for a role then these rules don’t work very well… but that’s relevant to a tiny subset of the top end of the market, and at that level, job postings are much less important. The positive outcome of these rules far outweighs any inconvenience experienced by employers with no budget. edit: regarding your edit, which companies have you recruited for? I would bet my own career that you’re wrong to suggest that recruitment works like this for more than 10% of companies.
mkl95 4y ago
> The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. Until they have met them, assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the team. One of the reasons I want to know the salary range upfront is that it tells me the bare minimum they are paying for that position. Companies love lowballing candidates, so I usually don't apply for an offer that doesn't pay at least the minimum I'm looking for. > Far more important is to know the salary target that you are aiming for. It's also important to know the company's budget. I don't enjoy working at places that can't afford a $200/year IDE license, to name a common example. Fat salaries often come with fat budgets.
Spooky23 4y ago
Your client is probably trying to limit your overhead. I’ve hired hundreds or low thousands of people. Corporate, government, SMB. Never did i go into that process without a budget target or salary band with budget. I would say that to a contract shop or recruiter to avoid having a budget of $100, a bid for $101, and a contractor making $28
tejtm 4y ago
Are you sure it is not just so current employees are left in the dark as to what they would be worth if they did not already work there?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
TulliusCicero 4y ago
> If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. Or, we could pass laws forcing companies to do this, and companies could get their shit together and figure out how much they're actually willing to pay. The nice thing about market capitalism is that companies, for the most part, are fairly flexible. They may not be enthused about posting salary ranges, but if the law says they have to, they'll find a way to make it happen. It's not entirely unlike how so many businesses prophecy doom and gloom when there's a minimum wage increase, or street parking gets replaced by bike lanes, but then the thing happens and it's generally fine.
throwaway292939 4y ago
> I'm a recruiter. I've known for a long time it drives people nuts that job ads don't have salary, or have a wide salary range. Do you think it's true that you may be biased a certain way? Perhaps not in favor of job seekers? > It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and experience. Perhaps include separate descriptions for junior/senior roles? > If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. Why do you expect the candidate to have to change their mindset? > Far more important is to know the salary target that you are aiming for. Wouldn't having these ranges let a candidate become more informed about their salary target? Markets and salary ranges change over time, this would let them know what is current.
freejazz 4y ago
"If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job." Looks like that's not going to be the case anymore.
time_to_smile 4y ago
> Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. I've been the team lead and talk to my team lead about this a lot and I know of no serious tech companies that don't actively think about employee retention and recruiting a huge part of which is compensation. Leadership at my company spends a serious amount of time discussing and revising our TC targets. Any company that doesn't know what "they would be willing to pay someone" is a huge red flag for me as a candidate, and I can be quite confident that they aren't willing to even reach the salary component of my comp let alone meet or beat TC.
- andrewstuart 4y ago
  So what is the precise number you pay your senior developers? Sorry to call you out, but I simply don't believe the answer is anything but "it depends on a range of factors". Unless it is a government job, but even then, likely it depends on a range of factors, and often even government clients flex their budget to meet their recruiting goals.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    You know they don't pay a single number, but have a defined range for the role. And if they find someone who is outside that range, they will bump them up to the next role with the bigger range. When I worked at eBay the salary bands for each level were well defined and shared internally. If they needed to pay you more than the top of the range, they bumped you to the next level to do it. It would be very easy for them to publish the ranges publicly.
  - time_to_smile 4y ago
    I'm no longer in a management position and wouldn't post what is currently private company info on HN, but I'll tell you how it worked at literally every company I've worked at that is not a very small startup: There is an internal document that specifies each level and the exact comp bands for each role (like all companies there is a range of salaries but it is specified, and again this is the practice a multiple companies I've worked at). There is a lower and upper bound of salary for level, target bonuses are fixed at a percent for ranges of levels and the same goes for equity grants. The details of what defines each level of seniority is clearly spelled out in terms of typical ranges of previous experience, responsibilities of the role, reporting structure, assumed level of autonomy etc. These are also calibrated across teams at each review cycles and continually kept up to date. During interviews there are set guidelines for how well a candidate performs given the target level of the role they are applying for an assess which level is appropriate. This is not the same as saying "don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone." and "it depends on a range of factors" At every company that is not sub 100 employees that "range of factors" is clearly defined. I honestly have a hard time believing you've worked recruiting for any major tech company and haven't come across similarly detailed documentation regarding levels, comp bands, and evaluation of candidates.
lokar 4y ago
FWIW, I read that as "let's see what race the applicant is"
- andrewstuart 4y ago
  People who desire to be offended will see the world through a lens that will allow them to see offense.
jedberg 4y ago
> EDIT: lots of unhappy responses to this, but don't shoot the messenger. Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. It sounds like you've missed the point of the responses then. They aren't telling you that you're wrong, they're telling you that how recruiting works needs to change.
kspacewalk2 4y ago
>If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. Well, not for long, if I live in NYC and this rule passes. >It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply. If this type of regulation spreads, we can just turn this into a nifty fliparoo counter-argument: It's that easy - if not posting a salary range is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't post. Maybe ask the HR manager to do a quick skills upgrade and program in C# themselves.
supergeek133 4y ago
Big companies ABSOLUTELY know how much they are willing to pay. They have well defined pay bands/grades by geo area.
lr 4y ago
And then you end up exactly where the company I work for ended up, and where a ton of other companies end up: The same people, doing the same work, with very similar experiences, getting paid drastically different salaries. It can get so bad, that the company then has to hire an outside agency to review salaries, and then make company-wide adjustments. Running a business is very, very expensive and involves lots of things (like proper HR) that have nothing to do with the business for which the business exists. If you don't want to actually run a business, then maybe give it up.
joe5150 4y ago
You contradict yourself when you say employers don't know what they would be willing to pay someone, but then somehow manage to come up with a number when they start recruiting. You even say you would post a job ad with that range? That's what the law wants, so I don't actually understand what you're arguing against here. If it's genuinely true that a company has no idea what they might pay someone they want to hire, they're just not ready to hire someone. "It's that easy."
Patrol8394 4y ago
> employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone They know, they know. They just don't want to be the first one to putting numbers out there, because they want to low ball as much as they can. I clearly remember, in one of my latest interview, the recruiter mentioning an internal system of theirs that would come up with "numbers", and my numbers were way off, so they couldn't make it work. Knowing, at least a ball park range, it would have saved me time and stress. They must have a range in mind: - average candidate $x - good candidate $y - awesome candidate $z Therefore they could just ads for $x-$z signaling they won't be able to go above $z. So a candidate can at least decide if it is worth interviewing or not.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Over the 2+ decades I've been working in this industry, the list of things that are expected out of an interview process just keeps growing. Intense panel interviews, coding on whiteboards, "show me your github", "do this example project", etc. Tell me your life story. What makes you passionate? They often drag on for weeks, sometimes months, before an actual offer letter is in hand. And at the same time we're told that there's a shortage of us software engineers. I can tell you it wasn't like this in the 90s. For better or for worse. So don't be surprised that many of us are becoming incredulous that in addition to all of this, we can't get an upfront answer in advance about how much you will eventually pay me. (I've also been confronted, very late in the process, with "your requested range is unreasonable because look at this compensation survey we bought from a third party" -- and that survey was full of complete lies because it listed total comp for Google L4 in my region as literally 1/2 of what I was making as an L4 at Google.) So, I dunno, unless the job market really goes tits up and we're all suddenly begging for work, seems like your side of the industry -- the recruitment side -- needs to get its act together. I'm seeing growing dissatisfaction with the whole process and people are getting sick of the song and dance.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  I've gone through exactly one of these types of interviews, and that was at a FAANG. I have since turned down every single offer to interview with a company that did something similar. The one time I did so by phone, it was kind of amusing (and telling) that the company's headhunter was utterly shocked that I was unwilling to fly across the country to do some whiteboard sessions with the team. They clearly targeted FAANG washouts, and weren't accustomed to speaking with a senior developer who could afford to be picky about the interviews he took. The important thing is, there are plenty of companies that don't pretend to be FAANGs, and don't interview like that. Odds are pretty good that working for them won't be like working at a FAANG either, which (imho) is also a good thing.
- JAlexoid 4y ago
  And in the end there's still an "at will employment" and "3 month probation period". Why TF would you waste so much time to then have all of that crap?
jameshart 4y ago
