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Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now let's see if they add maternity leave to their list of benefits. They add paternity leave, but do they expect all applicants to be male?

Now it's "parental leave" :)

I suspect it was a mistake/typo (someone confused "paternity" for the general term).

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#202
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been law in Colorado for 2 years and applies to anyone offering jobs to any Colorado resident including remote jobs. The law passed in 2019 and went into effect Jan 1, 2021.

Different companies clearly have different legal teams giving differing advice. I found this one fascinating: “If you are a Colorado or New York City resident and this role is a remote role, you can receive additional information about the compensation and benefits for this role, which we will provide upon request. Requests can be submitted here.“ link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScOlYgPtpG56uqO0O9j...…

It amounts to plausible deniability. "We do just enough so you are less likely to sue us."

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the companies indeed inflicting self harm? They might get less applications that way, but posting salary ranges for new employees has other downsides - e.g. it might tilt existing employees. Another downside is that it's easy to scrap and collect this data and companies might not like candidates or employees easily accessing historical data. Sharing salary range basically reduces the knowledge advantage of a comp…

> Are the companies indeed inflicting self harm? They are spending 14% more on recruitment advertising than they would have to if they just put a range in the salary box. So, yes, financial self harm. 14% is substantial for many companies. > ther downsides - e.g. it might tilt existing employees. People have access to wage data and job boards in their pocket. If they answer that unknown caller, it's as likely to be a…

>They are spending 14% more on recruitment advertising than they would have to if they just put a range in the salary box.

Mind you I prefer when companies post salaries, but 14% greater/fewer applicants does not directly equate to 14% greater/lesser spend on listings. A company only needs one qualified applicant. More applicants means you might find better candidates faster/more easily, but by itself listing salaries isn't necessarily going to save the company money.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#204
post #186

I've been in the job board / HR Tech space for a while, and every time I see a state pass a law requiring advertising the salary range, I'm reminded of a few facts: * Showing your salary range as long as it is at market wage or higher delivers 14% more applicants. It is a good idea to show salary on job ads. * If you don't give the job board a salary range, they will use tools like salary.com or their own tools to sh…

no opinion about these laws but: > * Showing your salary range as long as it is at market wage or higher delivers 14% more applicants. It is a good idea to show salary on job ads. might not be what you want. You might want the best engineers who you will have to make exceptions for in their TC

My unsolicited advice (for founders) is to hire the best people you can afford.

I've seen startups blow 2-3 headcount worth of budget to secure a FAANG engineer, only to realize that engineer needed an SRE to deploy their code, a tools engineer to setup their CI/CD, etc. The founders were so excited to add "FAANG engineer" to their Series A deck.

Firing this engineer was tough because the startup went to the board to get approval for the salary + equity offer letter. To make matters worse, this engineer was kept on for 6+ months without shipping anything ... because firing would've gone into the next board and investor update.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#205
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been law in Colorado for 2 years and applies to anyone offering jobs to any Colorado resident including remote jobs. The law passed in 2019 and went into effect Jan 1, 2021.

Different companies clearly have different legal teams giving differing advice. I found this one fascinating: “If you are a Colorado or New York City resident and this role is a remote role, you can receive additional information about the compensation and benefits for this role, which we will provide upon request. Requests can be submitted here.“ link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScOlYgPtpG56uqO0O9j...…

Very blatant violation. They are just hoping they do not get nailed, and if they do, the fines are cheap enough to still make it worth hiding the pay range.

See page 4, it is spelled out pretty clearly that the posting itself needs to advertise the range.

https://cdle.colorado.gov/sites/cdle/files/7%20CCR%201103-13...

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I routinely hire developers in 24 hours from initial contact. It's fun watching them get random recruiter calls two or three weeks later. "I'm not interested, I STARTED my new job three weeks ago. No, I'm not willing to leave for that. Have a nice day." Except the "Have a nice day" part is usually less friendly and polite.

I started a new job in April. The hiring process was quite slow and disorganized, but included in that were three separate "interviews" with my now-manager. I thought this was great - I felt like I really understood who I'd be working for and what I was getting into. And now that I've joined I understand that he was simply doing the same thing: getting to know me; making sure I wasn't someone good at technical interv…

3 times with the same person? Yikes.. this is a much bigger red flag than getting hired in 24 hours. That tells me they are unsure of me or themselves getting an offer on the spot is a sign they actually need to fill the position and they believe you can

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#207

I've been in the job board / HR Tech space for a while, and every time I see a state pass a law requiring advertising the salary range, I'm reminded of a few facts: * Showing your salary range as long as it is at market wage or higher delivers 14% more applicants. It is a good idea to show salary on job ads. * If you don't give the job board a salary range, they will use tools like salary.com or their own tools to sh…

> * If you advertise a job respond to applicants quickly - as in within minutes of the application. A single day of delay in response causes 28% of candidates to become unresponsive to recruiters (this is from our company's research). It drops to 51% become unresponsive 48 hours later. My experience with being hired at non-FAANG places over a career of more than two decades is that I'm usually through a process and h…

It would help things immensely if people were more honest. Sometimes it takes more than a week to verify everything on their resume. References often don't get back ASAP. It's not like we won't ever find out that they were lying about their previous job. There are always some applicants who talk a lot, take credit for others' work, but can't actually anything.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#208
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would postulate the single most important thing a company can do is make money. Hiring is also important though.

Making money at all costs usually implies a shitty culture that I personally seek to avoid.

Nobody said at all costs.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * If you advertise a job respond to applicants quickly - as in within minutes of the application. A single day of delay in response causes 28% of candidates to become unresponsive to recruiters (this is from our company's research). It drops to 51% become unresponsive 48 hours later. My experience with being hired at non-FAANG places over a career of more than two decades is that I'm usually through a process and h…

I routinely hire developers in 24 hours from initial contact. It's fun watching them get random recruiter calls two or three weeks later. "I'm not interested, I STARTED my new job three weeks ago. No, I'm not willing to leave for that. Have a nice day." Except the "Have a nice day" part is usually less friendly and polite.

How do you deal with people lying on their resume? I'm curious what your hiring process looks like.

Re: Ask HN: Why are some YC startups not posting salary ranges when law requires it?

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I routinely hire developers in 24 hours from initial contact. It's fun watching them get random recruiter calls two or three weeks later. "I'm not interested, I STARTED my new job three weeks ago. No, I'm not willing to leave for that. Have a nice day." Except the "Have a nice day" part is usually less friendly and polite.

How can either side get an accurate assessment of the other in such a short time? I was hired by my current employer in less than 2 weeks from initial conversation and it was a bit of a smell that they weren't more thorough. Now I'm a hiring manager and am a little concerned with what I feel are "loose" practices that let too many marginal candidates through because otherwise "it's too hard to source talent". For me…

You read the candidates CV, you ask them what they last worked on, ask them why they want to work at your company, if they are okay with the posted salary range. Maybe have them write a short bit of code to make sure they aren't totally bullshitting you.

That takes about one or two hours.

Then you think about it, and if you want to hire them send them an offer the next day.

First 3 months of the contract is trial period (you can fire them without severance in the trial period if it doesn't work out).

Not sure why you need weeks to evaluate a candidate, either they are a fit or not.

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