Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges • Hacker News Board

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

#441

Post by selfhoster11 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 11:05 PM UTC

twawaaay wrote: post #387

somenewaccount1 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is so terrific you are talented enough that out of 3-4 places you want to work, one of them hires you. This seems like terrible advice for most people though. Even if 4 out of the 4 would hire you, the chances of getting your resume looked at and a callback is very slim - and that's because it's a numbers game on both sides. Popular roles often have 10's-100's of candidates.

> This seems like terrible advice for most people though. But why? Maybe reducing number of companies you apply to lets you focus much more on getting prepared and this leads to you standing out from other candidates? Remember, you don't need a thousand jobs, you just need one. One that suits you. If I am interviewer and I see a candidate that looks like he/she is prepared, did their research and genuinely care and w…

That advice only works if employees get to pick and choose. If for whatever reason you can't do that, focusing on particular companies besides the basics is pointless.

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

#442

Post by selfhoster11 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 11:08 PM UTC

srvmshr wrote: post #230

cultofmetatron wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

given the sterotype of the overworked salary man, its probably a red flag in that the red flag is "expects to be treated like a human being."

Okay here's the thing: Let me add some details to dispell that "part-myth". Salarymen do have long working hours & have to go along with those office drinking parties etc. But at the same time, they are treated more personally than an American enterprise employee would. Parents sick in old age? Many companies would give cash incentives to support. Buying a house? CEO might extend you a personal credit line or speak t…

That just sounds like mafia. No disrespect to the Japanese corporate culture, but I would never truly feel safe in this kind of employment.

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

#443

Post by Lazare » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 11:09 PM UTC

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 that misses the point. It's quite possible that if you have high salary ranges, you'll get high quality candidates through both versions of the job listing who will be happy with the offered salary.

The issue is the companies out there with low salary ranges. And while it's absolutely true that a high salary isn't going to make an otherwise bad job great, too low a salary will make an otherwise great job terrible.

So I'm not really surprised that your company wouldn't see much value from publishing salary ranges, but I don't think that means they have no value.

Also on a side note:

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

That's a weird link to give as evidence of that, since it immediately covers two different surveys that found compensation was the number 1 factor, before going on to discuss a third survey that found it was important, just not #1...

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

#444

Post by Amezarak » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 11:17 PM UTC

bastardoperator wrote: post #376

nibbleshifter wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 isn't how salaried position work though, not in the US anyways. You will get paid X if you work 10 hours a week or X if you work 50 hours a week. There is no difference in pay. Would you be open to losing pay? Do you want to be accountable for every single hour of work you do? Most don't.

I've been in the workforce for more than a decade and every salaried job was a minimum of 40 hours. At best you could comp time for the next week, but only up to so many hours.

If you were putting less than 40 hours a week in your timesheet, you had to use some form of paid time off (holiday, vacation, sick) or simply not get paid.

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

#445

Post by rustybelt » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 11:23 PM UTC

throwaway81523 wrote: post #403

joshklein wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "never again" story was around a decade ago. Thoughtworks had me interview with roughly a dozen people over half a dozen or more interviews, lasting ~20 hours (if you include the proctored Wunderlic test they administered to me on premises). At the end of that lengthy process, they said they would have loved to bring me on but "didn't have any open positions that fit my set of skills". You know, that set of skills…

I hadn't heard of the Wonderlic test before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test Interesting and a bit creepy. I think here in California for nerds who have been around for a while, companies have at least some concept of what competitive rates are, so I hadn't worried about posted salary ranges. If they waste your time leading up to a lowball offer, they at least have wasted their own time as well, so they…

It’s famously administered to all nfl quarterbacks. Tom Brady got a 33.

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

#446

Post by jasonladuke0311 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 11:50 PM UTC

websap wrote: post #180

Listing salary ranges is bad for employees because it limits upside from negotiation. Like everything it's just a trade-off between capping your downside and limiting your upside.

That’s like saying unions suck because Conor McGregor or Lebron James won’t make as much as they do now.

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

#447

Post by ssss11 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 11:58 PM UTC

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 don’t agree with this take, and there are tons of plausible reasons you may have had better responses to the ad without salary listed.

The problem is that no one wants to apply to a job where the salary isn’t viable for them.

Amongst the 50 other things they don’t know about a role and company, most of them you need to talk about in an interview, but item #1: salary, is make or break, and can be answered before even applying.

It’s disrespectful to candidates not to put a range on the ad.

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

#448

Post by caseymarquis » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:03 AM UTC

twawaaay wrote: post #387

somenewaccount1 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is so terrific you are talented enough that out of 3-4 places you want to work, one of them hires you. This seems like terrible advice for most people though. Even if 4 out of the 4 would hire you, the chances of getting your resume looked at and a callback is very slim - and that's because it's a numbers game on both sides. Popular roles often have 10's-100's of candidates.

> This seems like terrible advice for most people though. But why? Maybe reducing number of companies you apply to lets you focus much more on getting prepared and this leads to you standing out from other candidates? Remember, you don't need a thousand jobs, you just need one. One that suits you. If I am interviewer and I see a candidate that looks like he/she is prepared, did their research and genuinely care and w…

The last time I posted a job ad, 100 seemingly qualified candidates responded within 2 days. I interviewed 7 of them, and 6 out of those 7 were more than qualified for the position. Having lived both sides of this, I feel hiring is very much a numbers game.

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

#449

Post by mandeepj » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:37 AM UTC

joshklein wrote: post #384

dotdi wrote: post #256

More anecdotal evidence: a few years back I wanted to get out of the work situation I was in. I looked around, had some interviews, had some offers. None of the postings had salary ranges, as is common where I live. My eyes, however, were set on a specific small company because I liked their product. The process was long and involved multiple meetings, a take-home problem, and stretched over 2 or so months. I was upf…

My "never again" story was around a decade ago. Thoughtworks had me interview with roughly a dozen people over half a dozen or more interviews, lasting ~20 hours (if you include the proctored Wunderlic test they administered to me on premises). At the end of that lengthy process, they said they would have loved to bring me on but "didn't have any open positions that fit my set of skills". You know, that set of skills…

Thoughtworks also screwed me like that. They gave me a take-home assignment which took few hours. At the end, their feedback was - my code is not cloud scalable and their were some values that I used directly and not from a configuration :-).

How can those people claim to be interviewers?

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

#450

Post by paleotrope » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 12:50 AM UTC

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #272

kokanator wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All our salaries are based upon most recent data assembled by market across the country and, in the case of this round of hiring, +10% to deal with the current inflation conditions. So, I am not just 'saying'. I have data. Careful research goes into making sure our employees are paid in pace or exceeding the market.

This is what everyone says. "we know our salary is competitive because we benchmark it against the market". Most benchmarks for tech companies are dogshit though.

Yep I was going to say the same. My recent gig was like this, they paid a consultant firm big money to find out what the "market rate" was, around when I was hired, and when they finished and my boss spoke to me about it, he was like, "well you are way beyond the market rate they determined." My response was, "well are they going to try to claw some money out of my salary" and he kind of laughed and said no.

And turnover here is super high due to salary.