Companies absolutely have fixed hiring budgets and salary guidelines. It's not that surprising to me, though, that if they don't have to share that with an external recruiter they will choose not to. You're probably on a percentage of the final hiring salary, so why would they tell you the max salary they're willing to offer? Your interests are not aligned. The way it works in most companies that are big enough to have, like, distinct departments for HR and finance, is that teams have staffing budgets that are set out quarterly or annually, and if the team is expanding they will set those numbers to be big enough to cover the cost of the additional headcount they plan to add. Then the HR organization will probably have a compensation policy, which sets out ranges of rates for particular roles by level and geography. So your budget for a role lines up to certain job levels you can afford to hire at. So by the time you're writing a job description looking for '5 years of react experience, located in NY' or whatever, you're pretty much narrowed in on a salary range that depends on 1) what your HR compensation guide says is the minimum compensation you pay for a level N software developer in that geo, and 2) the absolute maximum of your staffing budget allocated to the role. If you can't turn that into a salary range for job advertising purposes, you're not a serious business.
- jjav 4y ago
  > Companies absolutely have fixed hiring budgets and salary guidelines. Yes, they hay budgets and salary guidelines. All of that is negotiable as a hiring manager. Just a matter of how many levels up the chain you need to go to get the approval and whether you (hiring manager) can convince them, which depends on how strong the candidate is.
  - jameshart 4y ago
    If someone told you you are a ‘hiring manager’ but you don’t have responsibility for the budget that hire comes out of, they are lying to you to make you feel important. Hiring requires money. If you have to go ask someone else for that money, they are the one doing the hiring.
    - jjav 4y ago
heavyset_go 4y ago
> If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. If it makes recruiters and employers mad that they have to include salary ranges in their job listings, that's just too bad, and they will just have to get over it and follow the law. Thankfully legislators are cracking down on this type of entitlement that's coming from recruiters and employers alike.
sidlls 4y ago
> The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. Until they have met them, assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the team. With few exceptions, what you wrote is not accurate. Most companies have salary bands for every position based on level within the band. Companies know both the position and level they have in mind for a candidate before the first on-site interview, and often before the initial screen. The interviews reveal what the leveling should be, and sometimes indicate a different role is more appropriate. The vast majority of companies will not negotiate outside those relatively tight bands for most IC and other low level (management) roles. So having a target salary in mind is fine for an assessment of an offer, but not all that helpful if the goal is to not waste time up front. Some exceptional candidates might successfully negotiate for a bump in in-band level or even position, but it’s rare.
wlll 4y ago
> I'm a recruiter. I'm a CTO, for context. > The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. … I say "I think it will be about $X, but lets put a job ad up and indicate it's top of range $ and see who we get." As someone pointed out, it sounds like this isn't too hard to do. I've hired people, I've come up with salary ranges. It took some thought, I didn't particularly enjoy the process, but it's possible. > It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and experience. "We're hiring for 10 widget programmers, x senior, y mid, z junior. The salary ranges for these are … and will depend on the skills and experience of the individual candidate" > It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply. I've skipped job adverts in the past because the salary wasn't specified. People care about the wage, it's an incredibly important part of what work is, getting paid, it's one of the largest parts of the deal. Pretending that the wage doesn't matter because your company is special, or because people shouldn't be in it for the money is BS that basically everyone can see through and coming to that realisation will allow companies to have a much better understanding of the relationship they have with with their current and future employees. Or, if the wage is important after all and you just couldn't be bothered to work it out? I guess just put a bit more time in and work it out. Or don't, and be skipped over. As someone who sometimes hires people, I'd very much prefer it if all the people that applied had already self-selected on something as simple as the red line that is what people will expect to earn. I really don't want to have to trawl through a load of resumes for people, selecting them for interview, doing the first round etc. only to discover that they want n*2 more than we're offering.
bogota 4y ago
sad that the government is having to regulate you into humane practices. Already in NY and CO im sure this will just keep spreading.
alistairSH 4y ago
The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. Bullshit. Maybe some start-up with no HR. But, any moderately sized company is buying salary info, working with compa ratios, and has internal salary ranges mapped to positions.
alistairSH 4y ago
Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. LOL. I've never listed a position without knowing the salary range ahead of time. That range comes from our comp/ben team in concert with somebody from finance.
zebnyc 4y ago
I don't mind if there are certain companies which don't want to list their salary range. However, they also need to be respectful of candidates' time and energy. Recently I had a company reach out to me and after asking me many questions about my background for an hour, the recruiter asks me, "What is your salary expectation?". I said I would rather not say but would be happy to let them know if their range is acceptable to me. The recruiter rambles a bit about how they recruit from all over the world and then tells me that is not how they operate and I must give a number. I refused and they hung up. Of course it is their prerogative if they don't want to provide the number or need my number up front. But then they can be upfront about it early in the call. They should not waste my time for an hour and drain my energy in the process.
- iso1631 4y ago
  If your expectation is 200 and you're about to hang up, tell them 450 just for shits and giggles. You never know, it might work.
irrational 4y ago
Sounds like HR at those companies has no clue what they are doing. I work for a Fortune 100 company. Everyone has a very specific job title and everyone with the same job title is guaranteed to make the exact same amount as anyone else with the same job title. They have a third party company come in and do a review yearly to make sure that is the case. We are not able to create new job titles without a lot of work. So, we always know exactly what the salary will be for anyone we are trying to hire.
iso1631 4y ago
My company has recently posted internal salary ranges for job titles. There's the bottom of the range, a 33% mark, and the top of the range. Everyone gets paid at least the bottom of the range. After proving competent they must be on the 33% mark. Some are paid above the top of the range but it's rare. A given job family has different titles, broadly Junior-'Vanilla'-Senior-Principal. A junior might be on 25-45, vanilla on 35-55, a senior on 40-65, a principal on 55-80, or whatever (triple those for US wags I guess). That fits the "more experienced" part. You could advertise for a principal and find someone who just about scrapes in, so pay them 55, find someone great and offer them 80. When advertising externally though, this information is not available - unless you know someone who already works there, which is crazy.
adam_arthur 4y ago
All true, but simply give the 20th to 80th percentile comp as bands and state that above band comp is awarded in some cases. I’ve worked in a hiring manager capacity for close to a decade, and we absolutely know the bands, despite them being quite wide. Companies that are well run can succeed without hiding information from their employees… and it’s a huge waste of time to interview somebody whose expectations are totally mismatched
tomrod 4y ago
Regarding your edit, we know how recruiting works. What people are genuinely upset about is the lack of empathy for the job seeker, who is wasting their time, in the game as you play it (and the strong assumption that this is the only way the game is played).
cheath 4y ago
Some of the responses here are a classic case of Fundamental Attribution Error - I see a lot of assumptions that imply that the employers must not be adding salaries because they are malicious or bad actors (which, of course there are some). But the overwhelming majority of these employers probably don't even know for themselves the salary that they're willing to pay, since compensation is highly variable based upon the individual's experience and complex market factors. Should they all have better data, better perspectives, and better job specs? Sure thing. I agree. You'd hire much better people, that's for sure. On the other hand, should we regulate them into compliance on this matter? Ironically, it seems like a great opportunity to add inefficiency and possibly even have a net negative impact on salaries. I say, let them ship crappy job descriptions and let the market sort it out.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  > On the other hand, should we regulate them into compliance on this matter? Ironically, it seems like a great opportunity to add inefficiency and possibly even have a net negative impact on salaries. It adds the inefficiency of a job poster spending 5-60 minutes figuring out a salary range. It removes the inefficiency of hours and hours and hours of interviews from people that wouldn't have applied if they knew the salary range. It's not like hiring someone is cheap. Companies can and should put this effort into ads.
- djur 4y ago
  If you're trying to hire for a $100k+ role, it should not be a problem to take an afternoon to look up job postings for similar roles and figure out an appropriate salary range.
  - cheath 4y ago
    Agreed. they should. …But should that be the law?
    - djur 4y ago
      I think it's to the benefit of the vast majority of job seekers, reducing the economic power imbalance between employer and employee, and I'd personally consider that a worthwhile reason to pass a law in and of itself. In addition, I suspect it's also to the benefit of most employers, many of which are not actually large enough to squeeze any appreciable benefit out of salary secrecy but who would gain from having more information about labor prices. To put it more simply: the socialist in me thinks it's good for workers -- the liberal in me thinks it's good for fairer competition in the labor market. Win-win.
idontpost 4y ago
annoyingnoob 4y ago
You need to be respectful of everyone's time. If I apply to a position that will never offer me what I want to make then you just wasted my time and yours. You are asking me to be upfront about absolutely everything, I'm asking for one key detail. I do not think that you appreciate my side of this bargain at all. This is not a one-way deal, we need to cooperate and be able to work together toward a solution if this is ever going to work out. I'm choosing to work with you, not choosing you as my dictator. If you are not willing to work with me a little then I'm going to keep looking, your loss not mine.
carlosdp 4y ago
