8 ms·
No salary wastes everyone's time
It's the first of the month, so that means "Who's Hiring".
Roles which do not list a salary (or reasonable salary range) will have worse signal-to-noise applications the more senior the roles.
Missed opportunity: company and candidate may never meet because candidate assumes low salary.
Wasted company and candidate time: candidate is enthusiastic and goes through some effort/process before discovering the salary is too low.
The days of hiding salary numbers need to end. Imagine shopping at some stores where the cost of items were not displayed until checkout. Shoppers would favor the stores which listed prices up front; they would only visit the hidden-price stores for unique or specialty items which were not available at stores which listed prices.
If a company cannot compete on salary, and they know it, they should explain why they are still worth considering. And if they have no value to offer to make up for the comparatively low salary, then they should make clear that they accept more junior developers (or are willing to train).
(reposted with title change based on previous comment recommendation)
- _Microft 3y agoToo bad, this didn’t help either as it seems. Thanks for trying! Edit: ha, it has made it to page 2 now. Good luck!
- hirundo 3y agoThere's more to a job than the salary, and it can be reasonable for a company to leave salary ambiguous in order to make that sales pitch. Sometimes it's half the company; sometimes it's a set of steak knives. And it's reasonable for an applicant to decide that they're all about the salary and don't want to waste time on the sales pitch, and move on.
- VoodooJuJu 3y agoFor the working class (most applicants), we're here just for the salary. We're not here for prestige, or asslicking, or passion. We're here to put food on the table and to potentially build for our children a future where they don't have to sell their time for money.
- potsandpans 3y agoidk what you're talking about, I'm here to get paid.
- throw9away6 3y agoAre you the person on the dating site that refuses to post a photo as well?
- hirundo 3y agoExactly. Some of us are ugly but still have a hope when face to face. That ambiguity gives us a chance at being a contender, to make the case that there's more to us. Is that unreasonable for an ugly person? I think its not, and its also not unreasonable for someone else to think "no picture, they're probably ugly and I'm all about the looks, so I'll pass."
- 000ooo000 3y agoI think it might be a mistake to conflate business ethics with personal ethics. I have sympathy for individuals who through no fault of their own struggle in the dating scene; I have no sympathy for corporate entities in any regard.
- paulddraper 3y agoI want to be upfront. Here's the difficulty. (I say this as an employer.) Let's say I'm looking for engineer #2 or #3 for my YC startup and I'll pay 95k for junior or 185k for senior. Is posting 95-185k really that useful? What happens when I offer someone 130k but they were expecting 185k? And you can't just use years of experience alone to rank junior vs senior. tl;dr If engineers were more fungible, I could post a precise number. But I don't think they are.
- ryapric 3y agoSo post two openings to close the gap?
- aaomidi 3y ago“Junior: pay$ Senior: pay$”
- xboxnolifes 3y agoYou say: "I'm looking for engineer #2 or #3 for my YC startup and I'll pay 95k for junior or 185k for senior."
- paulddraper 3y agoThe next question is "what does junior mean" and "what does senior mean". There's always another question
- danwee 3y agoIf you're looking for a "junior" and you don't know what a "junior" means, then that's your problem, no? I mean, if you are willing to pay X for position Y, you (your company) should know exactly what you are looking for. Otherwise you are just fishing and see what happens. Not bad, though, but I don't think that's an excuse for "can't list salaries in job ads"
- paulddraper 3y ago
- jcpsimmons 3y agoEloquently put. The last time I was on the market I didn’t apply to a single company that didn’t list salary - every time I’ve done that their pitch was underwhelming. To those saying “there’s more than salary” - that’s a privileged take. I hate to use that word but it’s appropriate here. Salary ONLY MEANS being able to put a roof over your family’s head and feed them.
- schwartzworld 3y agoThere _is_ more than salary, but most of it would be classified as "nice-to-haves". Would I take an offer that wasn't the highest one I got if I thought the WLB or culture was better? Probably, but there's a limit. $10k less for a better WLB, sure. $50k less? Probably not.
- SergeAx 3y agoWith this line of thoughts one should've joined a blockchain/ICO/NFT/web3 scam. They were used to be 50-100% above the market.
- schwartzworld 3y agoIt's not the worst idea. I build web UIs, I don't really care what product they support as long as it's not explicitly harming anyone. But it's also missing the point. I apply for the jobs I want, I just don't want to apply for the ones that make below my bottom line.
- arcastroe 3y agoNot just salary, but TC range would be helpful. How do I interpret a listing that says $X salary + equity?
