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

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

#301

Post by tshaddox »

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,…

> If your primary reason for responding to an ad is based upon salary you are not going to be happy where you work.

It's not really clear what "primary" means here. It's certainly one of my primary concerns.

> Of the top reasons people are happy at work, salary is way down on the list.

Okay, but that doesn't mean that if the salary were zero they would take the job. It just means that they have enough options within their acceptable salary range that they also considered other factors.

Asking whether salary is the primary reason for choosing a job is a bit like asking if width is the primary reason for choosing a storage unit.

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

#302

Post by roflyear »

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,…

Why do you think people work? For fun?

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

#303

Post by devoutsalsa »

ClayM wrote: post #279
corrral wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but... some places think a "senior software developer" should make $70,000, and other think they should make $250,000 or more. And everything in between. I don't care how nice the a place it is to work, I'm not applying to the $70k place. If I can't quickly figure out where you fall on that spectrum, I'm not going to bother to contact you because job listings are not rare . If you somehow manage to present as exa…

i ran into a regional bank who wanted to pay a principal engineer $115K to build their entire digital customer facing platform i was stunned

Plot twist, that was the monthly rate.

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

#304

Post by germandiago »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #258
ipaddr wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting that good work life balance issue settled usually takes 2 or 3 rounds to pry some useful info out.

Not really. I'm paid to work 40h/week. Am I going to be expected to be working more than that? If so, I'll pass. If there's occasional overtime, sure, fine. But do I get paid extra for it? Does it get banked into extra PTO? And so on, stuff I ask prospective employers in the first conversation.

This is a difficult topic. We evolved to the 40h/week mentality. This is a big luck for us.

I think things should be more based on goals than on time itself, honestly. What I mean is: if you work 40h but you do not deliver anything, how is that good compared to someone that in 32 delivers more? We have to put ourselves on the side of the employer also, even if some people hate them.

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

#306

Post by hedora »

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,…

I think your experience makes sense. Over time, salary has become less than half my total comp. If salary is the headline number in the posting, I'll assume total comp isn't interesting.

Put another way, I'd rather work somewhere that's investing heavily in tech talent and also has good market fit. Stock tends to go up at places like that, so it had better be a big chunk of the offer. This makes total comp impossible to predict, and therefore hard to put in a single number.

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

#307

Post by fab13n »

I believe the reason they don't post salary ranges isn't to lure new hires into underpaid positions, at least not primarily.

it's in order to avoid renegotiation with current employees, who may have negotiated a less favorable deal, under different circumstances or because they can't haggle.

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

#308

Post by devoutsalsa »

ricardobeat wrote: post #300
jacquesm wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Save for one year then take 6 years off and come out roughly the same. That seems like an absolute no-brainer to me.

Not possible because their $500k/year likely only materializes after vesting. Leaving after only 3-4 years on the job would mean the realized yearly comp is closer to 200-250k.

My last job started vesting on Day 1. It was pretty nice.

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

#309

Post by jsdwarf »

twawaaay wrote: post #282

In decades of interviewing and hiring developers I have not seen an actual difference coming from posting salary ranges. I tried many different versions of this. As a candidate, I do not apply to a thousand different places. I find 3-4 where I would want to work and I do my research before I even apply. I know what they can pay me before I get to talk to them. As an interviewer I try to stay away from candidates that…

Your "loose-loose" problem can be easily addressed. Simply post two ads - one for a Developer, one for Senior Developer, Senior Developer range being x000 USD higer than dev range. If mediocre candidates apply for Senior, tell them that you can only offer them the dev Position because they lack qualification x. Vice versa, you can "promote" great dev candidates to the senior dev position. In the end, nobody forces you to hire both.

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

#310

Post by BlargMcLarg »

the_arun wrote: post #274
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of the top reasons people are happy at work, salary is way down on the list. You're conflating multiple things here. People aren't focusing on money because it's the most important part. They focus on money because it's one of the few things that's relatively easy to make tangible ahead of time. Similar goes for things like remote/hybrid, secondary benefits, etc. Many elements on that list, while important, are incr…

Work Life Balance is purely subjective & depends on personal preferences. Your balance in life != mine. It also depends on : 1. How creative/smart we are in achieving outcomes with less work. 2. Would my company provides a platform to accelerate this?

Whether it's subjective or not doesn't matter to the topic at hand.

The status quo is, you're not getting that information upfront. It would very much be useful for you to know before sinking in several hours of effort and accumulate stress, only to figure out it doesn't at all match your preferences and the remainder of the package doesn't make up for it.

It is also one of the few things that companies can do which won't increase costs when practiced properly. That's the whole point of the root comment, and it falls flat given most job ads are secretive about almost everything.

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