A lot of comments here saying corporations have hiring budgets and you're wrong, etc. I guarantee you startups < 100 people do not actually have formal hiring budgets. A lot of people here haven't actually been employers before, and this comment is spot on when it comes to the reality. Posting a salary range for many positions would only have the effect of making it look like you'd be able to get less than you actually could, because employers would always need to post the bottom of the range (since these laws have a maximum range you're allowed to post), which is dumb.
- danijelb 4y ago
  I wasn't an employer but I'm genuinely curious how is it possible that a company doesn't know what they are willing to pay for an employee of specific knowledge? They maybe don't have formal hiring budgets, but they know how much money they have, if some investments are coming, how much they pay other people on average, etc. Also, they obviously know the amount of money they are not willing to go over during the negotiation phase of the interview. If they are looking for some super specific and rare skill, why not make a separate ad for that rare position? In that case if they are ready to pay 5x the market rate, they can put that in the salary range without influencing ranges of "normal" positions.
standardUser 4y ago
Sounds like this law may force employers to get their shit together and actually understand the roles they are hiring for and what they are willing to pay for those roles. The way you describe employers, they could really use the push.
danijelb 4y ago
> It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and experience. Separate it into multiple job ads, with well defined requirements and salary ranges. The role of the interview in that case is to simply determine if the candidate fits the desired requirements or not. If a candidate applies to the position that doesn't fit their skills this will come up during the interview and the recruiter can tell the candidate that they are better suited for another position and inform them that the interview will continue as if they applied for the lower/higher position. The company obviously knows how much they want to pay a candidate with certain skills and experience. So by making more detailed job descriptions there is no problem with posting salary ranges. Or if for some reason a company really insists on having one job ad for multiple positions of varying experience then they can put a salary range table where they state salary range for each possible position that a candidate might end up in after a successful interview process.
dangom 4y ago
Funny salary ranges are disclosed literally every else and it's never been a problem except in the US.
PCMDAVE 4y ago
Oh, I see you drank the Kool-Aid all the way down...good for you!
Dave_Rosenthal 4y ago
Yes, sometimes a company is just hiring for several potential roles at once with one listing. The need for "more C# engineering skills on the team" might filled by a junior engineer for $X, a mid-career engineer for $1.5X, a senior engineer for $2X, or a rock star for $5x. (e.g. If you land a rock star, you might be able to focus on something else for your next hire.) So, as a company, you put out a job posting for a C# engineer and say "the pay depends on how good you are." You don't want to lose the senior engineer by listing a pay range of $X and you don't want to miss the junior engineer by listing $2X. Not every hiring situation is as easy as "I need this exact cog for my machine and I'm willing to pay exactly X." Not sure why a law is needed here. (I assume the intent is more to prevent discrimination than to un-frustrate tech job seekers, though I can't really see how it would do that.) I guess the easy solution for employers will be to either just list a very large range, or to post the same listing with several different comp bands. Either way they can still discriminate to their hearts' content during hiring.
make3 4y ago
you're not just the messenger though, you are part of this
NikolaNovak 4y ago
This has never been a popular / well received message on HN, but jives with my experience 100%. I've been a techie in the same company for 20 years; then I've become a lead and therefore hiring manager last few years. I'll open a seat for something I need, and may be able to specify a range of levels/bands that we are acceptable; but the salary hugely depends on the person - primarily their skills, experience, knowledge, history, as well as (again unpopular but realistic) how well they interview. I may have a team of 5 ops managers and need a sixth one; I'm OK hiring a junior band 6 out of school to fully train up for salary X, or a reasonably experienced one for band 7 or 8 for salary Y; and if I happen to receive a resume for an exceptionally, uniquely qualified candidate with expertise with client or type of client and/or software/system/business we're working for, I might be willing to hire them as band 9 for salary Z. With that in mind, what's the end-game here? a) Publish full range of all possibilities - e.g. $60,000 -> $150,000? That's is true and accurate but it's not useful (and see human-psychology disclaimer below). b) Publish a specific smaller range, and miss out on good candidates on both sides of the range. To your point, government publishes their rate but that is because they aim, intentionally and knowingly, to mediocrity and not meritocracy. The bell curve is artificially flattened. It's a different system and goal. But I'm OK if my teams have a bell curve! Nobody is born at the edge, and I'm usually on projects big enough that I can train people up :) (As well, what most people won't admit, is that very few of us are happily aware of our actual performance and will happily take salary that matches it - e.g. in the medium of range for medium of performance; so large companies may well end up moving to a boring average, depressed salaries for all, because if I publish range of e.g. 60-150k, how many people will willingly admit they only have experience/history/skills for e.g. 85k?)
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > a) Publish full range of all possibilities - e.g. $60,000 -> $150,000? That's is true and accurate but it's not useful (and see human-psychology disclaimer below). This is very useful. For example, anyone wanting more than a minimum of $60k can skip applying. > b) Publish a specific smaller range, and miss out on good candidates on both sides of the range. I do not see how this is possible, especially on the lower side. No one is going to skip past your job listing because the minimum pay is higher than they expect, and no one is limiting you on how high to set your max pay.
djur 4y ago
A previous employer of mine had fixed salary levels by role adjusted by region (for cost of living). Absolutely no salary negotiations, no bonuses. Despite this, they did the "offer not available in Colorado" routine as well as resisting requests for internal pay transparency. The "good reason" for not listing salary is that it makes it harder for prospective and current employees to comparison shop. Period.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Unless it's the core competency, companies are by definition conservative as all hell. They do not want to change ANYTHING unless they have to. Whenever the decision is "change something, or turn off X and not change anything" the latter will be the decision unless something forceful acts in the opposite direction. They act this way even if "doing the thing" would be right, easy, good, productive, whatever.
  - djur 4y ago
    The board and C-level also have a shared class interest (and, so often, personal relationships) with their peers at other companies that tends to outweigh any personal ethical interest they have in the wellbeing of their employees. If it doesn't gain any actual competitive advantage, better go with the option that keeps your old schoolmates and future business partners happy.
wonderwonder 4y ago
Every job in tech I have had (~10) have started with a recruiter reaching out to me, me asking the position range and then telling the recruiter I want the top of the range or more. No interviews with anyone in the company until the salary requirements are handled otherwise its just a waste of everyone's time. I couldn't imagine talking to someone to see if they want to hire me without knowing if its even worth it for me, it puts all the power in their hands. I've never had a recruiter balk or push back on answering even for the roles I decided not to pursue. A recruiter doing so would be a huge flashing red light for me. "If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply." Or the state could just pass a law making it a required field...
drogus 4y ago
I have been searching for a job at least few times in the past few years. I’ve emailed/messaged probably 100s of tech companies asking for a salary range. Maybe one or two companies failed to give me the salary range. I have no idea what companies you work with, but from my experience most companies in tech know the salary ranges for the positions they hire for, they just require an extra effort from people to find out.
braingenious 4y ago
>don't shoot the messenger You’re not exactly just “the messenger” here. You posted several paragraphs explaining that a good chunk of your livelihood depends on this phenomenon of “not sharing data about pay.” A messenger’s salary is independent of the opinionated slant of the information he conveys.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
> It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply. Seems like there's a third option: vote for legislation to make this practice illegal.
MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. Companies want to pay (give) as little as possible while asking for (demanding/getting) as much as possible. More news at 11:00. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
aeze 4y ago
> And when you come into a position that requires recruiting, likely you'll speak to your recruiter and say "what do you think we'll need to pay for someone like this?". And when I do this, I expect the recruiter to have an idea of the salary range for that position and be able to put it in the job posting. Otherwise we'll be looking for another recruiter. It's that easy.
sangnoir 4y ago
> Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. The point of laws such as these is to change how recruitment works. The fact that the hiring manager/person will offer more to a 6'4" person from their alma mater[1] more than a random person of average height with the same skillset is problematic - even if it is "how recruiting works" 1. Unconscious bias is a well-studied phenomenon.
la64710 4y ago
Just curious as a middleman , what value do you even add? Most of the things can be done through software.
rhaway84773 4y ago
I think you’re confusing “don’t know” with “not willing to do the basic research on what they’re looking for because there is no reason to do so”. Why would an employer spend any time thinking about the salary they’re willing to offer when there is no penalty for not doing so. The party that does suffer are the applicants who have to sit through many rounds of interviews before finding out the max salary the job is offering is a fraction of what they’re being paid right now. The lack of transparency is a classic neutral-lose situation, where the neutral party has the power in the relationship dynamics. It’s the perfect situation for the govt to step in and require transparency.
avereveard 4y ago
I was a CTO, we definitely had a budget in mind for every level of seniority. Idk what CTO you're working with, maybe the region you work within is biased for generating self appointed ctbros.
mchaver 4y ago
> lots of unhappy responses to this, but don't shoot the messenger Generally it is assumed that the messenger is a relatively neutral party, like a courier or a postman. A recruiter has a lot of input into how that message is delivered and some insider knowledge, so they aren't completely neutral. I imagine companies want recruiters to take a few shots for them. > Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. Salary ranges are posted in all job advertisements.

