4 ms·

Shenanigans like this are one more reason we don't hire people residing in CA, CO or WA. I'm totally serious too - residency in these states is a hard next for

Shenanigans like this are one more reason we don't hire people residing in CA, CO or WA. I'm totally serious too - residency in these states is a hard next for us. Why you ask? Because we have enough real problems to deal with in business as it is and stepping into a bureaucratic web of this kind can only invite trouble and there's plenty of talent to be found elsewhere that doesn't encumber the company with additional regulatory scrutiny. We're small fish here but I'd imagine if we're thinking like this, larger companies must certainly be at least taking this into consideration. In effect, this is The State attempting to Price Fix around jobs-of-a-feather. No matter the intention, this is not The States business. The only possible purpose of making laws like this is so that the state can try to enforce some remedy whereby we're told how much we have to or are allowed to pay someone. Who in their right mind wants to sign up for that kind of risk? EDIT: When I say "one more reason" I mean specifically CA, its simply not cost effective to hire talent from there. CA taxes and cost of living are such that making a competitive offer to a candidate residing there is simply too costly from a compensation perspective. Plenty of people-talent exists in states with more favorable cost of living and tax schemes.

jen20 4y ago
> larger companies must certainly be at least taking this into consideration. Any yet, the majority of high-paying tech jobs in the US are still in CA, WA or NYC...
- indymike 4y ago
  That is changing fairly quickly.
- fatnoah 4y ago
  > larger companies must certainly be at least taking this into consideration. For many of them, it's probably a small compliance burden added to their already massive pile of existing ones.
malfist 4y ago
Similar arguments have been made against minimum wage. It's fine to say you want to pay your employees as little as you can get away with, just be honest about it.
shortrounddev 4y ago
Why don't you just post the salary
- Justin_K 4y ago
  His point is there is 10x rules and regulations in states like CA and it's difficult to keep up with if you're running a business from another state.
  - SavageBeast 4y ago
    Hello fellow business owner - your comment suggests you have some experience outside of W2 employment. Thanks for your comment.
- SavageBeast 4y ago
  In our business an important factor is the personal/business/relationships network of the candidate we're talking with. You can see how this would be highly variable between 2 candidates. There is no "salary" or "salary range" in our case. We're not talking about hiring developers here but more Business Development types. It's hard to rank those people on a standard basis.
  - skywal_l 4y ago
    So you're saying your comment is irrelevant to the example given in the article.
  - vsareto 4y ago
    >In our business an important factor is the personal/business/relationships network of the candidate we're talking with. So you're ignoring potential networks in the largest and richest cities in America because you don't want to follow their laws?
    - thrill 4y ago
      Compliance with anything has a cost.
nerdponx 4y ago
Yes it's definitely a conspiracy by state governments to control your business, and not an attempt to decrease the asymmetry in labor markets, which without intervention strongly favors employers.
bfgoodrich 4y ago
"The only possible purpose of making laws like this"... Is for pay transparency. And in the vast, overwhelming percentage of the time, an employer knows precisely what they're planning to pay for a role, with extremely little variance. These cherry picked examples don't really mean a lot. As to your imaginary firm not hiring in "CA, CO or WA", absolutely nothing was lost by the residents of those states.
- SavageBeast 4y ago
  It's not about penalizing people residing in certain states. It's about not taking on additional regulatory burden. In a free country this is a choice we're allowed to make and we're willing to accept the trade off.
  - malfist 4y ago
    Ah, yes, regulatory burden. Such a boogieman. It takes a lot of effort to type one sentence on a job posting. If you're hiring you already know what you're willing to pay for the position. It really isn't that hard to write that down where people besides just HR can see.
hexadec 4y ago
>The only possible purpose of making laws like this is so that the state can try to enforce some remedy whereby we're told how much we have to or are allowed to pay someone. Who in their right mind wants to sign up for that kind of risk? How is this the logical conclusion you arrive at? Do you as a company not have a salary range for headcount? Do you not expect prices to be posted by your vendors leading to a lack in informational symmetry and haggling during every routine interaction? Imagine if your landlord could arbitrarily raise your rent an untold amount with no notice. You of course have options, move or negotiate. But the informational asymmetry means it is harder for you to know if you are getting a good deal if every other landlord is listing their rent as $1-100000 per month or not telling you until after you spent the time checking out the property only to find it is way outside your budget. The time cost of candidates finding your job, doing some basic research, prepping for X rounds of interviews, possible homework, dealing with hiring managers/ recruiters is insane once you figure folks usually apply to multiple jobs. Why not just tell them up front the salary like you do for role expectations and company culture drivel? Posting honest salary bands is fine to me, say seniors will get $100-150k or whatever, but the article shows clear malice towards any legitimate transparency up front.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- SavageBeast 4y ago
