221–230 of 331 posts
I'm a recruiter. I've known for a long time it drives people nuts that job ads don't have salary, or have a wide salary range. The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone . Until they have met them, assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the team. The conversation almost always go…
Take this example, which happens multiple times per day. Junior candidate applies to senior job. Thinks cause they are senior at X company, that means they are at Y. False. Every company has diff leveling and definition on what that means. Companies give away senior titles like candy. Go look at how many "engineers" with 2-3 years of experience are senior at a number of companies. How is giving away those titles good faith? Really? Is anyone SENIOR after that little on the job? I sure hope not.
Anyway, back to my example. They still consider the candidate, but at a lower level. Salary on job posting doesn't match the candidates expectations. This is why its the recruiter AND the candidates responsibility to get within the ball park on the initial phone conversation. Its still difficult for the recruiter to confirm with the candidate that they'll get the range they want. Usually they need to be interviewed and have their skills/ability assessed first.
I'm a recruiter. I've known for a long time it drives people nuts that job ads don't have salary, or have a wide salary range. The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone . Until they have met them, assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the team. The conversation almost always go…
> don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. As an employee, sounds like not my fuckin problem. I'm not about to go through 3 phone screens, a take-home test, a full-day onsite, etc. just for the privilege to be low-balled or even worse denied. > I think it will be about $X Oh! So looks like it's not that hard to ball-park a number off the top of your head. I don't get this "how the world really w…
This salary range thing won't fix that. Ready? The job listing is now "$100k to $200k depending on experience." If you are making $140k and hoping to make $160k the range doesn't help you at all. You still better talk about salary up front!
As an employer, I am reticent to name a salary range because the fact is that the return on investment of employees is not normally distributed; it follows a power law where the top people return many times the amount of an average person. This may be because of connections, experience, intelligence, or a mixture. When I recruit I always want to hire a top person for whom I'm happy to pay 50% more than an average per…
There are many possible bad cases. Possibly much worse than this is that the candidate lowballs themselves. Another bad case is that they price themselves out when they might have been willing to take a lower offer after learning more.
The candidate has just as much uncertainty as the employer. There's no reason the burden should be on the candidate to be the first to name a number.
What's wrong with just needing the minimum? Why do they need a band with the maximum?
For example a company might be willing to pay up to $175k for a certain dev position. This amount of money seems completely crazy to a developer who comes from a poor family and is the first one to have a skill that can pay so much. It will never occur to them to attempt to negotiate for this amount, because even $90k seems like a great salary compared to what their parents had. $175k would seem unreal, especially in a country where talking about money is taboo.
But if this number can be seen often in ads as an upper range, it becomes normalized in the eyes of everyone who is applying for jobs, no matter their educational and cultural background.
I'm a recruiter. I've known for a long time it drives people nuts that job ads don't have salary, or have a wide salary range. The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone . Until they have met them, assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the team. The conversation almost always go…
I've been a techie in the same company for 20 years; then I've become a lead and therefore hiring manager last few years.
I'll open a seat for something I need, and may be able to specify a range of levels/bands that we are acceptable; but the salary hugely depends on the person - primarily their skills, experience, knowledge, history, as well as (again unpopular but realistic) how well they interview. I may have a team of 5 ops managers and need a sixth one; I'm OK hiring a junior band 6 out of school to fully train up for salary X, or a reasonably experienced one for band 7 or 8 for salary Y; and if I happen to receive a resume for an exceptionally, uniquely qualified candidate with expertise with client or type of client and/or software/system/business we're working for, I might be willing to hire them as band 9 for salary Z.
With that in mind, what's the end-game here?
a) Publish full range of all possibilities - e.g. $60,000 -> $150,000? That's is true and accurate but it's not useful (and see human-psychology disclaimer below).
b) Publish a specific smaller range, and miss out on good candidates on both sides of the range.
To your point, government publishes their rate but that is because they aim, intentionally and knowingly, to mediocrity and not meritocracy. The bell curve is artificially flattened. It's a different system and goal. But I'm OK if my teams have a bell curve! Nobody is born at the edge, and I'm usually on projects big enough that I can train people up :)
(As well, what most people won't admit, is that very few of us are happily aware of our actual performance and will happily take salary that matches it - e.g. in the medium of range for medium of performance; so large companies may well end up moving to a boring average, depressed salaries for all, because if I publish range of e.g. 60-150k, how many people will willingly admit they only have experience/history/skills for e.g. 85k?)
I'm a recruiter. I've known for a long time it drives people nuts that job ads don't have salary, or have a wide salary range. The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone . Until they have met them, assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the team. The conversation almost always go…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most won't directly voice this, but I believe the primary objection from many employers is that there kinds of salary transparency laws raise the floor , since you know (roughly) what all of your colleagues are making. In other words: software (like most other industries) relies in part on employees low-balling themselves (and stigma around sharing salary information), which is harder to do when you know what the act…
In my opinion -- and I have no hard data to back this up, merely some limited personal experience -- the biggest issue employers will have about salary transparency is that it makes paying high performers high salaries more difficult. Typically having a high performer on staff is a huge win for the employer. E.g., at one previous company, the top couple sales people were 10X performers compared to the median sales pe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what is the precise number you pay your senior developers? Sorry to call you out, but I simply don't believe the answer is anything but "it depends on a range of factors". Unless it is a government job, but even then, likely it depends on a range of factors, and often even government clients flex their budget to meet their recruiting goals.
It's ok if it depends on a range of factors, but those factors should be detailed in the job posting. The candidate should be able to read the ad and calculate what their salary would likely be based on the company's salary determination process. Most importantly, the ad should reveal the position's maximum salary, so job seekers know how much money is on the table. Ideally, median and average salaries would also be…
Noble goal that I feel is completely naive about human psychology.
I believe that exceedingly few of us have sufficient self-awareness and humility to see a range of e.g. "100-200k", and recognize easily that our performance and skill and history and capability is worth 120k, and will not feel scammed and underappreciated.
The prevailing wisdom on HN is empathically NOT "be happy with what you're worth", it's "ask for more more more", completely prior to any discussion of person's actual history, skillset, contribution, productivity, etc. And that's OK! We are human beings and inherently selfish and if we don't look after ourselves, who will? But it's disingenuous to then pretend that publication of a salary range will have any outcome other than all candidates expecting the top or slightly above... and I personally feel that will only result in employers pushing down the salary to match the average candidate.
I'm a recruiter. I've known for a long time it drives people nuts that job ads don't have salary, or have a wide salary range. The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone . Until they have met them, assessed them, heard what they salary target is and weighed it up against their skills and experience and calibrated it against the team. The conversation almost always go…
I've never had a recruiter balk or push back on answering even for the roles I decided not to pursue. A recruiter doing so would be a huge flashing red light for me.
"If it makes you mad that job ads do not list salary, then there are good reasons and you will just have to get over or it not apply for that job.
It's that easy - if the ad doesn't specify salary and that is a key requirement for you, don't get angry, just don't apply."
Or the state could just pass a law making it a required field...