e12e 4y ago

I suppose if employers don't know what employees are worth - they certainly don't know what recruiters are worth? And I suppose that information assymetry works out in favour of the recruiters?

nathan_compton 4y ago

"This is convenient for corporations so suck it up." isn't a very compelling argument. The purpose of the government is to represent the interests of the people in situations where there is sufficient agreement to pass legislation. If your company doesn't like complying with local laws, its easy, just don't look for people in this country. The people have a right to set the terms of exchanges in the marketplace.

missedthecue 4y ago
That's a fairly uncharitable way to phrase his point. I think what he's getting at is that it is hard for market participants to accurately price goods and services when they are working with insufficient information. If I asked you to tell me how much you'd pay for a shirt, you'd either have to give me a wide range, or start asking questions to understand what you're getting. A formal tux dress shirtfront? A dirty old Hanes undergarment?
- idontpost 4y ago
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  No, I wouldn't say it is uncharitable at all. The balance of power and information already lies on the side that does more of these negotiations, and has less to lose in each one. It's time that balance starts to swing the other way, and if corporations don't like it, too damn bad.
  - xeromal 4y ago
    What's your reaction to their shirt analogy?
    - actually_a_dog 4y ago
      If you don't have those questions at least mostly answered, you're not ready to go shopping. You don't show up at Target looking to buy a bespoke dress shirt, unless you want to be very disappointed and/or waste a lot of time.
- joe5150 4y ago
  A job advertisement is meant to address the major questions a candidate would have that will contextualize the pay being offered. If I asked you to tell me how much to pay for a shirt with a sufficiently detailed list of requirements and expectations for the shirt, you could probably give me a pretty useful range.

zerr 4y ago

If your client tells you secretly that the base salary range for the position is 200K-250K. And the prospective employee tells that s/he wants 150K. Would you disclose that s/he can ask up to 250K or would you rather make your client happy by getting them a bargain?

orev 4y ago
Recruiters typically get paid a commission based on the final salary, so it’s in their interest to get you as high a salary as possible.
- jedberg 4y ago
  Much like real estate agents, their best interest is to close the deal at any price. They'll make more money getting the employer a bargain and a second req. There is a reason real estate agents homes sell for more than anyone else's -- because they know the real value of the market and have an incentive to go high when it's their own home. Recruiters are the same.
  - brianwawok 4y ago
    Bingo.
  - tech_tuna 4y ago
    Exactly, came here to say exactly this. BTW, I don't think this in inherently evil, it's just a conflict of interests. Employer. Employee. Recruiter. Different incentives for all three parties.
- throwaway292939 4y ago
  This is incorrect. It's in their interest to get as high a salary with the least effort involved. Obviously for them, being able to close more candidates at a "high enough" salary is preferable.
andrewstuart 4y ago
>> would you rather make your client happy by getting them a bargain Recruiters are usually paid based on a percentage of the salary. It's actually in the interests of the recruiter that you are paid as much as possible, strictly speaking. In reality, my goals as recruiter are: * happy client * find a new employee who the employer is super happy with six months down the track * find a new employee who wants and enjoys this job, and will thus stay * at a salary that the new employee is happy with, that will not have them looking over their shoulder thinking they have udnersold themselves * at a salary that will ensure we are not beaten to the punch by another higher paying employer * at a salary that fits the goals of the employer The idea of "getting an employer a bargain" implies that I don't care about the job seeker. Believe it or not, I do. When someone comes to me who is a great developer, and is asking under market rates, I discuss that will them and let them know where I think market rate is for their skills and experience. It might sound cliched, but my job is to negotiate a deal that everyone is happy with, and every gets what they want. Anything less will fail because the employee feels they are underpaid, or the employer feels they overpaid. I believe the above approach to dealing with salary gets everyone what they want. And yes, I the more it is the happier I am, but it would be very much against my interests to manipulate that.

brk 4y ago

Far more important is to know the salary target that you are aiming for. I think people would be more willing to accept this if the application process was not such a complete cluster fuck 99% of the time. So many sites want you to upload a resume, and then also re-type the whole thing into some clunky form so that the company can seemingly index it or search it or whatever Then after your resume has been randomly selected for review you get to waste more time with useless recruiters and/or HR people for some kind of preliminary screening process that makes little sense. If you're lucky enough to actually start to enter a real interview process you can plan to sink another 2-8 hours of your time before the discussion of salary ranges is even remotely danced around. Finally, after a ton of hassle you learn that the company wishes to pay approximately minimum wage for this position and wants to pay you in IOU's, bottle caps, or gift vouchers (only a slight exaggeration sometimes). If a company cannot give a salary range that is even +/- 20%, perhaps they're not actually ready to make a job posting and invite people to hopelessly waste their time on the application process.

orev 4y ago

I think many here will disagree, but this is spot on. Having a fixed salary range also implies there’s a fixed/well-defined set of tasks for that role, which is only applicable to typical lower-level jobs that do repetitive tasks. Once you get into higher skilled positions, the roles become much more flexible and negotiable. The HN crowd is exactly the opposite type of people who would benefit from this. Job definitions become fixed. You want to try your next project in Rust? Implement a new database? Start learning the customer-facing side of things? Too bad, the job description didn’t include that, and your salary range is locked in to the job description.

