NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings • Hacker News Board

Re: NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

#231

Post by jameshart » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

ebiester wrote: post #208

jameshart wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know the market rate for a candidate that is just over-the-bar for my role, and I know that market rate for a super-star who can not only do this role, but is probably already capable of doing the next one. Those are going to be two vastly different numbers. Which one are you looking to pay for? If you have budget for a superstar, why would you settle for just-over-the-bar talent? I kind of find myself suspecting…

It's so rare for a superstar not to know their market rate as to be unlikely. What I can see happening is that more corporations start doing SDE 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12, with different ranges, and most of the interviews are at 7-10 and are "releveled" at 3-5. We will end up in the same place we started but with more games.

> It's so rare for a superstar not to know their market rate as to be unlikely

You're no-true-scotsmanning 'superstar' here to assume, I suspect, that one of the attributes of a superstar is being in the know, and so on top of the industry and job market that they are aware how much their skills are worth.

For a certain class of superstar that may be true, but there are many, many very strong developers who are working in backwater job markets and have not looked for jobs in a while who literally have no idea what typical total comp offers from serious tech companies in hot markets are like.

There are plenty of high skilled people who have been blown away by an offer they thought was incredibly generous, only to discover they were actually lowballed.

Re: NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

#232

Post by wonderwonder » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

actually_a_dog wrote: post #185

gopalv wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they're not doing that, they're wasting your time and their time. Actually, they're getting paid for the their time. I'm not. I'm actually burning my time. > Recruiters should be talking about numbers in the first interview. I'm going through the recruitment process right now and the numbers out of the gate are always lowball figures (possibly personalized to me), because of two reasons. Because they want to see…

> So the companies are legitimately balking at this because they'll have to pay their existing employees more if they put out an attractive posting.... Let's phrase this properly: companies are balking because they'll have to pay existing employees market rate .

100%

Re: NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

#233

Post by boole1854 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #228

boole1854 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It can be dealt by creating high-paying higher rungs on career ladder and then promoting the 10x people there. So, regular SE position can have a salary range of say $120k-$150k, but principal senior staff ninja can have say $400k-$600k. That's how FAANGs do it basically.

I see that as being more helpful from a regulatory point of view (i.e., by providing a limited defense against claims of pay discrimination) than from an employee morale point of view. E.g., when people express dissatisfaction over the fact that those in the C-suite make X times what the average employee does, pointing out that the people in the C-suite have different titles or roles from the average employee doesn't seem to assuage anybody.

Re: NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

#234

Post by drogus » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #54

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 have been searching for a job at least few times in the past few years. I’ve emailed/messaged probably 100s of tech companies asking for a salary range. Maybe one or two companies failed to give me the salary range. I have no idea what companies you work with, but from my experience most companies in tech know the salary ranges for the positions they hire for, they just require an extra effort from people to find out.

Re: NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

#235

Post by bombcar » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

djur wrote: post #227

andrewstuart wrote: post #54

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…

A previous employer of mine had fixed salary levels by role adjusted by region (for cost of living). Absolutely no salary negotiations, no bonuses. Despite this, they did the "offer not available in Colorado" routine as well as resisting requests for internal pay transparency. The "good reason" for not listing salary is that it makes it harder for prospective and current employees to comparison shop. Period.

Unless it's the core competency, companies are by definition conservative as all hell. They do not want to change ANYTHING unless they have to. Whenever the decision is "change something, or turn off X and not change anything" the latter will be the decision unless something forceful acts in the opposite direction.

They act this way even if "doing the thing" would be right, easy, good, productive, whatever.

Re: NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

#236

Post by jjav » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #139

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The fact is that many employers don't actually know what they would be willing to pay someone. > Then they need better data. A great way to get that would be looking at all the other job listings with salary ranges if they don't already have access to back channel data. You're missing the point: the variable is the candidate , not the role. I know the market rate for a candidate that is just over-the-bar for my ro…

> I know the market rate for a candidate that is just over-the-bar for my role, and I know that market rate for a super-star who can not only do this role, but is probably already capable of doing the next one. Those are going to be two vastly different numbers. Which one are you looking to pay for? If you have budget for a superstar, why would you settle for just-over-the-bar talent? I kind of find myself suspecting…

> Which one are you looking to pay for? If you have budget for a superstar, why would you settle for just-over-the-bar talent?

Having done a fair amount of hiring over decades... because you don't know who will show up.

The minimum bar of the job description is who I need at least. But occasionally someone shows up who is insanely perfect, hitting on every optional wishlist item. I'll pay a lot more for that person, but I can't count they will apply because I can't wait a year for the perfect person to show up. So I'm also happy to hire someone at the minimum bar if that's how it goes.

Re: NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

#237

Post by braingenious » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #54

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 shoot the messenger

You’re not exactly just “the messenger” here. You posted several paragraphs explaining that a good chunk of your livelihood depends on this phenomenon of “not sharing data about pay.”

A messenger’s salary is independent of the opinionated slant of the information he conveys.

Re: NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

#238

Post by jjav » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #131

andrewstuart wrote: post #54

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…

Companies absolutely have fixed hiring budgets and salary guidelines. It's not that surprising to me, though, that if they don't have to share that with an external recruiter they will choose not to. You're probably on a percentage of the final hiring salary, so why would they tell you the max salary they're willing to offer? Your interests are not aligned. The way it works in most companies that are big enough to ha…

> Companies absolutely have fixed hiring budgets and salary guidelines.

Yes, they hay budgets and salary guidelines.

All of that is negotiable as a hiring manager. Just a matter of how many levels up the chain you need to go to get the approval and whether you (hiring manager) can convince them, which depends on how strong the candidate is.

Re: NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

#239

Post by bombcar » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #195

ipaddr wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have them work from the Florida office and bypass this

Does even that work? They're saying if the company has any jobs that could be performed in the NYC—even fully remote jobs—they have to post salary ranges for all jobs, as I understood it.

We could test this pretty easily by getting a state to pass a privacy law that salaries cannot be disclosed, even indirectly.

In reality most tiny businesses wouldn't be affected, and most larger ones would just split into two legal entities closely allied, until finally someone like Google takes it to court, where the Interstate Commerce Clause would actually be used for regulating interstate commerce.

Before that, however, the states would probably work to negotiate something so they don't get slapped federally.

Re: NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

#240

Post by akvadrako » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

chrisdbanks wrote: post #94

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…

It doesn't make sense that top people return many times what the average does but you are only able to pay them 50% more. That kind of thinking is why salary ranges should be posted before top people waste their time applying.