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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 exte

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
    I can tell you first-hand, that's common. I control the hiring but not the ultimate say in the budget. Up to $X I can approve the hire, up to $YY I need to seek VP approval, up to $ZZZ I need SVP approval, up to $LOTS I need CEO approval. But all of those are feasible, given the right candidate. There is no hard ceiling on the budget, it's all about who I can convince.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    The just a wee bit pedantic. In my position, I control my employees' salaries (within guidelines). But, if I want to add headcount I need to make my case to my VP or higher. I suppose I could fire 5 seniors developers and hire 10 junior developers with the freed up budget, but I definitely cannot conjure up the $200k+ required to hire an additional employee without approval from my boss or his boss.
enra 4y ago
It’s not that simple usually. Companies might not have HR hire until 50 people or so. Level of how much compensation levels or bands are figured out (and how big of a mess they are) varies in companies. Even large companies, you might have variety of starting salaries, because you had to get the person in, which then needs fixed over time. Also each new type of role you open, you might not have the bands figured out right at the time you write the job post. Your comp benchmarks might say 75th percentile is $160k. Then you talk to folks and seems like most are making $170k or more. Then you end up finding someone more or less senior but you would like to hire them and have to adjust the comp based on their experience while balancing it against other people and roles at company. IMO comp is one of the hardest things to get right. You might do a comp philosophy that everyone gets paid $200k and you don’t negotiate but then you lose candidates and then overpay some people. Then someone might still complain that if it’s fair that iOS engineer makes the same as Android engineer, even though market rate is higher for iOS engineers (and eventually the iOS engineers might leave to get a better paying job).
- jameshart 4y ago
  Advertising a role with a stated salary mark of 160k when candidates are looking for 170k is precisely how you find out that your salary expectations are wrong. Bonus: you find out before you have to go to the trouble of interviewing and extending an offer.

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
  I can tell you first-hand, that's common. I control the hiring but not the ultimate say in the budget. Up to $X I can approve the hire, up to $YY I need to seek VP approval, up to $ZZZ I need SVP approval, up to $LOTS I need CEO approval. But all of those are feasible, given the right candidate. There is no hard ceiling on the budget, it's all about who I can convince.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  The just a wee bit pedantic. In my position, I control my employees' salaries (within guidelines). But, if I want to add headcount I need to make my case to my VP or higher. I suppose I could fire 5 seniors developers and hire 10 junior developers with the freed up budget, but I definitely cannot conjure up the $200k+ required to hire an additional employee without approval from my boss or his boss.

enra 4y ago

It’s not that simple usually. Companies might not have HR hire until 50 people or so. Level of how much compensation levels or bands are figured out (and how big of a mess they are) varies in companies. Even large companies, you might have variety of starting salaries, because you had to get the person in, which then needs fixed over time. Also each new type of role you open, you might not have the bands figured out right at the time you write the job post. Your comp benchmarks might say 75th percentile is $160k. Then you talk to folks and seems like most are making $170k or more. Then you end up finding someone more or less senior but you would like to hire them and have to adjust the comp based on their experience while balancing it against other people and roles at company. IMO comp is one of the hardest things to get right. You might do a comp philosophy that everyone gets paid $200k and you don’t negotiate but then you lose candidates and then overpay some people. Then someone might still complain that if it’s fair that iOS engineer makes the same as Android engineer, even though market rate is higher for iOS engineers (and eventually the iOS engineers might leave to get a better paying job).

jameshart 4y ago
Advertising a role with a stated salary mark of 160k when candidates are looking for 170k is precisely how you find out that your salary expectations are wrong. Bonus: you find out before you have to go to the trouble of interviewing and extending an offer.