bumby 4y ago
While it seems logical that a fixed salary implies a fixed set of tasks, I don’t think it holds in practice. I’ve worked my share of fixed salary positions where the day-to-day looks nothing like the job posting. It seems all you have to do is add a clause like “and other duties as assigned”. There is a chance your duties get so out of whack that you request HR to reinterpret your pay, but not only is that a laborious and somewhat arbitrary process, but it seems both HR and management are incentivized to not rule in the employees favor.
chickenpotpie 4y ago
> Once you get into higher skilled positions, the roles become much more flexible and negotiable. So make the salary range bigger.
incone123 4y ago
While this applies to public advertisements, once you are employed then I don't see why you or the company can't renegotiate based on changed responsibilities.
Spooky23 4y ago
Depends. 95% of candidates fit into a salary band. If you didn’t do that, the company would get ripped to shreds by lawsuits about pay equity.
welshwelsh 4y ago
The important part is that employers post the maximum salary so that job seekers know what the budget is. Employers should make a separate job ad for each pay grade, and they should provide a detailed explanation of how they determine salary. If the range is $150k to $250k, what are the criteria to make $250k? What's the difference between someone who makes $150k and $175k? That information belongs in the job posting.

jedberg 4y ago

It is hard to convince someone they are wrong when their salary depends on being right. But I'm going to try. I've done hiring myself as a founder, so I have some experience here. > The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. Then they need better data. A great way to get that would be looking at all the other job listings with salary ranges if they don't already have access to back channel data. > It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and experience. Then it should be multiple listings with different requirements, even if the only difference is years of experience. > So it does not surprise me that governments would legislate to require job ads to do the same - essentially because of ignorance about how the world works. The way the government does it is more equitable, so it makes sense that they are trying to legislate that to the private sector. > If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply. This is exactly the problem. If they aren't required to list it, they won't. And this is harmful to people who aren't good negotiators. And also harmful to women and minorities, as countless studies have shown they are chronically underpaid in large part because they aren't willing or able to negotiate. That's why there is a push to force companies to list the salaries. > Far more important is to know the salary target that you are aiming for. You're right! The best way for me to know what salary to target is with lots of data about how much similar jobs pay. A great way to get that is job listings with salary ranges, since I don't have access to data like the person offering the job does.

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
>> The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. > Then they need better data. A great way to get that would be looking at all the other job listings with salary ranges if they don't already have access to back channel data. You're missing the point: the variable is the candidate, not the role. I know the market rate for a candidate that is just over-the-bar for my role, and I know that market rate for a super-star who can not only do this role, but is probably already capable of doing the next one. > Then it should be multiple listings with different requirements, even if the only difference is years of experience. So, what if you apply for a role that turns out to be wrong for you based on my assessment of you then I should reject you so you can re-apply for the other role? That's ridiculous.

llbeansandrice 4y ago

> don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. As an employee, sounds like not my fuckin problem. I'm not about to go through 3 phone screens, a take-home test, a full-day onsite, etc. just for the privilege to be low-balled or even worse denied. > I think it will be about $X Oh! So looks like it's not that hard to ball-park a number off the top of your head. I don't get this "how the world really works" junk. How the world "really works" right now is that job searchers are having their time wasted and don't have tools to determine what the market for various positions looks like. For work that apparently amounts to texting the on-staff recruiter I couldn't care less. > if the ad doesn't specify salary...just don't apply. So all job postings before these laws have been put into effect? Looks like someone doesn't understand how the world really works. RTFA. The job range has to be "in good faith" if the job posting encompasses a range of experience levels, that's allowed. The range just has to be "in good faith". That's such a low bar to clear and from your own hypothetical the work required from the employer is basically nil.

rednerrus 4y ago
Recruiters should be talking about numbers in the first interview. Employers should have a sense of what your number is and whether or not they can get there before moving forward with interviewing. If they're not doing that, they're wasting your time and their time.
- gopalv 4y ago
  > If they're not doing that, they're wasting your time and their time. Actually, they're getting paid for the their time. I'm not. I'm actually burning my time. > Recruiters should be talking about numbers in the first interview. I'm going through the recruitment process right now and the numbers out of the gate are always lowball figures (possibly personalized to me), because of two reasons. Because they want to see if you accept it or not. I'm sure a lot of people coming into the bay area from other cities/countries will be like "wow, 185k, that's awesome" & they'll figure it out that the company was willing to pay upto 350k for the same work. Secondly, publicly advertising salaries have a big impact on the people who are already in the building. This is pretty much already a problem when you bring in an H1B who has to put their salary into the DoL database and post notices in the offices with their pay. But this is only base pay, not including bonuses or stocks, so it's easy to cap the base pay and fill it up with bonus packages. So the companies are legitimately balking at this because they'll have to pay their existing employees more if they put out an attractive posting, but if they put a lowball figure nobody would even show up to interview - only people who already make lower than the lowball figure will show up & then try to negotiate upwards. I'm currently interviewing and this is a weird dance, sort of like buying a car. I've only got a single response to someone asking "Is this range acceptable" - "I'm looking at multiple offers and being the second best offer is no good for you and I'm not negotiating before an interview or comparing offers. It's your bid, not my ask". I guess it's a position of privilege to deal from. My need to go to back to work isn't economic, I'll just languish if I don't find a job & become truly feral :)

phphphphp 4y ago

The situation you describe is real, sure. However, the situation you describe is far from the majority of recruitment. Most companies have a budget, most companies have a salary framework. Yes, in the minority of situations in which a company truly has no budget for a role then these rules don’t work very well… but that’s relevant to a tiny subset of the top end of the market, and at that level, job postings are much less important. The positive outcome of these rules far outweighs any inconvenience experienced by employers with no budget. edit: regarding your edit, which companies have you recruited for? I would bet my own career that you’re wrong to suggest that recruitment works like this for more than 10% of companies.

mkl95 4y ago

> The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. Until they have met them, assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the team. One of the reasons I want to know the salary range upfront is that it tells me the bare minimum they are paying for that position. Companies love lowballing candidates, so I usually don't apply for an offer that doesn't pay at least the minimum I'm looking for. > Far more important is to know the salary target that you are aiming for. It's also important to know the company's budget. I don't enjoy working at places that can't afford a $200/year IDE license, to name a common example. Fat salaries often come with fat budgets.

Spooky23 4y ago

Your client is probably trying to limit your overhead. I’ve hired hundreds or low thousands of people. Corporate, government, SMB. Never did i go into that process without a budget target or salary band with budget. I would say that to a contract shop or recruiter to avoid having a budget of $100, a bid for $101, and a contractor making $28

tejtm 4y ago

Are you sure it is not just so current employees are left in the dark as to what they would be worth if they did not already work there?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

TulliusCicero 4y ago

> If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. Or, we could pass laws forcing companies to do this, and companies could get their shit together and figure out how much they're actually willing to pay. The nice thing about market capitalism is that companies, for the most part, are fairly flexible. They may not be enthused about posting salary ranges, but if the law says they have to, they'll find a way to make it happen. It's not entirely unlike how so many businesses prophecy doom and gloom when there's a minimum wage increase, or street parking gets replaced by bike lanes, but then the thing happens and it's generally fine.

throwaway292939 4y ago

> I'm a recruiter. I've known for a long time it drives people nuts that job ads don't have salary, or have a wide salary range. Do you think it's true that you may be biased a certain way? Perhaps not in favor of job seekers? > It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and experience. Perhaps include separate descriptions for junior/senior roles? > If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. Why do you expect the candidate to have to change their mindset? > Far more important is to know the salary target that you are aiming for. Wouldn't having these ranges let a candidate become more informed about their salary target? Markets and salary ranges change over time, this would let them know what is current.

freejazz 4y ago

"If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job." Looks like that's not going to be the case anymore.

time_to_smile 4y ago

> Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. I've been the team lead and talk to my team lead about this a lot and I know of no serious tech companies that don't actively think about employee retention and recruiting a huge part of which is compensation. Leadership at my company spends a serious amount of time discussing and revising our TC targets. Any company that doesn't know what "they would be willing to pay someone" is a huge red flag for me as a candidate, and I can be quite confident that they aren't willing to even reach the salary component of my comp let alone meet or beat TC.

