I'm not so much frustrated by a lack of salary ranges in ads as I am about two things: 1. Waiting to figure out salary until the final interview. 2. No mentio

I'm not so much frustrated by a lack of salary ranges in ads as I am about two things: 1. Waiting to figure out salary until the final interview. 2. No mention of CoL adjustments. I don't know what employers expect to gain. Cynically people think that it's because employees are terrible negotiators. Maybe that's true. I always ask the top of the salary range based on other salary postings and let them explain to me why they have to work me down. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it's a CoL adjustment or other non-sense and I don't complete the paperwork. I'm not convinced that posting salary ranges will make pay more balanced. It's nice to see but I think what people want is a hard number - you will definitely make $X if you work here. Unfortunately, it's typically not that simple. At my company we have pay bands by seniority, and pay bands inside those pay bands (to provide for raises, etc - merit pay). This system works. What people should be doing in my opinion is talking about their salary. Force your employers to justify salaries. This is how I got a raise after I figured out I was paid 20k less than the new guy. However, I'm not sure people are ready to hear "you're bottom barrel" to a response on why your salary is at the lowest band. Unfortunately, humans are creatures that compare and you won't be able to guilt your employer into paying you more if you are actually just simply bad at your job. I think discussing salaries openly will help the merit worthy engineers get what they should be getting. It will, necessarily, cause a LOT of hurt feelings however because a lot more people think they are more merit-worthy than they are. Whether it's worth it to protect people's delicate sensibilities can only be figured out by doing it. Discuss your salaries!