- hakunin 3y agoThis is probably going to be controversial. I find salary to be really weird for many reasons. One of them is that I just can't imagine a sustainable world where salary is proactively offered, raised, etc. I think it necessarily must be negotiated. I say this as a person who spent most of my 20y career negotiating for my salary and hating the process. It feels attractive on the surface to see a concrete number, kind of like coming to a car website and seeing cars sold at a fixed price, no bargaining. Or kind of like searching for loan refinancing and seeing a bank website show you the standard menu of rates they offer. You just pick from the menu. However, the issue is that you're probably overpaying for the car, and getting a bad refinance rate every time. And your blanket "salary tier" is probably some safe hedge for the worth you may or may not be bringing. An estimation of vague plans they might have on where you may help. Shouldn't this be reversed? Shouldn't it be you to tell them what you can do, the plans, explain how much you're worth? How can they know your salary if you haven't told them this stuff yet? Aren't you supposed to be an expert at something? That's just one of a few weirdnesses about salary. Maybe it depends on a job, and some jobs are really _that_ predictable, but feels like in software dev industry it doesn't add up, except maybe for junior positions. I used to be in the opposite camp, but nowadays every time I see a concrete salary range listed, it makes me feel silly. We all know that humans running the place can probably decide to pay whatever they want based on how they feel. I can't imagine a situation where they go "sorry, we really think we need you, but our job listing only goes up to this number, oops".
- hitsurume 3y agoYour mindset doesn't count for the wasted time on being lowballed by companies. Say you have your 20 years of experience, you go through several rounds of interviews and they offer you a junior level salary with their big fat smile. Now what? They wasted your time from the very beginning hoping to charm you into wanting to work there. The people interviewing you are all getting paid, yet you are the one who have time loss and no gain. Now imagine if multiple companies did that to you throughout your job search, wouldn't you rather the company start with honesty from the very beginning?
- hakunin 3y ago
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoI really love negotiating. I also like knowing the budget a position has been assigned. Obviously salary means you're getting paid less than the value you contribute so then it becomes a matter of squeezing more value out of the position or adding more value than advertised? I've interviewed candidates. They come in every skill set. Some under value themselves while others. We've been given a max budget of $150k. What do you do when an amazing candidate who could replace a dozen current employees only wants $180k?
- iExploder 3y agonever going to happen for a very simple reason. what every for profit company is trying to do is to extract as much value and labor from employee as possible. dont get it twisted, this is a war and salary is strategic information. noone in their right mind is going to share this information unless they are forced to or believe there is tangible benefit (for them) behind it. your boss is not your boss because they are nice and kind person, your boss is your boss because they figured out how to extract value from other people for their benefit.
- danwee 3y agoThe junior version of myself would agree: when you are a junior you have little power of negotiation and you accept whatever the company offers to you at the end of the interview cycle (besides, if you manage to get to the end of the cycle, then you're probably thinking "I cannot let this opportunity pass"). So, if salaries are public, then you know what you are going for. The senior version of myself wouldn't mind having no salaries advertised in job offerings. I know that now I have more power of negotiation and I know how much I should ask for in an interview. In order to not lose time in interviews, sometimes I tell upfront "BTW, I'm expecting at least X per year. Is that alright? Otherwise, goodbye and thank you for your time". Sometimes I don't say that and wait until the end because my guts (and the internet) tells me that the company can pay really well, so I want to make a good impression in the interview and ask for a 10% more of whatever salary they offer me first.
- psyfi 3y agoIt is quite the opposite. As a junior, you are more desperate for work to get experience, have less liabilities and would accept anything anyway, so the salary won't make much difference. As a senior, your time worth more and you should not waste it on companies you are out of their league, you are less likely to accept a low salary as your liabilites need to be covered. Yes, you can negotiate but your prespective assumes most companies would give you what you want eventually, which isn't true.
- psyfi 3y agoI tend to focus on what I can control: I cannot make the job market makers play fair(?) game, but I can reach to current and past employees on linkedin and get the salary range myself, and discard interviews where it is hard to negotiate to an acceptable salary. Also, some keywords in job ads shows more probabilty of lower than market salary, no company is really looking for someone who is looking for new challenges or who can wear many hats, they are just looking for affordable candidates
- pg_1234 3y agoNo need to source info through side channels. A company that doesn't post a salary AND doesn't even give you a range when asked is a write-off. They are either grossly incompetent and/or planning to exploit you from the get go.
- av3a13 3y agoManager here. I've been on both side of the table. From HM perspective showing salary is bad idea. I can pay whatever I want inside budget assigned and build a smaller team of seniors or larger swarm of juniors depending on many factors. But first and foremost I want to have people with certain culture and mindset. If I put low range I might loose opportunity to talk to people above the range. But if I show high salary I am overwhelmed with conartists and tricksters trying to find their way to high compensation by finding company with poor vetting process. No exceptions for 10 years. I have yet to see a case where it brought a talent into pipeline. Thus unless obliged by the law I am not showing any ranges and determine expectations through conversation with candidates compose a team from them and see if I can sweet the deal by beating their expectations. From candidate perspective I see no issue, if you have few years of experience already you know potential employer salary tier just by looking on what they are doing. I would try to avoid providing salary expectations, but if forced to just make current+30% stake. And if it in a right league it's no issue for going through interview process. I learn a lot on interviews by turning tables and trying to deep dive on what they doing and challenges facing and frequently get above the market offers.
- shinryuu 3y ago> If I put low range I might loose opportunity to talk to people above the range. > I can pay whatever I want inside budget assigned and build a smaller team of seniors or larger swarm of juniors depending on many factors. You could also announce two positions (one senior, one junior), with two different ranges.