andrewstuart 4y ago
So what is the precise number you pay your senior developers? Sorry to call you out, but I simply don't believe the answer is anything but "it depends on a range of factors". Unless it is a government job, but even then, likely it depends on a range of factors, and often even government clients flex their budget to meet their recruiting goals.
- jedberg 4y ago
  You know they don't pay a single number, but have a defined range for the role. And if they find someone who is outside that range, they will bump them up to the next role with the bigger range. When I worked at eBay the salary bands for each level were well defined and shared internally. If they needed to pay you more than the top of the range, they bumped you to the next level to do it. It would be very easy for them to publish the ranges publicly.
- time_to_smile 4y ago
  I'm no longer in a management position and wouldn't post what is currently private company info on HN, but I'll tell you how it worked at literally every company I've worked at that is not a very small startup: There is an internal document that specifies each level and the exact comp bands for each role (like all companies there is a range of salaries but it is specified, and again this is the practice a multiple companies I've worked at). There is a lower and upper bound of salary for level, target bonuses are fixed at a percent for ranges of levels and the same goes for equity grants. The details of what defines each level of seniority is clearly spelled out in terms of typical ranges of previous experience, responsibilities of the role, reporting structure, assumed level of autonomy etc. These are also calibrated across teams at each review cycles and continually kept up to date. During interviews there are set guidelines for how well a candidate performs given the target level of the role they are applying for an assess which level is appropriate. This is not the same as saying "don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone." and "it depends on a range of factors" At every company that is not sub 100 employees that "range of factors" is clearly defined. I honestly have a hard time believing you've worked recruiting for any major tech company and haven't come across similarly detailed documentation regarding levels, comp bands, and evaluation of candidates.

lokar 4y ago

FWIW, I read that as "let's see what race the applicant is"

andrewstuart 4y ago
People who desire to be offended will see the world through a lens that will allow them to see offense.

jedberg 4y ago

> EDIT: lots of unhappy responses to this, but don't shoot the messenger. Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. It sounds like you've missed the point of the responses then. They aren't telling you that you're wrong, they're telling you that how recruiting works needs to change.

kspacewalk2 4y ago

>If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. Well, not for long, if I live in NYC and this rule passes. >It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply. If this type of regulation spreads, we can just turn this into a nifty fliparoo counter-argument: It's that easy - if not posting a salary range is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't post. Maybe ask the HR manager to do a quick skills upgrade and program in C# themselves.

supergeek133 4y ago

Big companies ABSOLUTELY know how much they are willing to pay. They have well defined pay bands/grades by geo area.

lr 4y ago

And then you end up exactly where the company I work for ended up, and where a ton of other companies end up: The same people, doing the same work, with very similar experiences, getting paid drastically different salaries. It can get so bad, that the company then has to hire an outside agency to review salaries, and then make company-wide adjustments. Running a business is very, very expensive and involves lots of things (like proper HR) that have nothing to do with the business for which the business exists. If you don't want to actually run a business, then maybe give it up.

joe5150 4y ago

You contradict yourself when you say employers don't know what they would be willing to pay someone, but then somehow manage to come up with a number when they start recruiting. You even say you would post a job ad with that range? That's what the law wants, so I don't actually understand what you're arguing against here. If it's genuinely true that a company has no idea what they might pay someone they want to hire, they're just not ready to hire someone. "It's that easy."

Patrol8394 4y ago

> employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone They know, they know. They just don't want to be the first one to putting numbers out there, because they want to low ball as much as they can. I clearly remember, in one of my latest interview, the recruiter mentioning an internal system of theirs that would come up with "numbers", and my numbers were way off, so they couldn't make it work. Knowing, at least a ball park range, it would have saved me time and stress. They must have a range in mind: - average candidate $x - good candidate $y - awesome candidate $z Therefore they could just ads for $x-$z signaling they won't be able to go above $z. So a candidate can at least decide if it is worth interviewing or not.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

Over the 2+ decades I've been working in this industry, the list of things that are expected out of an interview process just keeps growing. Intense panel interviews, coding on whiteboards, "show me your github", "do this example project", etc. Tell me your life story. What makes you passionate? They often drag on for weeks, sometimes months, before an actual offer letter is in hand. And at the same time we're told that there's a shortage of us software engineers. I can tell you it wasn't like this in the 90s. For better or for worse. So don't be surprised that many of us are becoming incredulous that in addition to all of this, we can't get an upfront answer in advance about how much you will eventually pay me. (I've also been confronted, very late in the process, with "your requested range is unreasonable because look at this compensation survey we bought from a third party" -- and that survey was full of complete lies because it listed total comp for Google L4 in my region as literally 1/2 of what I was making as an L4 at Google.) So, I dunno, unless the job market really goes tits up and we're all suddenly begging for work, seems like your side of the industry -- the recruitment side -- needs to get its act together. I'm seeing growing dissatisfaction with the whole process and people are getting sick of the song and dance.

zdragnar 4y ago
I've gone through exactly one of these types of interviews, and that was at a FAANG. I have since turned down every single offer to interview with a company that did something similar. The one time I did so by phone, it was kind of amusing (and telling) that the company's headhunter was utterly shocked that I was unwilling to fly across the country to do some whiteboard sessions with the team. They clearly targeted FAANG washouts, and weren't accustomed to speaking with a senior developer who could afford to be picky about the interviews he took. The important thing is, there are plenty of companies that don't pretend to be FAANGs, and don't interview like that. Odds are pretty good that working for them won't be like working at a FAANG either, which (imho) is also a good thing.
JAlexoid 4y ago
And in the end there's still an "at will employment" and "3 month probation period". Why TF would you waste so much time to then have all of that crap?

jameshart 4y ago

Companies absolutely have fixed hiring budgets and salary guidelines. It's not that surprising to me, though, that if they don't have to share that with an external recruiter they will choose not to. You're probably on a percentage of the final hiring salary, so why would they tell you the max salary they're willing to offer? Your interests are not aligned. The way it works in most companies that are big enough to have, like, distinct departments for HR and finance, is that teams have staffing budgets that are set out quarterly or annually, and if the team is expanding they will set those numbers to be big enough to cover the cost of the additional headcount they plan to add. Then the HR organization will probably have a compensation policy, which sets out ranges of rates for particular roles by level and geography. So your budget for a role lines up to certain job levels you can afford to hire at. So by the time you're writing a job description looking for '5 years of react experience, located in NY' or whatever, you're pretty much narrowed in on a salary range that depends on 1) what your HR compensation guide says is the minimum compensation you pay for a level N software developer in that geo, and 2) the absolute maximum of your staffing budget allocated to the role. If you can't turn that into a salary range for job advertising purposes, you're not a serious business.

jjav 4y ago
> Companies absolutely have fixed hiring budgets and salary guidelines. Yes, they hay budgets and salary guidelines. All of that is negotiable as a hiring manager. Just a matter of how many levels up the chain you need to go to get the approval and whether you (hiring manager) can convince them, which depends on how strong the candidate is.
- jameshart 4y ago
  If someone told you you are a ‘hiring manager’ but you don’t have responsibility for the budget that hire comes out of, they are lying to you to make you feel important. Hiring requires money. If you have to go ask someone else for that money, they are the one doing the hiring.
  - jjav 4y ago

heavyset_go 4y ago

> If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. If it makes recruiters and employers mad that they have to include salary ranges in their job listings, that's just too bad, and they will just have to get over it and follow the law. Thankfully legislators are cracking down on this type of entitlement that's coming from recruiters and employers alike.

sidlls 4y ago

> The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. Until they have met them, assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the team. With few exceptions, what you wrote is not accurate. Most companies have salary bands for every position based on level within the band. Companies know both the position and level they have in mind for a candidate before the first on-site interview, and often before the initial screen. The interviews reveal what the leveling should be, and sometimes indicate a different role is more appropriate. The vast majority of companies will not negotiate outside those relatively tight bands for most IC and other low level (management) roles. So having a target salary in mind is fine for an assessment of an offer, but not all that helpful if the goal is to not waste time up front. Some exceptional candidates might successfully negotiate for a bump in in-band level or even position, but it’s rare.

