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

NYC to require salary ranges be included in job postings

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 331 posts

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

#301

Post by chrisdbanks »

throwaway292939 wrote: post #110
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…

Eh I'm not sure this argument holds up. You can post a job ad targeting the top people and list the top of market salary band. If you can't find such a candidate, you can delete the job ad and post the ad targeting the "average person". You may even be able to post the two ads simultaneously.

This would take double the time but also assumes that the same people are on the market during phase 1 and 2 which won't be true. In some cases I have s time constraint and just need the best available person. If they happen to be a top performer then do much the better.

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

#302

Post by chrisdbanks »

akvadrako wrote: post #241
game_the0ry wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The worst case is that I say I can't afford you. Actually, the worst case is that they employer lies and after 4 rounds of interviews and maybe take home assignments, the employer says "actually this job will be paying much less." (this has happened to me once, it wastes everyones' time)

You should always ask for your expected hourly rate for take home assignments. If they think it's too much, obviously they will low-ball you. And if they agree, at least it's not a total waste if they low-ball you anyway.

I completely agree. I would never ask someone to do work for free, but take homes are the best way of simulating actual job performance and can be enlightening for both sides.

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

#303

Post by Test0129 »

I'm not so much frustrated by a lack of salary ranges in ads as I am about two things:

1. Waiting to figure out salary until the final interview.

2. No mention of CoL adjustments.

I don't know what employers expect to gain. Cynically people think that it's because employees are terrible negotiators. Maybe that's true. I always ask the top of the salary range based on other salary postings and let them explain to me why they have to work me down. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it's a CoL adjustment or other non-sense and I don't complete the paperwork.

I'm not convinced that posting salary ranges will make pay more balanced. It's nice to see but I think what people want is a hard number - you will definitely make $X if you work here. Unfortunately, it's typically not that simple. At my company we have pay bands by seniority, and pay bands inside those pay bands (to provide for raises, etc - merit pay).

This system works. What people should be doing in my opinion is talking about their salary. Force your employers to justify salaries. This is how I got a raise after I figured out I was paid 20k less than the new guy.

However, I'm not sure people are ready to hear "you're bottom barrel" to a response on why your salary is at the lowest band. Unfortunately, humans are creatures that compare and you won't be able to guilt your employer into paying you more if you are actually just simply bad at your job. I think discussing salaries openly will help the merit worthy engineers get what they should be getting. It will, necessarily, cause a LOT of hurt feelings however because a lot more people think they are more merit-worthy than they are. Whether it's worth it to protect people's delicate sensibilities can only be figured out by doing it. Discuss your salaries!

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

#304

Post by avereveard »

rednerrus wrote: post #189
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…

If they're asking your number and you're not being straight forward, what's the problem? Them: "What's your number"? You: "$350k." Them: "Ok, cool lets move forward." or "That's a lot of money and we can't pay that much. Thanks for meeting with us." I'm assuming that you've done your homework and know what a reasonable top of the range is. If that's the case, just say what your number is and let them decide if it's t…

There's also option c they say your number is in range, go tough the interview carousel and lowball you at the end

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

#305

Post by avereveard »

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 was a CTO, we definitely had a budget in mind for every level of seniority. Idk what CTO you're working with, maybe the region you work within is biased for generating self appointed ctbros.

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

#306

Post by mchaver »

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…

> lots of unhappy responses to this, but don't shoot the messenger

Generally it is assumed that the messenger is a relatively neutral party, like a courier or a postman. A recruiter has a lot of input into how that message is delivered and some insider knowledge, so they aren't completely neutral. I imagine companies want recruiters to take a few shots for them.

> Go ask your team lead/CEO/CTO how recruiting works.

Salary ranges are posted in all job advertisements.

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

#307

Post by tomrod »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #285
tomrod wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer. I just like to speculate about what feels reasonable, with a remarkable 10% success rate or lower in legal rulings. My thought is that it will be a Solomon split based on how the entities set up operation. If you have operations out of NYC and hire for operations to be based in NYC, then you'll be required to post (akin to Colorado today). There seems to be precedence for this with regards to taxat…

...given that a ruling can go one of two ways, either for or against the plaintiff, this is in fact a remarkable success rate. By choosing the opposite of whatever you predict, someone else could accurately predict the outcome of a case 90% of the time!

I'm glad my joke landed!

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

#308

Post by Kalanos »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #149
Kalanos wrote: post #92

After reading the Road to Serfdom - this gov mandate feels like it trends toward communism, not a free-market meritocracy. The next thing you know the gov will start assigning $ranges to positions, and qualifications for those positions.

That seems like a big leap but I'll bite. How do you see a connection between "Let people know what salary they're in the running for" and "You must not pay more than XYZ for this job"? I get that it is possible but I'd be interested if you have reasons for believing it is a real risk beyond a slim chance.

They already demand equal pay by gender.

Government involvement only grows. Did excise tax and annual inspections exist when cars were first introduced?

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

#309

Post by parkingrift »

throwaway292939 wrote: post #50
gsk22 wrote: post #5

While I am supportive of this, I expect a lot (majority?) of listings with ranges like "$40k-200k based on experience". (Or the example from the article, "$17-50/hr")

It's a red flag for me when the range from the company is too broad. It sounds like they don't know what they want. If they truly need people of different levels of experience, it would make more sense for them to write separate job descriptions that accurately describe the responsibilities of the role.

>If they truly need people of different levels of experience, it would make more sense for them to write separate job descriptions that accurately describe the responsibilities of the role.

They would do that if not for laws like this. Instead the JD is a legal checkbox, and you get the actual responsibilities after you apply.

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

#310

Post by parkingrift »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #203
colechristensen wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes to federal court and the court makes a decision that states (or cities) cannot regulate each other and strikes down the laws requiring contradictory actions on entities which cross state boundaries. Too lazy to google references to similar decisions, I believe a landmark case involves shipping with either trucks or trains with states having conflicting requirements.

So, do you think this NYC law is likely to get cut back by the courts, or would it be incumbent on another municipality to pass a contradictory law first?

It is almost guaranteed that the NYC law will reduced down to only apply to positions which are physically located in NYC.

I’d bet NYC based companies hiring remote workers will be exempt.

NYC government is famous for overstepping and getting slapped around by state and federal courts.

Post reply on HN