  Whether or not posting salary bands for a given position is a good idea or not a good idea, It rubs me the wrong way that a state government somehow imagines it has the authority to mandate this. And for what purpose? Why does a state make a law if not to enforce some as yet undefined remedy? What will this remedy be? I don't think we know yet but I for one do not want to find out. I have enough other problems to be concerned with. There are 2 boxes in front of you each containing a tasty red apple. One of those boxes is filled with barbed wire, razor blades and broken glass with an apple in the middle. The other is just an empty box with an apple in it, and it happens to be priced lower. Which apple do you choose?
  - upon_drumhead 4y ago
brianwawok 4y ago
I avoid NY in addition. I need to take out like 6 kinds of extra insurance (family leave insurance)?? Just not worth it. I’ll stick to the Midwest and lower east coast please!
bob1029 4y ago
I don't know if we have a hard rule or not, but HR has cautioned us against bringing in talent from CA multiple times over the years. Right now, our employees all reside central or eastern. I have a feeling we will not hire anyone living west of ATX for a long time. Beyond the bureaucracy issues, keeping to ~2 timezones is turning into a strategic advantage at our scale. If we had to do mountain & pacific as well, things would get much more complicated.
wakamoleguy 4y ago
If your offers aren't competitive for CA candidates, then it makes sense not to waste time recruiting them. Another way to accomplish this would be to post your salary ranges. Candidates who don't find it competitive won't apply at all. You may find some candidates in California who do find it competitive (perhaps outside the major metro areas). And you might avoid interviewing candidates from other regions who would never have accepted your offer.
mcv 4y ago
You talk about a bureaucratic web, but this is really just about posting a pay range, which is entirely reasonable. Job applicants don't want to spend hours, sometimes even days, on a job application process only to discover at the very end that the pay is way too low for them to realistically consider. It's easy information to share upfront, and can save both parties a lot of time and effort. Now if you don't want to hire from CA because people expect too high salary, then posting this salary range upfront will actually accomplish exactly what you need: people for whom the pay is too low will not respond and not waste your time. > In effect, this is The State attempting to Price Fix around jobs-of-a-feather. No matter the intention, this is not The States business. This has nothing to do with price fixing. You can still decide your own pay range. It's just for transparency. > The only possible purpose of making laws like this is so that the state can try to enforce some remedy whereby we're told how much we have to or are allowed to pay someone. No, the only purpose of laws like this is to increase transparency and thereby make the labor market more a free market. I really don't understand your concern here.
- flax 4y ago
  >the only purpose of laws like this is to increase transparency and thereby make the labor market more a free market. I really don't understand your concern here. Yes, you do.
nasablast 4y ago
Posting a salary range is hardly burdensome. The only “shenanigans” going on here is businesses willfully disregarding the intent of the law in furtherance of maintaining a status quo in which job seekers are at a significant disadvantage.
dasil003 4y ago
I’m not necessarily in favor of these pay transparency laws, but this comment is paranoid hyperbole. Posting a pay range is not some slippery slope to wage fixing, nor is it some insurmountable bureaucratic hurdle. It’s frankly just an administrative checkbox that may (or may not if the range is too large to be useful) waste less time with upwardly mobile candidates. There is 0% chance California starts mandating salaries at the mid to high end.
asoneth 4y ago
I agree with the trend you mention, but the fact that it is bi-directional preference may even things out a bit. States can focus on attracting employers by having business-friendly taxes, minimal labor laws, minimal environmental protection, and other corporate-friendly regulations. If they can attract and retain companies then people who need work will follow. Other states focus on attracting employees by having stronger worker-protection laws, strict environmental regulations, and amenities like education/arts/healthcare/transit. If they can attract and retain people then companies who need access to that labor pool will follow. Depending on their constraints, industries seem to gravitate towards states on one end of that continuum or the other. For example, there seems to be more manufacturing and agriculture than the US average in employer-friendly states and more technology and finance than the US average in employee-friendly states.