wlll 4y ago

> I'm a recruiter. I'm a CTO, for context. > The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. … I say "I think it will be about $X, but lets put a job ad up and indicate it's top of range $ and see who we get." As someone pointed out, it sounds like this isn't too hard to do. I've hired people, I've come up with salary ranges. It took some thought, I didn't particularly enjoy the process, but it's possible. > It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and experience. "We're hiring for 10 widget programmers, x senior, y mid, z junior. The salary ranges for these are … and will depend on the skills and experience of the individual candidate" > It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply. I've skipped job adverts in the past because the salary wasn't specified. People care about the wage, it's an incredibly important part of what work is, getting paid, it's one of the largest parts of the deal. Pretending that the wage doesn't matter because your company is special, or because people shouldn't be in it for the money is BS that basically everyone can see through and coming to that realisation will allow companies to have a much better understanding of the relationship they have with with their current and future employees. Or, if the wage is important after all and you just couldn't be bothered to work it out? I guess just put a bit more time in and work it out. Or don't, and be skipped over. As someone who sometimes hires people, I'd very much prefer it if all the people that applied had already self-selected on something as simple as the red line that is what people will expect to earn. I really don't want to have to trawl through a load of resumes for people, selecting them for interview, doing the first round etc. only to discover that they want n*2 more than we're offering.

bogota 4y ago

sad that the government is having to regulate you into humane practices. Already in NY and CO im sure this will just keep spreading.

alistairSH 4y ago

The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. Bullshit. Maybe some start-up with no HR. But, any moderately sized company is buying salary info, working with compa ratios, and has internal salary ranges mapped to positions.

alistairSH 4y ago

Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. LOL. I've never listed a position without knowing the salary range ahead of time. That range comes from our comp/ben team in concert with somebody from finance.

zebnyc 4y ago

I don't mind if there are certain companies which don't want to list their salary range. However, they also need to be respectful of candidates' time and energy. Recently I had a company reach out to me and after asking me many questions about my background for an hour, the recruiter asks me, "What is your salary expectation?". I said I would rather not say but would be happy to let them know if their range is acceptable to me. The recruiter rambles a bit about how they recruit from all over the world and then tells me that is not how they operate and I must give a number. I refused and they hung up. Of course it is their prerogative if they don't want to provide the number or need my number up front. But then they can be upfront about it early in the call. They should not waste my time for an hour and drain my energy in the process.

iso1631 4y ago
If your expectation is 200 and you're about to hang up, tell them 450 just for shits and giggles. You never know, it might work.

irrational 4y ago

Sounds like HR at those companies has no clue what they are doing. I work for a Fortune 100 company. Everyone has a very specific job title and everyone with the same job title is guaranteed to make the exact same amount as anyone else with the same job title. They have a third party company come in and do a review yearly to make sure that is the case. We are not able to create new job titles without a lot of work. So, we always know exactly what the salary will be for anyone we are trying to hire.

iso1631 4y ago

My company has recently posted internal salary ranges for job titles. There's the bottom of the range, a 33% mark, and the top of the range. Everyone gets paid at least the bottom of the range. After proving competent they must be on the 33% mark. Some are paid above the top of the range but it's rare. A given job family has different titles, broadly Junior-'Vanilla'-Senior-Principal. A junior might be on 25-45, vanilla on 35-55, a senior on 40-65, a principal on 55-80, or whatever (triple those for US wags I guess). That fits the "more experienced" part. You could advertise for a principal and find someone who just about scrapes in, so pay them 55, find someone great and offer them 80. When advertising externally though, this information is not available - unless you know someone who already works there, which is crazy.

adam_arthur 4y ago

All true, but simply give the 20th to 80th percentile comp as bands and state that above band comp is awarded in some cases. I’ve worked in a hiring manager capacity for close to a decade, and we absolutely know the bands, despite them being quite wide. Companies that are well run can succeed without hiding information from their employees… and it’s a huge waste of time to interview somebody whose expectations are totally mismatched

tomrod 4y ago

Regarding your edit, we know how recruiting works. What people are genuinely upset about is the lack of empathy for the job seeker, who is wasting their time, in the game as you play it (and the strong assumption that this is the only way the game is played).

cheath 4y ago

Some of the responses here are a classic case of Fundamental Attribution Error - I see a lot of assumptions that imply that the employers must not be adding salaries because they are malicious or bad actors (which, of course there are some). But the overwhelming majority of these employers probably don't even know for themselves the salary that they're willing to pay, since compensation is highly variable based upon the individual's experience and complex market factors. Should they all have better data, better perspectives, and better job specs? Sure thing. I agree. You'd hire much better people, that's for sure. On the other hand, should we regulate them into compliance on this matter? Ironically, it seems like a great opportunity to add inefficiency and possibly even have a net negative impact on salaries. I say, let them ship crappy job descriptions and let the market sort it out.

Dylan16807 4y ago
> On the other hand, should we regulate them into compliance on this matter? Ironically, it seems like a great opportunity to add inefficiency and possibly even have a net negative impact on salaries. It adds the inefficiency of a job poster spending 5-60 minutes figuring out a salary range. It removes the inefficiency of hours and hours and hours of interviews from people that wouldn't have applied if they knew the salary range. It's not like hiring someone is cheap. Companies can and should put this effort into ads.
djur 4y ago
If you're trying to hire for a $100k+ role, it should not be a problem to take an afternoon to look up job postings for similar roles and figure out an appropriate salary range.
- cheath 4y ago
  Agreed. they should. …But should that be the law?
  - djur 4y ago
    I think it's to the benefit of the vast majority of job seekers, reducing the economic power imbalance between employer and employee, and I'd personally consider that a worthwhile reason to pass a law in and of itself. In addition, I suspect it's also to the benefit of most employers, many of which are not actually large enough to squeeze any appreciable benefit out of salary secrecy but who would gain from having more information about labor prices. To put it more simply: the socialist in me thinks it's good for workers -- the liberal in me thinks it's good for fairer competition in the labor market. Win-win.

idontpost 4y ago

annoyingnoob 4y ago

You need to be respectful of everyone's time. If I apply to a position that will never offer me what I want to make then you just wasted my time and yours. You are asking me to be upfront about absolutely everything, I'm asking for one key detail. I do not think that you appreciate my side of this bargain at all. This is not a one-way deal, we need to cooperate and be able to work together toward a solution if this is ever going to work out. I'm choosing to work with you, not choosing you as my dictator. If you are not willing to work with me a little then I'm going to keep looking, your loss not mine.

carlosdp 4y ago

A lot of comments here saying corporations have hiring budgets and you're wrong, etc. I guarantee you startups < 100 people do not actually have formal hiring budgets. A lot of people here haven't actually been employers before, and this comment is spot on when it comes to the reality. Posting a salary range for many positions would only have the effect of making it look like you'd be able to get less than you actually could, because employers would always need to post the bottom of the range (since these laws have a maximum range you're allowed to post), which is dumb.

danijelb 4y ago
I wasn't an employer but I'm genuinely curious how is it possible that a company doesn't know what they are willing to pay for an employee of specific knowledge? They maybe don't have formal hiring budgets, but they know how much money they have, if some investments are coming, how much they pay other people on average, etc. Also, they obviously know the amount of money they are not willing to go over during the negotiation phase of the interview. If they are looking for some super specific and rare skill, why not make a separate ad for that rare position? In that case if they are ready to pay 5x the market rate, they can put that in the salary range without influencing ranges of "normal" positions.

standardUser 4y ago

Sounds like this law may force employers to get their shit together and actually understand the roles they are hiring for and what they are willing to pay for those roles. The way you describe employers, they could really use the push.

danijelb 4y ago

> It is also true that a single job ad might be aiming to employ a number of people at various positions of seniority and experience. Separate it into multiple job ads, with well defined requirements and salary ranges. The role of the interview in that case is to simply determine if the candidate fits the desired requirements or not. If a candidate applies to the position that doesn't fit their skills this will come up during the interview and the recruiter can tell the candidate that they are better suited for another position and inform them that the interview will continue as if they applied for the lower/higher position. The company obviously knows how much they want to pay a candidate with certain skills and experience. So by making more detailed job descriptions there is no problem with posting salary ranges. Or if for some reason a company really insists on having one job ad for multiple positions of varying experience then they can put a salary range table where they state salary range for each possible position that a candidate might end up in after a successful interview process.

dangom 4y ago

Funny salary ranges are disclosed literally every else and it's never been a problem except in the US.

