Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 544 posts

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#261

Post by codefreeordie »

memling wrote: post #81
time_to_smile wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> before you say, perhaps your salary ranges were bad, they weren't. Care to mention what they are? Because I suspect your ranges are out of line with industry standards that have risen quite rapidly. I know because I've started responding to any recruiters that sound interesting asking for comp ranges and they are all below my current base, let alone TC. If the upper bound of your range doesn't exceed $350k there is…

> If the upper bound of your range doesn't exceed $350k there is no chance that any of the senior engineers I know will apply and honestly to get something to think about leaving a job they are moderately happy with you'd have to have that be the lower bound of your range. Outside of SV, that upper-bound is an absolutely wild number.

If your upper bound does not greatly exceed that number*, then all of the actually senior folks that I know are not going to be interested in your role. Most of my contacts are outside the Bay.

I know lots of people who would consider applying to your senior role, all else being good, if you're offering, say $250k or so -- but none of them are the people on my mental list of senior engineering contacts. Still, you might hire one of my mid-level engineering contacts, and you might be happy with them, since if you're paying only around $250k (or even only $350k) you probably won't have many of the other group to compare with (and all of the people whose names I'm thinking of are all great engineers)

---

* assuming we're talking total compensation.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#262

Post by srvmshr »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #211
srvmshr wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And even with the terrible quality of life they have now, the Japanese world keeps spinning So it boils down to the working culture, no? The one I referenced initially.. My wife is interviewing for Oracle HR right now (mostly done deal). She is due for the final interview tomorrow. The offer has still not mentioned her compensation yet - although from hearsay she knows a ballpark. It seems even American companies p…

Suppose a Japanese bank had a technical problem that only one person could fix and it had brought down their whole system and they were losing tons of money. Culture would take a backseat and the Japanese execs would start talking compensation real fast. Clearly whoever is in charge of hiring at Oracle for your wife’s position is betting that your wife will not mind waiting to discuss compensation and/or they can fin…

She does have alternatives in IBM & Tesla. But they functioned the exact same way in interview. And given she's a top biller (~60 million yen per annum for her employer) Oracle wants her by August 1st week which is insane given she still has to give 30 days notice to Michael Page (but that will remain to be seen). I think in her case, she didn't bring it up because that isn't the norm. So all in all, it's not the market dynamics - but culture dynamics still.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#263

Post by lotsofpulp »

asdff wrote: post #223
Victerius wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite. Would you take the job for $300 000?

These comments are absurd considering farmhands get paid minimum wage to shovel huge pieces of manure

Each person’s opportunity cost is different. A farmhand shoveling huge pieces of manure for minimum wage probably does not have better options, whereas a software developer already earning a few hundred thousand does.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#264

Post by rapht »

From an employer's point of view there are many good reasons not to state a salary range, the 2 most obvious ones being:

- once you state clearly what your max is, why would your preferred candidate settle for anything less?

- why would you want to exclude good candidates willing to accept lower comp than what you thought your min was?

So then some places are a candidate's market... well maybe employers have to adapt, but I can see why they would not want to.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#265

Post by ben0x539 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #233
pessimizer wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you'd be surprised by this. If you were giving away milk, you'd get a better response from an ad that said "Free Milk" than an ad that said "Free Expired Milk," even though the milk you're giving away is expired. You're concealing relevant information in order to sucker in people who have no interest. It's the central mechanism behind "linkbait" headlines. It's just a dark pattern. People who were no…

> you'd get a better response from an ad that said "Free Milk" than an ad that said "Free Expired Milk," But he said he got better candidates with the ad that didn't post salary ranges. If I understand your analogy, that's like (counterintuitively) getting more responses for the expired milk.

I think they're implying the salary ranges are actually bad enough to smell like expired milk.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#266

Post by nvrspyx »

commandlinefan wrote: post #233
pessimizer wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you'd be surprised by this. If you were giving away milk, you'd get a better response from an ad that said "Free Milk" than an ad that said "Free Expired Milk," even though the milk you're giving away is expired. You're concealing relevant information in order to sucker in people who have no interest. It's the central mechanism behind "linkbait" headlines. It's just a dark pattern. People who were no…

> you'd get a better response from an ad that said "Free Milk" than an ad that said "Free Expired Milk," But he said he got better candidates with the ad that didn't post salary ranges. If I understand your analogy, that's like (counterintuitively) getting more responses for the expired milk.

No, it's not. They probably got responses from better candidates on the one with no salary range posted because if those candidates knew what the salary range was beforehand, they wouldn't have applied at all.

The better question is were they able to hire any of those better candidates after they told them that the milk was expired?

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#267

Post by chociej »

kokanator wrote: post #32

We just went through a large hiring cycle. We posted two versions for every job posting- one with salary ranges and one without. The ads performed equally well in regard to total responses with the better candidates responding to the ones without salary ranges. And... before you say, perhaps your salary ranges were bad, they weren't. Our salary offerings are very aggressive to the developer's benefit. In my opinion,…

High salary won't make you happy, but low salary will definitely make you sad.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#268

Post by mgraczyk »

I don't think that leaving it out of the job posting would ever prevent me from pursuing a role.

If I'm interested in a job, I ask for the compensation range. If they don't tell me, then I will not pursue the role. Personally my other requirements like field and company are much better ways to narrow the search than salary.

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#269

Post by t_mann »

Interesting, I know of a place where the same law had pretty much the opposite effect: every company pretty much just posts sth like "The minimum salary for this position is 35k/year, but we will overpay based on qualification". In reality, they'll easily pay 2-3x that amount, but my suspicion is that the law had an overall downward effect on salaries (especially at the junior end - being offered 1.5x the advertised amount might feel like a great offer if you don't have a good idea of the market).

Re: Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges

#270

Post by monocasa »

kxyvr wrote: post #58
hyperrail wrote: post #23

https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/ It seems to have been less active lately, but based on what you say, that may not be because employers are responding to the incentive...

How well is this law actually enforced? As an example, I quickly pulled a physician job at a random HCA hospital in Denver: https://careers.hcahealthcare.com/jobs/9031565-pulmonary-sla... I see no salary ranges. I pulled some other medical jobs as well and it seems moderately random if they list anything at all. Really, I may be misunderstanding the law and what information is supposed to be disclosed, but the larger…

It's enforced, but needs to be reported to have action taken.
Post reply on HN