jen20 4y ago

> larger companies must certainly be at least taking this into consideration. Any yet, the majority of high-paying tech jobs in the US are still in CA, WA or NYC...

indymike 4y ago
That is changing fairly quickly.
fatnoah 4y ago
> larger companies must certainly be at least taking this into consideration. For many of them, it's probably a small compliance burden added to their already massive pile of existing ones.

malfist 4y ago

Similar arguments have been made against minimum wage. It's fine to say you want to pay your employees as little as you can get away with, just be honest about it.

shortrounddev 4y ago

Why don't you just post the salary

Justin_K 4y ago
His point is there is 10x rules and regulations in states like CA and it's difficult to keep up with if you're running a business from another state.
- SavageBeast 4y ago
  Hello fellow business owner - your comment suggests you have some experience outside of W2 employment. Thanks for your comment.
SavageBeast 4y ago
In our business an important factor is the personal/business/relationships network of the candidate we're talking with. You can see how this would be highly variable between 2 candidates. There is no "salary" or "salary range" in our case. We're not talking about hiring developers here but more Business Development types. It's hard to rank those people on a standard basis.
- skywal_l 4y ago
  So you're saying your comment is irrelevant to the example given in the article.
- vsareto 4y ago
  >In our business an important factor is the personal/business/relationships network of the candidate we're talking with. So you're ignoring potential networks in the largest and richest cities in America because you don't want to follow their laws?
  - thrill 4y ago
    Compliance with anything has a cost.

nerdponx 4y ago

Yes it's definitely a conspiracy by state governments to control your business, and not an attempt to decrease the asymmetry in labor markets, which without intervention strongly favors employers.

bfgoodrich 4y ago

"The only possible purpose of making laws like this"... Is for pay transparency. And in the vast, overwhelming percentage of the time, an employer knows precisely what they're planning to pay for a role, with extremely little variance. These cherry picked examples don't really mean a lot. As to your imaginary firm not hiring in "CA, CO or WA", absolutely nothing was lost by the residents of those states.

SavageBeast 4y ago
It's not about penalizing people residing in certain states. It's about not taking on additional regulatory burden. In a free country this is a choice we're allowed to make and we're willing to accept the trade off.
- malfist 4y ago
  Ah, yes, regulatory burden. Such a boogieman. It takes a lot of effort to type one sentence on a job posting. If you're hiring you already know what you're willing to pay for the position. It really isn't that hard to write that down where people besides just HR can see.

hexadec 4y ago

>The only possible purpose of making laws like this is so that the state can try to enforce some remedy whereby we're told how much we have to or are allowed to pay someone. Who in their right mind wants to sign up for that kind of risk? How is this the logical conclusion you arrive at? Do you as a company not have a salary range for headcount? Do you not expect prices to be posted by your vendors leading to a lack in informational symmetry and haggling during every routine interaction? Imagine if your landlord could arbitrarily raise your rent an untold amount with no notice. You of course have options, move or negotiate. But the informational asymmetry means it is harder for you to know if you are getting a good deal if every other landlord is listing their rent as $1-100000 per month or not telling you until after you spent the time checking out the property only to find it is way outside your budget. The time cost of candidates finding your job, doing some basic research, prepping for X rounds of interviews, possible homework, dealing with hiring managers/ recruiters is insane once you figure folks usually apply to multiple jobs. Why not just tell them up front the salary like you do for role expectations and company culture drivel? Posting honest salary bands is fine to me, say seniors will get $100-150k or whatever, but the article shows clear malice towards any legitimate transparency up front.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
SavageBeast 4y ago
Whether or not posting salary bands for a given position is a good idea or not a good idea, It rubs me the wrong way that a state government somehow imagines it has the authority to mandate this. And for what purpose? Why does a state make a law if not to enforce some as yet undefined remedy? What will this remedy be? I don't think we know yet but I for one do not want to find out. I have enough other problems to be concerned with. There are 2 boxes in front of you each containing a tasty red apple. One of those boxes is filled with barbed wire, razor blades and broken glass with an apple in the middle. The other is just an empty box with an apple in it, and it happens to be priced lower. Which apple do you choose?
- upon_drumhead 4y ago