PCMDAVE 4y ago

Oh, I see you drank the Kool-Aid all the way down...good for you!

Dave_Rosenthal 4y ago

Yes, sometimes a company is just hiring for several potential roles at once with one listing. The need for "more C# engineering skills on the team" might filled by a junior engineer for $X, a mid-career engineer for $1.5X, a senior engineer for $2X, or a rock star for $5x. (e.g. If you land a rock star, you might be able to focus on something else for your next hire.) So, as a company, you put out a job posting for a C# engineer and say "the pay depends on how good you are." You don't want to lose the senior engineer by listing a pay range of $X and you don't want to miss the junior engineer by listing $2X. Not every hiring situation is as easy as "I need this exact cog for my machine and I'm willing to pay exactly X." Not sure why a law is needed here. (I assume the intent is more to prevent discrimination than to un-frustrate tech job seekers, though I can't really see how it would do that.) I guess the easy solution for employers will be to either just list a very large range, or to post the same listing with several different comp bands. Either way they can still discriminate to their hearts' content during hiring.

make3 4y ago

you're not just the messenger though, you are part of this

NikolaNovak 4y ago

This has never been a popular / well received message on HN, but jives with my experience 100%. I've been a techie in the same company for 20 years; then I've become a lead and therefore hiring manager last few years. I'll open a seat for something I need, and may be able to specify a range of levels/bands that we are acceptable; but the salary hugely depends on the person - primarily their skills, experience, knowledge, history, as well as (again unpopular but realistic) how well they interview. I may have a team of 5 ops managers and need a sixth one; I'm OK hiring a junior band 6 out of school to fully train up for salary X, or a reasonably experienced one for band 7 or 8 for salary Y; and if I happen to receive a resume for an exceptionally, uniquely qualified candidate with expertise with client or type of client and/or software/system/business we're working for, I might be willing to hire them as band 9 for salary Z. With that in mind, what's the end-game here? a) Publish full range of all possibilities - e.g. $60,000 -> $150,000? That's is true and accurate but it's not useful (and see human-psychology disclaimer below). b) Publish a specific smaller range, and miss out on good candidates on both sides of the range. To your point, government publishes their rate but that is because they aim, intentionally and knowingly, to mediocrity and not meritocracy. The bell curve is artificially flattened. It's a different system and goal. But I'm OK if my teams have a bell curve! Nobody is born at the edge, and I'm usually on projects big enough that I can train people up :) (As well, what most people won't admit, is that very few of us are happily aware of our actual performance and will happily take salary that matches it - e.g. in the medium of range for medium of performance; so large companies may well end up moving to a boring average, depressed salaries for all, because if I publish range of e.g. 60-150k, how many people will willingly admit they only have experience/history/skills for e.g. 85k?)

lotsofpulp 4y ago
> a) Publish full range of all possibilities - e.g. $60,000 -> $150,000? That's is true and accurate but it's not useful (and see human-psychology disclaimer below). This is very useful. For example, anyone wanting more than a minimum of $60k can skip applying. > b) Publish a specific smaller range, and miss out on good candidates on both sides of the range. I do not see how this is possible, especially on the lower side. No one is going to skip past your job listing because the minimum pay is higher than they expect, and no one is limiting you on how high to set your max pay.

djur 4y ago

A previous employer of mine had fixed salary levels by role adjusted by region (for cost of living). Absolutely no salary negotiations, no bonuses. Despite this, they did the "offer not available in Colorado" routine as well as resisting requests for internal pay transparency. The "good reason" for not listing salary is that it makes it harder for prospective and current employees to comparison shop. Period.

bombcar 4y ago
Unless it's the core competency, companies are by definition conservative as all hell. They do not want to change ANYTHING unless they have to. Whenever the decision is "change something, or turn off X and not change anything" the latter will be the decision unless something forceful acts in the opposite direction. They act this way even if "doing the thing" would be right, easy, good, productive, whatever.
- djur 4y ago
  The board and C-level also have a shared class interest (and, so often, personal relationships) with their peers at other companies that tends to outweigh any personal ethical interest they have in the wellbeing of their employees. If it doesn't gain any actual competitive advantage, better go with the option that keeps your old schoolmates and future business partners happy.

wonderwonder 4y ago

Every job in tech I have had (~10) have started with a recruiter reaching out to me, me asking the position range and then telling the recruiter I want the top of the range or more. No interviews with anyone in the company until the salary requirements are handled otherwise its just a waste of everyone's time. I couldn't imagine talking to someone to see if they want to hire me without knowing if its even worth it for me, it puts all the power in their hands. I've never had a recruiter balk or push back on answering even for the roles I decided not to pursue. A recruiter doing so would be a huge flashing red light for me. "If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job. It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply." Or the state could just pass a law making it a required field...

drogus 4y ago

I have been searching for a job at least few times in the past few years. I’ve emailed/messaged probably 100s of tech companies asking for a salary range. Maybe one or two companies failed to give me the salary range. I have no idea what companies you work with, but from my experience most companies in tech know the salary ranges for the positions they hire for, they just require an extra effort from people to find out.

braingenious 4y ago

>don't shoot the messenger You’re not exactly just “the messenger” here. You posted several paragraphs explaining that a good chunk of your livelihood depends on this phenomenon of “not sharing data about pay.” A messenger’s salary is independent of the opinionated slant of the information he conveys.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago

> It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply. Seems like there's a third option: vote for legislation to make this practice illegal.

MuffinFlavored 4y ago

> Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. Companies want to pay (give) as little as possible while asking for (demanding/getting) as much as possible. More news at 11:00. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

aeze 4y ago

> And when you come into a position that requires recruiting, likely you'll speak to your recruiter and say "what do you think we'll need to pay for someone like this?". And when I do this, I expect the recruiter to have an idea of the salary range for that position and be able to put it in the job posting. Otherwise we'll be looking for another recruiter. It's that easy.

sangnoir 4y ago

> Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. The point of laws such as these is to change how recruitment works. The fact that the hiring manager/person will offer more to a 6'4" person from their alma mater[1] more than a random person of average height with the same skillset is problematic - even if it is "how recruiting works" 1. Unconscious bias is a well-studied phenomenon.

la64710 4y ago

Just curious as a middleman , what value do you even add? Most of the things can be done through software.

rhaway84773 4y ago

I think you’re confusing “don’t know” with “not willing to do the basic research on what they’re looking for because there is no reason to do so”. Why would an employer spend any time thinking about the salary they’re willing to offer when there is no penalty for not doing so. The party that does suffer are the applicants who have to sit through many rounds of interviews before finding out the max salary the job is offering is a fraction of what they’re being paid right now. The lack of transparency is a classic neutral-lose situation, where the neutral party has the power in the relationship dynamics. It’s the perfect situation for the govt to step in and require transparency.

avereveard 4y ago

I was a CTO, we definitely had a budget in mind for every level of seniority. Idk what CTO you're working with, maybe the region you work within is biased for generating self appointed ctbros.

mchaver 4y ago

> lots of unhappy responses to this, but don't shoot the messenger Generally it is assumed that the messenger is a relatively neutral party, like a courier or a postman. A recruiter has a lot of input into how that message is delivered and some insider knowledge, so they aren't completely neutral. I imagine companies want recruiters to take a few shots for them. > Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works. Salary ranges are posted in all job advertisements.