brianwawok 4y ago

I avoid NY in addition. I need to take out like 6 kinds of extra insurance (family leave insurance)?? Just not worth it. I’ll stick to the Midwest and lower east coast please!

bob1029 4y ago

I don't know if we have a hard rule or not, but HR has cautioned us against bringing in talent from CA multiple times over the years. Right now, our employees all reside central or eastern. I have a feeling we will not hire anyone living west of ATX for a long time. Beyond the bureaucracy issues, keeping to ~2 timezones is turning into a strategic advantage at our scale. If we had to do mountain & pacific as well, things would get much more complicated.

wakamoleguy 4y ago

If your offers aren't competitive for CA candidates, then it makes sense not to waste time recruiting them. Another way to accomplish this would be to post your salary ranges. Candidates who don't find it competitive won't apply at all. You may find some candidates in California who do find it competitive (perhaps outside the major metro areas). And you might avoid interviewing candidates from other regions who would never have accepted your offer.

mcv 4y ago

You talk about a bureaucratic web, but this is really just about posting a pay range, which is entirely reasonable. Job applicants don't want to spend hours, sometimes even days, on a job application process only to discover at the very end that the pay is way too low for them to realistically consider. It's easy information to share upfront, and can save both parties a lot of time and effort. Now if you don't want to hire from CA because people expect too high salary, then posting this salary range upfront will actually accomplish exactly what you need: people for whom the pay is too low will not respond and not waste your time. > In effect, this is The State attempting to Price Fix around jobs-of-a-feather. No matter the intention, this is not The States business. This has nothing to do with price fixing. You can still decide your own pay range. It's just for transparency. > The only possible purpose of making laws like this is so that the state can try to enforce some remedy whereby we're told how much we have to or are allowed to pay someone. No, the only purpose of laws like this is to increase transparency and thereby make the labor market more a free market. I really don't understand your concern here.

flax 4y ago
>the only purpose of laws like this is to increase transparency and thereby make the labor market more a free market. I really don't understand your concern here. Yes, you do.

nasablast 4y ago

Posting a salary range is hardly burdensome. The only “shenanigans” going on here is businesses willfully disregarding the intent of the law in furtherance of maintaining a status quo in which job seekers are at a significant disadvantage.

dasil003 4y ago

I’m not necessarily in favor of these pay transparency laws, but this comment is paranoid hyperbole. Posting a pay range is not some slippery slope to wage fixing, nor is it some insurmountable bureaucratic hurdle. It’s frankly just an administrative checkbox that may (or may not if the range is too large to be useful) waste less time with upwardly mobile candidates. There is 0% chance California starts mandating salaries at the mid to high end.

asoneth 4y ago

I agree with the trend you mention, but the fact that it is bi-directional preference may even things out a bit. States can focus on attracting employers by having business-friendly taxes, minimal labor laws, minimal environmental protection, and other corporate-friendly regulations. If they can attract and retain companies then people who need work will follow. Other states focus on attracting employees by having stronger worker-protection laws, strict environmental regulations, and amenities like education/arts/healthcare/transit. If they can attract and retain people then companies who need access to that labor pool will follow. Depending on their constraints, industries seem to gravitate towards states on one end of that continuum or the other. For example, there seems to be more manufacturing and agriculture than the US average in employer-friendly states and more technology and finance than the US average in employee-friendly states.